1185: Arsinoë II Philadelphus
Queen of Thrace, Asia Minor, & Macedonia
Born: c.318-314 BCE, Most-Likely Memphis, Ptolemaic-Controlled Ancient Egypt (Present-day Mit Rahineh, Egypt)
Died: c.270-268 BCE, Alexandria, Ptolemaic-Controlled Ancient Egypt (Present-day Alexandria, Egypt)
Arsinoë was the daughter of Ptolemy I and Berenice I, the first Ptolemaic couple to rule over Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great.
Arsinoë was married three times in her life. When she was married to Lysimachus, she was queen of Thrace, when she married Ptolemy Ceraunus she became queen of Macedonia, and when she was married to Ptolemy II is when she may have been co-ruler of Egypt, though this is contested by some historians.
When Arsinoë was a teenager, she was married off to Lysimachus, a man who was already in his fifties or sixties, and had been a childhood friend of both her father (Ptolemy I) and Alexander the Great. The couple had three sons together, and the marriage was likely made to solidify political and dynastic alliances between Lysimachus and his territory, and that of Arsinoë’s father and their territory. This was done to protect Lysimachus and Ptolemy’s land holdings against that of Seleucus I Nicator, who controlled the Seleucid Kingdom (present-day Syria and Iran) at the time.
While there is some documentation to prove that Lysimachus granted various cities and land holdings to his wife during their marriage, what this actually meant in terms of Arsinoë’s political power is up for debate. Royal women of her period were often granted lands, but usually only symbolic power was attached, along with the money earned from the property.
After Lysimachus was killed in battle, Arsinoë briefly married her half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus for political reasons and became his queen. At the time, Ptolemy Ceraunus was ruling over Macedonia and only wanted to marry Arsinoë to strengthen his own political ambitions. Arsinoë was suspicious of her new husband’s motivations, and sure enough, he had her two younger sons executed almost immediately after the wedding.
Arsinoë fled from her husband’s court and eventually made her way to Alexandria, where her other brother was ruling Egypt. Her oldest son (and only survivor) tried to gain control of the Macedonian throne from Ptolemy Ceraunus but never quite managed it. Ptolemy Ceraunus was eventually killed in battle as well. Now that she was once again single, Arsinoë wasted little time and married Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
While some of the Greek citizenry objected to the siblings marrying, Ptolemy II and Arsinoë began to align themselves with other brother/sister wedded pairs, like Osiris and Isis and Zeus and Hera, in order to gain public approval for their wedding.
Soon after the wedding, Arsinoë began taking steps to solidify her own power alongside that of her husband. The Egyptian army soon defeated the Seleucid forces after a plague broke out in Babylon. Arsinoë also appeared on coins alongside her husband (some of which show her wearing Egypt’s Lower crown) and shared his pharaonic titles, all of which suggests she did wield some power in Egypt. She adopted her husband’s children from his first wife and began to appear in deified form as well—leading some historians to believe Arsinoë herself was deified, either before or after her death. Some have even gone so far as to credit her with completing the Alexandrian Museum, which housed the famous Library of Alexandria (though this is also disputed by some). Various provinces and cities across the ancient world were named in her honor, and a cult was established after her death as well.
According to the World History Encyclopedia, some of the titles granted to Arsinoë while she was still alive included:
“Mistress, Magnanimous,” “Lady of Loveliness, Sweet in Love,” “Beautiful of Appearance, Who Fills the Palace with Her Beauty,” “Who Has Received the Cobras of the Two Crowns,” “Beloved of the Ram, Who Serves the Ram” [of Mendes], “Royal Sister,” “Great Wife of the King [Ptolemy II], His Beloved,” “Queen of the Two Lands,” “Royal Daughter of the King of the Two Lands, Ptolemy [I], the Goddess Who Loves Her Brother.”
Titles such as these would not be granted to another, living, Egyptian royal woman until Cleopatra VIII almost three hundred years later. When she died, Arsinoë hadn’t yet reached her fiftieth birthday, and yet in her short life she accomplished so much, especially for a woman of her time. Her image has survived on multiple statues, coins, and other inscriptions throughout the ancient world. In modern-day, Arsinoë’s name appears in Judy Chicago’s art installation “The Dinner Party” near Boudicca’s name.
According to the online Britannica entry on Arsinoë’s life, she is found in the following Antiquity-era sources:
“Various—and sometimes contradictory—accounts, or references to, the life of Arsinoe are found in the writings of Pausanias, Memnon (by way of Nymphis), Strabo, Polybius, Plutarch, Polyaenus, and Justin.”
Badges Earned:
Located In My Personal Library:
Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life by Elizabeth Donnelly Carney
The Pharaohs by Joyce Tyldesley
When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arsinoe-II
https://www.worldhistory.org/Arsinoe_II_Philadelphus/
https://www.livius.org/articles/person/arsinoe-ii/
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/arsinoe_ii