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Women in Ptolemaic Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Rachel Evelyn White
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Extract

Mr. Mahaffy in his preface to The Empire of the Ptolemies states among other problems raised by Ptolemaic history the following: ‘How far does the observation, that we only know of one crown-prince with a wife (Soter II.) account for the divorce of that wife after his accession, and for the other apparent heartlessnesses in Ptolemaic history? Is the hereditary title recognised in the princesses, which no doubt led to their marriages with their reigning brothers, a relic of Pharaonic ideas, or a mere imitation of the successful experiment of Philadelphus?’ This article is an attempt to show that the former hypothesis is the true one, and that the marriages of the Ptolemies were dictated by their policy of conciliation, and were based on deeply rooted native prejudices.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 18 , November 1898 , pp. 238 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1898

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References

page 239 note 1 Similarly Sokaris of Memphis and the pillar of Ded were identified with Osiris.

page 240 note 1 It may have been owing to similarly fanatical and anti-progressive pressure from the same quarter that Darius likewise desisted before completing this canal. More definite scientific objections had to be brought to bear on the Persian king—the fact of the dangerously higher level of the Eed Sea! But the 2nd Ptolemy, as we should expect, overcame the; imagined physical difficulty by his the spiritual one by his firm treatment of the priesthood.

page 241 note 1 It is needless to point out that it must have been the other way about. The custom gave rise to the myth: the myth did not give rise to the custom. Such ‘aetiologieal’ myths are of universal occurrence. Every social fact works out its divine prototype.

page 241 note 2 In all these cases, however, Apollonia acts with her husband as nipios according to the rescript of Philopator mentioned above.

page 243 note 1 How strongly the idea of forming a dynasty took hold of the Ptolemies is seen, as Lepsius remarks, by the unvarying repetition of the name Ptolemy with each king, as well as by the similar tendency to repeat the same names in the case of the eldest daughter of the royal family.

page 243 note 2 Alexander is not θεὸς and at Alexandria only does he have a priest.

page 243 note 3 It is significant that Porphyrius, in giving the parentage of Soter, puts his mother's name first: (Müller Fr. h. Gr. 3, 719).

page 244 note 1 Theocritus himself in unhellenic fashion calls her and avoids all mention of her father.

page 245 note 1 In a similar way Seti I., son of the usurper Rameses I., having strengthened his claims by marrying a granddaughter of Amenophis III., associated as his colleague in the sovereignty his son, the legitimate heir, Rameses II. As this position was ignored owing to its vagueness, Seti finally abdicated altogether.

page 245 note 2 Cf. Diod. i. 72, 4

It is to be feared that the motives which actuated this solicitude were less strictly altruistic and loyal than the historian imagined.

page 247 note 1 However, since there is reason to believe, as we shall see below, that this was merely a convenient state fiction, perhaps Philotera likewise profited personally less than we might suppose from the revenues of these foundations.

page 248 note 1 If we are to accept the date 277 B. C. as the approximate time of her marriage to Philadelphus, though Wiedemann, (Philol. N. F. i. 81)Google Scholar, puts it as late as 273 B.C. Lysimachus died in 281 B.C.: presumably she did not Justin, 24, 2. marry Keraunos quite at once, as Justin dwells on her reluctance.

page 249 note 1 From Mr. Mahaffy's own argument there seems to be no special reason for dating the marriage much before 273 B.C., the date of the second visit to Pithom mentioned above, though he fixes on 278–277 B.C. This seems to crowd too much into the years 281–278 B. C. and I should feel much more satisfied with a later date. Mr. Mahaffy points out that there is nothing in the Pithom inscription to show that the marriage and deification were quite recent. But, on the other hand, is there anything conclusive to prove that it was not? Kaerst (die Begründung des Alexander- und Ptolemaeerkultes in Aegypten, Rhein. Mus. vol. 52) prefers the year 274 B.C.

page 249 note 2 It is impossible, as Mr. Mahaffy points out, to believe that the Pithom stele represents an unknown child of Arsinoe II.

page 250 note 1 In Grenfell';s Greek Papyri, No. XII. (date c. 148 B.C.) Ptolemy II. is mentioned as Philadelphus. This, Mr. Grenfell observes (note 7, p. 31), is the earliest known reference to him with this title; thus ‘there can he little doubt that it was used in the list of kings among the priesthood of Ptolemais, when the priesthood of Ptolemy II. was established.’ We should naturally expect that the title would first be extended to the king in the Greek city Ptolemais; similarly, as we have seen, it is in this place that the cult of the Soteres is first recognised. The colony was under the special protection of both Soter and his son.

page 251 note 1 According to Mr. Mahaffy: ‘We know from independent sources that the deification of Arsinoe Philadelphus was gradual; that she attained divine honours, first at one, then at another of the Egyptian temples. The establishment of a Canephorus or eponymous priestess in her honour at Alexandria, which dates back as far as the year 19 of the reign, according to demotic documents, appears to be the climax or consummation of this gradual apotheosis. We now know that practically the process was not complete till the King's twenty-third year, when she absorbed one of the great revenues of all the Egyptian gods.’ As proof that this was the high-water mark of her deification one may remember that it is always in connection with this Canephorus of Alexandria that her name is mentioned specially (as well as with her husband) as one of the in the date formulae of subsequent reigns, e.g. Grenfell, Papyri X., XII., XXV., XXVII.

page 252 note 1 As we now know that the queen was already dead when the reform took plaee, we may judge how nominal her part in the transaction must have been.

page 253 note 1 To explain this discrepancy it has been assumed that Berenike was a child of six or seven at the time of the disturbance, which seems scarcely likely.

page 254 note 1 Cf. Lumbroso, , ‘Il arrivait toutefois que le roi constituât son successeur ou confiât le choix à son épouse’ (Justin 39, 3Google Scholar).

page 255 note 1 In the Adulitan inscription in the list of territories which Euergetes received from his father there is naturally no mention of Cyrene which came to him from his wife.

page 255 note 2 I cannot believe with Svoronos that these coins are Cyrenian, belonging to the period before Berenike's marriage, and that Euergetes appears on them merely as the betrothed of Berenike.

page 255 note 3 In fact there seems reason to suppose that? Philopator caused his mother to be put to death. Polybius, xv. ch. 25.

page 256 note 1 Grenfell, Pap. X. mentions a So too, Pap. XII. 1. 5 and XXV. col. 2, 1. 6, and XXVII, col. 2. This priestess of Arsinoe frequently appears in date-formulae with the Athlophorus of Berenike and the Canephorus of A. Philadelphus,—all these princesses having, I believe, claims on the throne in their own right.

page 257 note 1 Letronne and Grenfell and others, however, assign the marriage to a later date, 165 B.C. Lepsius is uncertain. In either ease the Grenfell Pap. X. (174 B.C.) belongs as it were to the watershed between the two Cleopatras, immediately after the death of the mother: hence in it the name of Ptolemy occurs alone—according to Mr. Grenfell's restoration

page 258 note 1 Queen Selene's head, however, is found (if the coin has been rightly read) on a coin of this period with the customary royal eagle and the name of Ptolemy on the reverse.

page 259 note 1 Berenike III. bore the title Philadelphus— a title which seems to have been transferred to her father Soter II. on his return from Cyprus. (Strack, , Dyn. der Ptol. pp. 4 and 63Google Scholar.)

page 259 note 2 It does not seem to be absolutely certain that he murdered Berenike: Appian says nothing of the fact.

page 259 note 3 Champollion-Figeac and Letronne take this op. cit. to mean ‘one of whom (who was) legitimate and the eldest was proclaimed queen.’ But this, as Lepsius points out, is linguistically impossible.

page 260 note 1 Mr. Mahaffy says: ‘I cannot but think that the constant assertion of the illegitimacy of Egyptian princes and princesses was an invention of Hellenistic historians in the interest of the Romans.’

page 260 note 2 Mr. Mahaffy says: ‘These two children disappear from history as if they had no right to the throne, unless indeed Auletes was one of them, and he is always spoken of as illegitimate.’

page 260 note 3 One of the king's titles is Philadelphus.

page 262 note 1 The case of Amony, ‘the great man of the South,’ who probably died at the beginning of the reign of Amenemhet II., reminds one of Philadelphus and of the relations subsisting between the two first Arsinoes. Of Amony's two wives, one, Nebet-Soehet-ent-Re, may have been his niece; she bore him two sons and five daughters; by the other, Hunt, he had certainly three daughters and a son. ‘A curious circumstance shows us,’ says Erman, ‘that the two wives were friends, for the lady Nebet-Soehet-ent-Re called her second daughter Hunt, and the lady Hunt carried her courtesy so far as to name all her three daughters Nebet-Sochet-ent-Re.

page 263 note 1 It would thus be significant that the head of the slain gorgon is depicted on the shield of the motherless Athene, ‘the symbol of the overthrow of motherdom and of gynaikocracy’ as she has been called. Cf. McLennan, , Primitive Marriage, p. 258Google Scholar.

page 263 note 2 I cannot regard such a law at this early stage as a ‘progressive measure’: it seems rather to indicate that female succession was ceasing to be looked upon as an undisputed fact—that Egypt was gradually turning its back on the matriarchate and tending towards a system of agnation.

page 263 note 3 It is surely significant that this queenconsort had the name of a former king.

page 264 note 1 Mr. Petrie, however, calls Thothmes III. a nephew of Hatasu. Petrie, , Hist, of Eg. vol. i., p. 66Google Scholar.

page 264 note 2 According to Mr. Griffith it was the later Rameses II. who caused her name to be replaced by that of Thothmes II., ‘not considering Hatasu a legitimate sovereign of Egypt.’ By the time of this king's reign Semitic influences were strongly marked.

page 264 note 3 As Rawlinson remarks, this great queen is indebted for the continuance of her memory among mankind to the accident that the stonemasons employed to erase her name were too careless or idle to carry out their work completely. It does not seem altogether fanciful, therefore, to believe that the record of other queens may have perished more effectually owing to similar outbursts of hatred on the part of their male relatives or of prejudice in their successors.

page 265 note 1 To do so would involve the question whether primitive Egyptians were endogamous or exogamous. Il seems probable at any rate that the Egyptians did not practise infanticide.

page 265 note 2 Traces of the former independence of Egyptian women seem to have survived down to the present day. Mr. Lane says of modern Egypt: ‘I believe that in Egypt the women are generally under less restraint than in any other country of the Turkish Empire.’

page 265 note 3 Cf. Numbers, ch. xxvii. 1–11 and xxxvi.; also Lewy—de Civili Condicione Mulierum Grae-carum (Vratislaviae, 1885), p. 59: Si cui neque filii sunt legitimi nec a defunctis filiis nepotes, e lege iam Mosaica hereditatem filiae consequun-tur; quarum quidem nubere intra gentem est, ut conservetur res familiris. In Graecia de filia hereditaria praeeipuae leges scriptae ex-stant, ut nomen familiae ne exstinguatur. Quanquam filiae non ipsae heredes esse, sed una cum heredio proximis genere obtingere videntur.

page 266 note 1 Cf. Can. St. 11. 64–73 for these clerical and lay female temple-musicians in Ptolemaic times. By this decree the wives and daughters of the priests come in for a share of the as priestesses of the dead princess Berenike.

page 266 note 2 Cf. the Greek woman's power of manumission: Lewy—de Civili Condicione Mulierum Graecarum (Vratislaviae, 1885), p. 25: manumittendi potestatem propterea feminae habent quod antiquitus in libertatem vindican servus non poterat nisi alicui deo conseeratus qui hierodulus fieret (Curtius, , Anecd. Delph. p. 10sqq.Google Scholar): consecrare autem ipsi mulieri licet. For a similar religious survival cf. the institution at Rome of the rex sacrificulus on the abolition or rather disintegration of the kingship.