In Ptolemaic history queens became prominent after Arsinoe’s divinization by her husband-brother Ptolemy II, and dynastic women gradually infiltrated both political and cultic spheres. Their political importance is reflected in their royal titulary, applied for the first time to Arsinoe posthumously but after her to all living queens. More active political interference is attested from the Kleopatra’s onwards: Kleopatra I became regent for her minor children when her husband died in 180, and Kleopatra II, in the middle of a dynastic conflict, claimed to be sole queen. She even started a new era, and the ‘‘reckoning of dates solely on the basis of a woman’s rule represented an extremely audacious innovation’’ (Hcilbl 2001: 197). Only the last Kleopatra would be able to follow her example. The more active role of queens in the later Ptolemaic period is reflected in cultic temple scenes where they could now act alone (Minas 2005).
The dynastic cult paid particular attention to queens who were granted their own priestesses and from Kleopatra III onwards even their own priests. Their cult names reflected their political identity in times of dynastic crisis (Minas 2010), whereas their association with goddesses like Isis and Aphrodite may show the image they wanted to propagate (but see Ashton 2001: 45). The supreme goddess Isis symbolized the mother figure who also took the role of a fertility goddess guaranteeing the Nile inundation. When Kleopatra VII bore her first child Caesarion, she was able to cast herself in the role of Isis in relation to Horus, and at the end of her life she even became the ‘‘New Isis,’’ being dressed like her in public, whereas her Antony represented Osiris.
The significance of queens was expressed in an impressive series of statues and coins. A new Ptolemaic style was created for dynastic women on the basis of Egyptian traditions but with new additions and features, containing obviously divine characteristics (Quaegebeur 1978; Albersmeier 2002).
Kleopatra VII is the only Ptolemaic queen who has stood the test oftime, becoming an object of Kleopatra-mania. With Amyot’s translation of Plutarch’s Life of Antony in 1559 the legend of Kleopatra was reactivated, and her life became a popular subject for paintings and drama, but was she popular in antiquity? Ancient authors were hostile to the Egyptian queen, but the archaeological and art-historical record may show another picture of a Kleopatra who had a substantial influence on Rome visible in, for instance, the coiffures of Roman women (Kleiner 2005). To the great annoyance of Cicero she stayed in Rome for two years until Caesar was brutally murdered. In Egypt, Kleopatra was venerated shortly after her death in a Cleopatreum-temple and most probably in the Isis temple of Philai as late as ad 373.
World History
