Cleopatra Selene I

Cleopatra V. Selene, Cleopatra Selene and I. (* about 135-130 BC, † 69 BC) was the daughter of the Egyptian king Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, and his niece Cleopatra III. of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who had married in the year 140 or 141 BC.

Life

Her name was originally Selene and took the expanded name when she married her brother Ptolemy IX. Soter II to. This wedding was probably shortly after Ptolemy IX. Accession to the throne in 116 BC after its forced by his mother divorced his sister Cleopatra IV Cleopatra V. While getting quite the honor it deserves as Queen, but was kept away from her domineering mother by the government. It appears that Ptolemy IX. ( BC August 115) accompanied on his trip to southern Egypt, not only from his mother, but also of his wife Selene. When her husband was distributed in the fall of 107 BC by both mother, she remained with her two sons unspecified in Egypt back - and was four years later (103 BC), Cleopatra III. the Seleucid Antiochus VIII Grypus sent a woman to Syria.

When Antiochus VIII had died in the year 96 BC a violent death, Cleopatra was by his cousin and successor Antiochus IX. Cyzicenus accepted since they. Legitimation in his fight against Seleucus VI wanted to use. For that very reason it was BC married after only a year later made ​​the death of her third husband in 95 of his son Antiochus X. Eusebes who feuded several sons of Antiochus VIII. With her ​​fourth husband she had two sons, including the later Antiochus XIII. Asiaticus. After the death of her last husband ( 92 or 83 BC ), she left for her safety Syria and lived probably in Cilicia.

After the assassination of short-term Pharaoh Ptolemy XI. Alexander II (80 BC) Cleopatra V. Selene was the only surviving legitimate member of the family of the Ptolemies. However, the population of Alexandria decided alone already, to substantiate their own claims to power immediately for living in Syria illegitimate sons of Ptolemy IX. , Of which the older than Ptolemy XII. was enthroned. Five years later, Cleopatra V. raised for their sons from her fourth marriage claim to the throne in Egypt. But even the direct intervention of her sons in Rome was ignored by the Senate, so they had to return home, after two years. The Armenian king Tigranes besieged Cleopatra V. 69 BC in Acre, had them conquered the city of Seleucia in Mesopotamia cruelly put to death.