the most prominent figure in the long and involved list of ptolemy queens, next to that of the famed cleopatra, is arsinoe ii, daughter of sotor and berenike, and sister and wife of ptolemy philadelphus. she is spoken of on the mendes stele, now at gizeh, as “the charming princess, the most attractive, lovely and beautiful, the crowned one, who has received the double diadem, whose splendor fills the palace, the friend of the sacred ram and his priestess uta utaba, the king’s sister and wife who loves him, the queen arsinoe.” and of no other queen do we find so many monuments in various parts of the greek world.
to the day of arsinoe’s death she seems to have had the strongest hold upon her husband’s affections and no token of honor and respect was too great to lavish upon her while living, or to eulogize her merits after her decease. the early part of her life was a tragic story, but she survived the cruel sorrows which might have killed a woman of less toughness of fibre than that which distinguished all the female members of the ptolemy race, and lived through a prosperous and successful middle life, turning her back on the bitterness of the past and making the most of the honors and dignity which came to her in the course of years.
arsinoe.
in placing his younger son on the throne, instead of the elder, who would usually have been considered the rightful heir, ptolemy sotor may have been influenced by the personal character of the two, as well as by other motives. the elder bore the name of ptolemy keraunos, a soubriquet or nick-name meaning gloomy or violent, and was “of fiery temper and unsteady life.” mahaffy suggests that the thunderbolt added to the ptolemy coins at the time of his birth possibly gave rise to the nick-name. history does not chronicle details, but there may have been actual quarrels between father and son, a state of affairs not unknown in modern times. be this as it may, the younger was preferred before the elder. neither succession perhaps could have prevented subsequent bitterness of feeling and strife. yet peace was outwardly observed during the life of the old king. keraunos submitted and left egypt with his mother, brothers and sister, while berenike’s son was made king, co-ruler with his father (who virtually abdicated in 285-4) with feasts and rejoicing.
ptolemy the younger was “fair haired and delicate” in youth, resembling his father, but with more regular features, and the thick neck characteristic of many members of the family. his manners were gentle as well as popular and probably he had already shown an appreciation of his father’s policy and a taste for intellectual and scientific pursuits. few fathers would not take[364] more pleasure in the succession of a son likely to carry out their views, than in one who seemed disposed to change and alter all their arrangements.
gorgeous pageants celebrated the advent of the new king. his father, it may be said, had in a certain measure slipped into power; not so with the son, his successor. it was a matter of direct inheritance and in egypt at least his claim was not disputed. whatever assistance ptolemy keraunos secured was from foreign aid and not from partizans at home. the banqueting hall was decorated with sculpture and painted and carpeted with flowers, the gold and silver vessels, crown treasures, were carried in the grand procession. there were fruits of all sorts displayed and droves of camels, elephants and other wild animals. elephants were then much in favor as battle chargers with the kings of this period, and though the ptolemies made less use of them in this respect, they too had large numbers of them. their popularity, however, soon declined and in later wars they were no longer deemed available. ptolemy sotor presented the victors in the games at his son’s coronation with twenty crowns, queen berenike with twenty-three.
historical and allegorical tableaux were interspersed and eighty thousand troops of cavalry and infantry took part. it must have been a combination of the circus processions of modern times, with less tinsel and more of solid value, with a fine military parade. it delighted the people from morning till evening and showed to all[365] strangers the wealth and power of the ptolemy house.
spite of gentle seeming, as soon as his father’s death left him in possession of the regal power, the new king made it quite clear he would tolerate no rival and meant to keep possession of all he had gained. like his father, perhaps, he had no special taste for the shedding of blood; indeed he is said to have deplored what he considered the necessity of pursuing this policy, none the less did he hesitate to do so to secure his throne, and several people were put to death whom he thought might give him trouble. probably his elder brother would have been among these could he have laid his hand on him. it was mortal strife between them, and ptolemy keraunos was now in another country doing his best to unseat the young king.
some years before her brother’s accession the young arsinoe, a girl of sixteen, first child of ptolemy sotor and berenike, had married, or rather been married, to the elderly lysimachus, king of thrace (disparity of years was of course of no account in a political marriage), and had exchanged her sunny egyptian home for the cooler and more rigorous climate of the mountainous regions of northern greece. beautiful, clever and ambitious, as were most of the ptolemy women, she was prominent among them and destined to have strong influence wherever she went, especially over two at least of the men with whom she was most closely associated. this marriage took place about 300 b. c.
so anxious was ptolemy sotor to cement the[366] alliance between lysimachus and himself, that marriage after marriage was arranged for and it might have been supposed that the two families were so closely united that peace among them had been secured. his step-daughter lysandra was given to the thracian crown prince agathocles, thus making her at the same time sister and daughter-in-law of arsinoe, who was probably the younger of the two, and not content with this, a marriage was arranged between the young king of egypt and arsinoe, daughter of lysimachus, and half-sister of agathocles, who thus became queen arsinoe i of egypt.
she, too, was a person of spirit, decision and character, bloodshed marked her footsteps; she caused an illicit lover of her mother’s to be slain, and is said herself, young though she was, to have hastened on her marriage with the egyptian king. one of policy rather than affection probably on both sides. it requires a clear head to follow out these complicated relationships. arsinoe i had attained her ambition, but it was a position, in those unsettled times, involving quite as much peril as honor. she became the mother of several children, but whether her life was a happy one we may justly have our doubts. it held, however, less tragedy than that of her successor. perhaps she was neither beautiful nor winning, certain it is that the courtesies which were subsequently paid to various queens, of putting their likeness on the coins and naming cities after them, were omitted in her case.
ptolemy philadelphus founded, it is said, four berenikes in honor of his mother, eighteen arsinoes,[367] in honor of his second wife, and three philoteras, in honor of his sister, in egypt and elsewhere. these last were out of regard to a favorite sister philotera, who dwelt in single blessedness—shall we call it a rare privilege in those days?—and lived in great harmony with her brother and his queens. as to the queen, arsinoe ii, so to the maiden sister also poems were addressed by the versifiers of the times.
the thracian arsinoe i, notwithstanding her early self-assertion, seems to have made little mark either upon her husband or upon egypt. the comparative neglect with which she was treated may have embittered her and made true the accusation brought against her of having conspired against the life of her husband. if it was true she was leniently dealt with. she was divorced about 277 b. c. in the eighth or ninth year of ptolemy’s reign, and banished to koptos, where she lived in some state and appears from certain records to have been accompanied or visited by her younger son. she kept up her intercourse, too, perhaps with some of her thracian relatives; and built shrines to the gods. the very fact that her life did not pay the forfeit of her alleged crime seems to throw doubt upon it. or possibly, though this seems less likely, arsinoe ii, her supplanter, who in general, her purpose accomplished, showed no desire for the shedding of blood, may have induced the king to spare her. we can only surmise.
ptolemy philadelphus was a prosperous and popular king; living in comparative peace in sunny egypt with his thracian wife, remote from[368] most of the wars which were carried on in his name and caring little what battles raged at a distance so that he preserved himself and his kingdom in relative quiet. there were wars and rebellions afar, there were times even when egypt itself was threatened, but through it all, at home, ptolemy was able to pursue a relatively peaceful way. he spent his time adorning his splendid city and enlarging and, so to call it, emphasizing the scope of his great museum, a combination of university, club and social gathering place. the early ptolemies, especially, were patrons of learning and people of all nations met at their brilliant court. he gathered around him men of intellectual and scientific pursuits and enjoyed mental pleasures as well as those of a lower order. his courtiers lavished upon him unstinted adulation and he might well have walked the earth as proudly as the great rameses ii, his predecessor.
it is to him we owe the translation of the bible called the septuagent, from the seventy translators who were gathered together to accomplish the task. manetho, of sebennytus, a priest of heliopolis, was also employed by the king to collect the fragments of egyptian history, from the time of menes 4455 b. c. to 322 b. c. which had lain hidden or neglected in the various temples, and prepare from them a consecutive narrative. but unfortunately only fragments of this also now remain to us, and it is from these, given by josephus and other jewish and christian writers that we have obtained our earliest knowledge, in a literary form, of egyptian history. this work enjoyed a high reputation.
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the king himself must have had some literary ability, or at least a pretty turn for the use of the pen, for he wrote a history of alexander’s conquests. that it was much celebrated and lauded goes without saying; even in modern times the literary productions of king or president are much in demand and widely read. but of its intrinsic merits we are unable to judge, since it too is lost to us, an unfortunate fact, as it could not fail to have been of interest, whatever its method of treatment or literary value.
ptolemy made wise laws and so far as he could, combined with his own personal advantage, wrought in every way for the internal improvement of his kingdom. notwithstanding the modern assertions of liberty, equality and fraternity, it may be doubted whether in all ages and at all times man is not more or less a slave to circumstance and environment, but certainly the slaves of the early ptolemies might have contrasted favorably both with those that who came before and those who came after. less trampled upon and oppressed than in the reigns of the pyramid builders, the great rameses, or the persian line, they appear also to have been better off and more peaceful than under the later ptolemy rulers.
ptolemy, ably seconded by his favorite wife, was devoted to the service of the temples and favorable to the priests, a policy which helped to strengthen his place and power. he built and restored temples both to the gods of greece and egypt. these last were approached in solemn procession, and were not merely, like the greeks, to hold images of the gods, or like the later[370] christian places of worship to accommodate a congregation. they had a holy of holies, into which only the high priest entered. through the avenue of sphinxes, which frequently gave entrance to the temples, the long line would wind from their gaily decorated boats on the nile, while the sacred lakes and the sacred grove were generally within the enclosure. the pylons or entrances were most imposing and an open court and a great hall beyond, with colonnades and columns, adorned with sculpture and paintings, gave entrance to this highest sanctuary, containing the symbol of the god or sacred animal.
no traces remain of the temple building of ptolemy philadelphus beyond the beautiful island of philae; but at many other points ruins and fragments are to be found. those of the temple of isis in hebt are near the present mausura. these are of red and grey granite, with columns and architraves. there are figures of the king making offerings to isis and among others an inscription which reads “isis, mistress of hebit, who lays everything before her royal brother.” of the portrait statues of the egyptian kings and queens dr. lepsius says: “they wear the same character of monumental repose as the gods themselves and yet without the possibility of their human individuality being confounded with the universally typical features of the divine images.”
but intellectual, or so called religious pursuits, not alone shared ptolemy’s heart and attention. his was a pleasure-loving nature; beautiful women thronged his court, sought his favor and beamed upon him with smiles and blandishments.[371] no claim of legal wife, not even the true and devoted affection which he showed so plainly that he felt for his latest spouse, prevented his indulging in baser connections. he was the king—if no other man—the king at least might do as he pleased, there was none to criticise, none to prevent. then, too, he amused himself with his goldsmith’s work, bench and tools doubtless occupied some favorite nook in the palace, and since this fancy is matter of record, we may judge that he turned out some creditable specimens of work, was no mean craftsman and perhaps adorned with his own skill the favorite of the hour, or the plumb and beautiful form of his beloved arsinoe ii.
to the personal history of this same princess, the subject of the present sketch, we turn once more. like roxane, wife of alexander, she in a measure deserved and prepared the way for her own subsequent misfortunes. she was queen of thrace, a distinguished and honorable position, but obtained at the cost of the honor, feelings and probably affections of the previous queen. lysimachus had lived at sardis, apparently in harmony with a noble persian wife, amestris. but, probably for political reasons alone, he sent her away, and married the young daughter of ptolemy sotor.
the new queen of thrace resembled her mother berenike in her ambition and tact. she, too, acquired great influence over an old husband, as far as in her lay, ousted her step-children from their natural rights, and secured all she could for her own. she obtained from the king the session[372] of several valuable towns, but was not contented. again like her mother before her she wished to supplant the elder members of the family. at this crisis ptolemy keraunos, “the embroiler,” arrived at the thracian court, and instead of, as might have been expected, siding with his own sister lysandra, who had married the crown prince, agathocles, calumniated him to the king, showing how completely the old man was under arsinoe’s powerful influence, and succeeded in having the prince put to death. none of which shows arsinoe in a very amiable light, but she doubtless thought one must fight for one’s self, by whatever means, or be driven to the wall.
there were other allies, magas, king of cyrene and half brother of ptolemy keraunos, seems to have leaned to his side, in the contest which the latter was waging for his rights, and been ready to throw off the yoke of egypt. these were stirring times, men and women too, whether they would or not must lead “the strenuous life.” seleukos, king of syria, lent aid to ptolemy keraunos, and attacked lysimachus, who lost his life in battle, but instead of proceeding further to place keraunos on the throne of egypt, as the latter expected, he suddenly determined to go back to his old home in macedonia. disappointed and enraged, keraunos secured the murder of seleukos and proclaimed himself king in his place. that he could have succeeded in this gigantic scheme, mahaffy considers, shows him to have had many fellow conspirators.
his egyptian projects had now to be abandoned,[373] as antiochus, son of seleukos, was already hastening to avenge the death of his father. so keraunos, nothing loth probably, seized upon the throne of thrace, the king and his eldest son both being dead. grabbing a kingdom seems to have been comparatively easy—the pastime of adventurers in those days—but it was frequently “light come and light go”—there was seldom any real stability in these self-made royalties.
again arsinoe, the egyptian born, appears in an unfavorable light (though how far independence of action or any other course was possible to her we cannot judge) for she married this murderer of kings, the son of her father’s first wife. doubtless she must have foreseen the possibility of ill consequences, for she was a woman of acute mind, but probably in the midst of such troublous times and so many perplexities it seemed the safest thing to her to marry the strongest, the man who had proved himself a success, and she believed that it would secure her and her children the throne of thrace. she had already lent herself to cruel deeds to secure this object, she must needs go on in the same path. few more unlovely characters than keraunos appear in this dark period of history. it is evident that he simply married arsinoe to get her in his power, for no sooner had he done so than he murdered her young children and banished her childless and heart-broken to the island of samothrace, to repent in bitterness of soul her sad mistake. two years later the monster was overthrown in battle, dragged from[374] his elephant, and hacked to pieces by the barbarous gauls, leaving, we may imagine, but few to mourn his well-deserved fate.
meanwhile the childless widow, stripped of throne, honors and kindred abode in the holy, isle. to her perhaps life seemed ended, little foreseeing the splendid future before her. turning to religious consolations in time of sorrow, she worshipped the strange divinities of the place, building shrines to them, of which traces have been discovered in modern times, and even adding them to the long list of egyptian divinities and building temples to them when she returned to her native land.
deeply attached to her as he proved himself to be later, we cannot suppose ptolemy philadelphus to have been unmoved by the great misfortunes of his sister, but news traveled slowly in those days, and whatever the cause, he seems to have done nothing at once to avenge her losses. whether at his instance or hers we know not, but after a certain length of time arsinoe returned to egypt. she took new hold of life and perhaps even began to scheme for the attainment of the honors which she shortly won. recognized or not, her presence was a menace to the reigning queen. equally it remains possible that she was innocent in this matter, further than acquiescence in the wishes of the king, but her previous course in thrace lends color to the former idea.
so arsinoe i was banished and ptolemy married the widow, who now became arsinoe ii, called philadelphus during her lifetime, and only[375] subsequently was the title bestowed upon her husband to distinguish him among the long list of ptolemy kings. this strange marriage was quite in accordance with egyptian customs, where the queen was frequently called the king’s sister, as a term of honor, whether she was so or not, and shows how the ptolemies had accepted egyptian ideas, which no doubt largely account for their popularity. but to the greeks such unions were an offence and deemed, as we would in a christian age, incestuous. but the king was absolute, one of the courtiers, if not more, who dared to criticise and disapprove, paid with life for his temerity.
the first marriage occurred probably when arsinoe ii was about sixteen, her third and last when she was thirty-nine or forty. there can be little doubt that she had beauty and charm, a vigorous mind and great tact. she needed scope for her powers and in becoming queen of egypt found a field well suited to her desires and abilities. we seem to see some resemblance between her and queen mertytefs of ancient times. both were in succession wife to different kings, both were women of great attractiveness and capacity, and both took a personal share in public affairs. step by step the new queen rose to greater prominence. her sorrows were of the past, now life was all sunshine. she attained the highest point to which mortal could reach, she was finally worshipped as a goddess, and on a certain stele found at pithon, she is even represented as a deity bestowing favors on her husband.
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in the fifteenth year of ptolemy’s reign arsinoe ii was made goddess of mende, in the nineteenth at thebes and in the twentieth or twenty-first, as isis-arsinoe, she was worshipped at sais, and the king claimed these honors for her in all the temples of egypt. there had been a city, the centre of the egyptian worship of the crocodile, this ptolemy re-named after the queen; it was enlarged, embellished and hellenised to a great extent by the introduction of the greek language and the erection of temples to the greek gods and institutions on a greek pattern. its population at one time was said to amount to a hundred thousand.
among other attractions for the king, perhaps, was also the fact that arsinoe was a great heiress. she had proprietary claims on cassandrea, pontiac, heraclia and its dependent cities, bestowed on her by her first husband. in the region called the fayum, the former lake moeris was drained and turned into a fertile plain and this work was attributed to arsinoe and it was now called the arsinoe nome, and from it the queen derived part of her revenues. old records show that it was settled by veteran soldiers who brought wives from greek lands, and that it was an orderly and well managed society, with few crimes laid to its account.
arsinoe ii was an ideal stepmother, in the better sense of the word. the children of ptolemy were treated by her as her own—only one son appears to have accompanied his mother into exile, if even he remained permanently with her—all the others dwelt in apparent harmony and[377] affection with her supplanter. thus ptolemy philadelphus had an intellectual companion whose advice he sought and upon whose judgment he relied, whose personal charms were great, who made life smooth and agreeable and who dwelt at peace both with his favorite sister and his children. while last, and perhaps not least in her catalogue of virtues in his eyes, she was lenient to his defections from the moral code and saved him from the desire and peril of other alliances. such as she was the king seems to have idolized her and paid her every possible honor in life and in death. that she was some years his senior in no way interfered with a marriage apparently most congenial to both.
deprived first of parents, then of husband, children and throne arsinoe had a strange and rare experience, virtually a second life lay before her, surpassing in all respects her earlier career. she dwelt in light and airy palaces built of brick and wood, richly decorated with color, adorned with balconies and surrounded by gardens and ponds. the music of tambourine, drum and flute, violin with one string, zither, lute or mandolin—and song and chorus, she had but to speak her pleasure and silence became melodious. rhythm but not time, and monotonous singing through the nose, not pleasing to the european ear, is said to describe egyptian music of to-day and probably that of the past also, but it was doubtless to their taste. the queen, too, had the privilege of being priestess in the temples and playing the sacred sistrum before the gods. she dwelt in an increasingly beautiful city, with wide[378] streets, splendid palaces and many fine buildings.
her associations were with men of culture and learning. she was surrounded by courtiers and poets who paid her homage and wrote in her praise. doubtless, too, through her many tried to obtain favors from and influence with the king. she was for those times a deeply religious woman, building temples to the gods and lavishing gifts upon them. thereby, of course, she endeared herself to the priests, always a more or less influential class, and it was probably owing to this, in addition to her husband’s partiality, that she was, even during her lifetime, deified. both she and the king, we may judge, had affable and agreeable manners and both seem to have been very popular with the people.
in all the concerns of the kingdom she took an active share, and it is said that “no queen till we reach the last cleopatra ever wielded greater political influence.” wars and rumors of wars there were, but egypt itself in this reign rested in comparative peace. the queen’s life must have been busy and full of interest, thus enabling her to recover from her earlier sorrows. egypt was a country flowing not with milk and honey, but with oil and wine, the juices of the olive and the grape, from which large revenues were derived. as the great museum is said to have formed part of the palace, and contained cloisters or porticoes, a public theatre, or lecture room, and an immense dining hall, where the learned feasted together, it is possible that the queen may have been no unfamiliar figure within its walls. the person of the ptolemy queens was[379] doubtless as well known to the people as the wife of many a modern ruler, the persian custom of strict seclusion for women not obtaining among the greeks and their descendants.
there is a story told of queen arsinoe ii, considered reliable, to the effect that she took exception to the ordering of a feast to one of the gods, remarking “this is a shabby consorting together, for the company must be a mixed crowd of all sorts, the food stale and not decently served,” and thereafter provided for better arrangements at her own expense. hitherto each guest, somewhat in the manner of a modern country picnic, having brought a miscellaneous and disorderly collection. and whatever the queen did in the matter was doubtless accepted by the king.
together with his sister, the royal pair travelled through the country and cities were founded bearing the name of both ladies. together the king and queen seem to have governed and planned for the internal improvement of the kingdom, studying its needs and necessities by personal inspection. they made two visits to pithon, and their foreign officials brought back elephants and various curiosities, to pleasure their majesties, or by special command. part of the text of an ancient inscription found in the mounds of the ruins of this very city reads: “he brought all the things which are agreeable to the king, and to his sister, his royal wife who loves him;” further, “and he built a great city to the king with the illustrious name of the king, the lord of egypt, ptolemais. and he took possession of it[380] with the soldiers of his majesty and all the workmen of egypt and the land of punt.” also they caught elephants and in another place it proceeds, “and in this place (kemuer-sea) the king had founded a large city to his sister, with the illustrious name of king ptolemy (philotera).” the same beloved sister, to whom, as well as to the queen herself, court poets, like callimachus, addressed poems. sanctuaries were also built there to the princess adelphus.
the delicate and pleasure-loving king never commanded his armies in person, but was quick to take advantage of anything in his own favor. he sent ambassadors to treat with the great and growing power of rome, and made alliances wherever possible with any power strong enough to do his harm. with pyrrhus, king of epirus, he was connected by the marriage of a step-sister, antigone; his mother, berenike’s daughter, by her first husband.
always beside the king, arsinoe ii was a woman of affairs, busy and capable, but not too much occupied to enjoy the amenities of life and make it agreeable to her consort. in his foreign wars and alliances, in the internal improvement of the kingdom, in his literary work, the story of alexander’s campaigns, in manetho’s history of egypt, in the translation of the septuagent, in the additions to the great library in which at the time of his death ptolemy philadelphus is said to have left 700,000 volumes, in the marriages of his children we cannot doubt the queen’s active interest and sympathetic share, above all others she was the privy councillor.
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at karnak and various points along the nile as far as philae, are fragments of temples both to egyptian and greek gods, built or restored by ptolemy philadelphus, and both he and his wife were interested in the cabeiri mysteries, probably in their later years as some one has well said, “to still the longings of the soul with spiritual food and with dim revelations of the unseen,” here, too, perhaps, we may see the queen’s influence, since they were celebrated with special solemnity at samothrace, the home of her widowhood. the king and queen lived in an atmosphere of adulation, like that which surrounded louis xiv. writers of the time drew flattering pictures of them and coarse caricatures of the masses. as to-day newspapers, whatever the private convictions of their editors, will bow and truckle to what they believe to be the popular view of any subject, so in ancient times it was the king and queen alone and those in high places who thus swayed the pen.
some writers believe that ptolemy and arsinoe had one son who died in youth, but the weight of testimony is against this. in regard to the marriages of her step-children, whom she had brought up as her own, we may well believe the queen’s influence was great. the eldest daughter, berenike, the child of arsinoe i, was married to antiochus ii, the sickly king of syria, chiefly in the hope of establishing an egyptian claim to the throne of that monarchy. sacrificed like so many young princesses, both before and after, to political purposes. yet ptolemy philadelphus seems to have regarded this daughter with especial[382] tenderness, for he accompanied her to her husband’s kingdom, was present at the marriage, and continued to send her the water of the fertile, beloved and worshipped nile for use in her distant home. to accomplish this marriage antiochus ii had put away his first wife, laodike. but this last was not a woman to submit meekly to such indignity, and stopped at nothing to recover her lost position. who did in those days—even the best of them—hesitate at any crime to secure her object? the injured queen, burning to avenge her wrongs, caused the king to be poisoned, he, perhaps weakly, having put himself in her power by going to see her at ephesus, even after the birth of a son by the new queen. nor was this enough, for the death of her rival was also determined upon, laodike having many adherents, and ere her father could come to her rescue, poor berenike and her babe were also murdered, innocent victims of political intrigue. ptolemy philadelphus perhaps lived long enough to hear of this tragic death, but not long enough to avenge it—a task he left to the son who succeeded him.
of the personality and general characteristics of no queen in the long ptolemy line can we gather a clearer idea from the records that remain to us. there is a statue of ptolemy philadelphus and arsinoe ii in the vatican, with, mahaffy thinks, the dear sister philactera beside them. not only on coins, but among the effigies at the entrance of the odeum at athens, where the statues of the egyptian kings were set up, she had her place. pausanius also saw at helicon[383] a statue of her “riding upon an ostrich in bronze.” a position elevated, but lacking in dignity, perhaps, like a grey-haired lady on the modern bicycle. “it is very likely,” continues mahaffy, “that this statue or a replica was present to the mind of callicachus when he spake in the ‘coma berinices,’ of ‘the winged horse, brother of the aethiopian memnon, who is the messenger of queen arsinoe, she is also in that poem called venus and zaphyrion.”
from the coins we learn of arsinoe ii that there were octadrams in all metals with her image, and those with portraits of ptolemy i and berenike i, and those of ptolemy ii and herself; and in silver of ptolemy i, and also of her alone, struck in the reign of ptolemy philadelphus; also gold coins with arsinoe ii alone. the coins of arsinoe ii were mainly octadrams in gold and decadrams in silver. on these and also on those of her step-daughter, berenike ii, both queens are diademed and veiled, with regular features, indisputably handsome but conventionalized. arsinoe ii appears with the horn of zeus amon, diadem, stephane or crown, veil and sceptre. she is beautiful in youth and still handsome, though more portly as depicted in later years. most of the ptolemy queens grew comfortably plump with time; the murder of a rival or even the death of their nearest relatives appears to have interfered little with their digestion.
but death earnest last to put an end to these ceaseless activities, whether by slow decay or sudden illness, we know not. ptolemy philadelphia died 247 b. c., arsinoe ii, some say 270 b. c.,[384] but we have no precise date. the king was in no sense a faithful lover, since he had a succession of feminine favorites, alternating in the company of philosophers and mistresses. yet he seems to have mourned arsinoe with a passionate grief, and indulged in what may be called wild schemes to do her honor. one of these was the building of a temple with a loadstone in the roof which should hold, suspended in mid-air, an iron statue of the queen. in everything he had leaned upon her, and she had made life agreeable to him, his sorrow for her loss was sincere and deep. her popularity with the people was also widespread, more inscriptions in her honor have been found all over egypt than of those of any of the succeeding queens.
ptolemy philadelphus reigned more than thirty-six years and left his kingdom peacefully to his son euergetes, whose name had long been associated with his in public acts.
