school 5
. Royalty
lives in a
'gilded cage', after all,
and animals which normally choose unrelated mates will inbreed when in captivity.102 Whether
grounded
in the conviction that royalty
is divine or
simply
in the belief that royal blood itself has
special qualities, endogamy keeps
the strain uncorrupted.103 One might question whether at the
early stage of their monarchy
the Ptolemies would
truly have
thought of themselves in that way,
particularly as the extreme endogamy represented by
incest was not yet
the rule in the third
century (not until the very end of that century was there a king born of
sibling incest). Still, as
time passed,
this may have been a factor. Such convictions
(real or affected) about the peerless
and unapproachable quality of one's own dynastic blood might have become a barrier not only
to mating with commoners, but even to mating with other royalty.104
Pierre van den Berghe and Gene Mesher contend that
'royal
incest is best explained
in terms
of the general sociobiological paradigm of inclusive fitness'.os05 By eschewing marriage not only
with commoners but also with unrelated royals, and by pursuing a
sibling marital
strategy,
Ptolemaic rulers would have
increasingly concentrated their own genetic material, generation by
generation, eventually creating a situation where the king would come close to
'cloning' himself.
And from the point of view of female members of the dynasty, an incestuous marriage with the
king represents
'the ultimate
logical outcome of hypergyny'.106 Hypergyny
is the marital
strategy
whereby
females seek to
'marry up'. The sister of the king, therefore, would have to marry
the
king; otherwise,
'What is a poor princess
to do? She has almost no way
to go but down.'107
Sociobiological explanations have attracted considerable criticism, and the genetic arguments
presented by van den Berghe and Mesher are in some ways simply a restatement in other terms
99 Stephens (2003) 147-69 on Theokritos, Idyll 17.
See also Dunand
(1973) 34-5.
100 On Ptolemaic queens' (especially Arsino II's)
association with Isis
(and Aphrodite, equated with
Isis),
see Tondriau
(1948b); Fraser 1
(1972) 197-8, 237-44;
Dunand
(1973) 80-92; Thompson (1973) 121;
Quaegebeur (1978, 1988); van Nuffelen
(1998/9); Ashton
(2001).
101 Fraser 1
(1972) 240, 244; Thompson (1973) 121
n.5; Dunand
(1973) 41.
102
See, e.g., Pusey 1990.
103 See Grant
(1972) 26; Heinen
(1978); Mitterauer
(1994); Chamoux
(2003) 223.
104 Whitehome (1994) 91.
105 Van den Berghe and Mesher
(1980) 300.
106 Van den Berghe and Mesher
(1980) 303.
107 Van den Berghe (1983) 100; see also Shepher
(1983) 130; Arens
(1986) 110; Herrenschmidt
(1994). It is
interesting
to note that female gorillas eschew hypergyny
if it means
sibling incest;
if the dominant male of the group
is a full brother,
'she will seek an even less dominant male
who is not a
sibling' (Arens (1986) 91). INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY 19
of the
'purity of blood' issue.108 It is clear that, while the Ptolemies as time passed
favoured
reserving a royal
sister for marriage
to the heir, they did not object
to marrying excess females
to royalty outside the
family:
several Ptolemaic women married Seleukids. The idea of hyper-
gyny as a notion driving
female marital
strategies presumes more choice-power
for the female
than we can necessarily assume in the Hellenistic world. As several scholars have pointed out,
no matter how
strong-willed Arsino II was, she could not have made Ptolemy II marry her
unless the marriage was
something
that benefited him. Nevertheless, while it cannot be related
to a female
'strategy' of hypergyny,
the
increasing significance of the Ptolemaic woman over
time is clear in marriages
such as Kleopatra II and Ptolemy VIII, or Kleopatra Berenike and
Ptolemy XI. These marriages,
to an exiled or absent heir, bolstered the
shaky legitimacy of the
male's claim to the throne.
Marital isolationism could also have its roots in
simple political pragmatism. Barriers against
marriage alliance with
(for instance)
their Seleukid neighbours operated only when the Ptolemies
felt it would be to their advantage (or when the Egyptian dynasty was too weak to resist such
marriages). The Ptolemies did from time to time take part
in their share of
inter-dynastic
marriage. Over the centuries, several Ptolemaic women were married out to Seleukids:
Ptolemy II's ill-fated daughter Berenike in the third century, and several Kleopatras
in the later
second. But
inter-dynastic marriage, while it may be used to cement a political alliance, also has
its downside. When Antiochos III married his daughter Kleopatra
to Ptolemy V, he was said to
have done so in a deliberate effort to undermine and overthrow the Ptolemaic kingdom.109 This
was an exogamous marriage
forced on the Ptolemaic
family at a time of political and military
weakness, and it later gave Antiochos IV an excuse to intervene in Egypt
in the Sixth Syrian War.
Marrying within their own dynasty when it suited them was therefore one way
the Ptolemies had
of keeping
themselves free of such awkward entanglements.10 Carney argues
that political
isolationism was thus at least one of Ptolemy II's rationales for marrying his
sister."ll But
Ptolemy II did not have to marry at all, and should not have felt obliged
to marry his own sister
in response
to isolationist factors. After all, his heirs came from Arsino I, and after Arsino II's
death, he remained unmarried until his own death over two decades later.
An incident during Ptolemy XII Auletes' endless, and
seemingly hopeless, efforts to get
the
Romans to recognize his claims to the throne highlights another potential reason for incestuous
marriage.
In 75 BC, his aunt, Kleopatra Selene, vigorously argued
that her sons by
the Seleukid
Antiochos X had a
superior claim to the throne of Egypt, a claim that was obviously only valid
through
the female
line, through Kleopatra Selene herself.112
It was certainly awkward for
Auletes that in this instance a Ptolemaic female had been outbreeding, rather than
inbreeding.
Thus, a further advantage
to incestuous marriage, at least from the point of view of the male
Ptolemies, was that it controlled the reproductive potential of the female members of the
line,
and neutralized possible rivals.l3
This seems a motive particularly apt
in the case of
Ptolemy VIII, who impregnated Kleopatra III, perhaps forcibly, in spite of the fact that he already
had a son and potential heir from her mother. Binding his niece to himself prevented her from
108 For criticism of the
sociobiological approach
to
royal incest, see Kitcher
(1985), especially 275-9
(against
Kitcher, see Sesardic
(1998) and Leavitt
(1990); against
Leavitt, see Moore
(1992)).
It is difficult to see how any
of the
sociobiological notions about dynasties seeking
genetic
fitness and survival could ever have been con-
sciously determined.
109
Jerome, in Dan. 11.17.
110 See Carney (1987) 434, 436.
11I Carney (1987) 434-5; see also Vatin
(1970) 60
(Vatin also argues
that Rome - which did not like inter-
dynastic marriages
- would have influenced the Ptolemies
in this regard, but the Roman attitude could
scarcely have
had any impact on a pre-existing custom). Cf also Shaw
(1992), who connects incestuous marriage practices
among both the Ptolemies and commoners to a colonial-
ist frame of mind barring
the Greek minority
from min-
gling with the Egyptian majority. But there were other
choices available to the Ptolemies if
they chose not to
marry Egyptians.
112 Cic. Ver. 2.4.61.
113
Carney (1987) 434; see also Arens
(1986) 115-16;
HuB
(2001) 309. 20 SHEILA L. AGER
breeding rivals elsewhere. The abolition of rival lines, and the consolidation of the royal
fami-
ly around the person of the ruler was,
in Burstein's view, the primary reason for Ptolemy II's
marriage
to his sister.114 One might be
tempted
to
speculate
that Arsinoy, who had already mar-
ried one half-brother
(Keraunos), might have
suggested
that she would be prepared
to marry
another
(Magas of Cyrene,
the thorn in Ptolemy II's western
side),
if her full brother did not offer
her the greater prize of Egypt.15
The fact that several Ptolemaic princesses did indeed
'marry out' should caution us against
too great a reliance on the motive of controlling
their production of offspring as the sole or
primary cause of Ptolemaic incest. Ogden offers still another perspective. He argues
that sister-
marriage came to be the preferred union for production of a
legitimate heir:
Unfortunately,
the highly endogamous nature of these now
specially 'legitimate' unions meant that
they became virtually infertile, with the paradoxical result that only
those non-endogamous children
now
successfully differentiated and defined as 'bastard' survived
long enough
to be able to succeed to
the throne. ... Philadelphus' precedent
... was to be so successful that virtually all
subsequent Ptolemaic
marriages were to be to sisters, and there were overriding reasons for those that were not.116
While the scenario painted by Ogden was indeed on occasion the case, the statement is too
sweeping, and can be refuted by various examples
from the
three-hundred-year span of
Ptolemaic history. Sister-marriage was not the only
incestuous pattern pursued by
the Ptolemies;
though
it may well have been the preferred pattern,
there is no indication that marriage
to a niece
(for example) was considered somehow to be a lower status union.
Whether or not the various reasons
suggested here applied equally
to each of the Ptolemaic
unions, pragmatic rationales for dynastic
incest would still have been conscious ones. Even
notions about purity of blood or assimilation to the gods are
likely
to have been deliberately
formulated. Certain
symbolic motivations, on the other hand, may have remained below the
threshold of conscious recognition.
It is often stated, erroneously,
that the incest 'taboo' is uni-
versal, and that cases of royal
incest represent a
'breaking' of that taboo. But such an
interpre-
tation is not quite accurate to the original meaning of the word. 'Taboo' means 'set apart
for or
consecrated to a
special use or purpose; restricted to the use of a god, a king, priests, or chiefs,
while forbidden to general use; inviolable, sacred', as well as 'forbidden; unlawful'."l7
Ptolemaic
kings did not 'break' a taboo by marrying
their sisters. It would be better to
say
that
they
fulfilled a taboo and gave
it meaning by crossing a boundary
that is barred to ordinary people.
In so doing they demonstrated that
they were extra-ordinary. This extraordinariness is about
more than a
simple assimilation of royalty
to
specific gods.
It is about power, and about sub-
conscious and perhaps universal human instincts that there is
something
'numinous' about those
who
transgress
such boundaries. If a taboo is a
thing
that is 'set apart',
then the Ptolemies by
their actions became
'taboo'll8
-
truly
set apart, unreachable by ordinary humans, and not to be
judged by ordinary standards of human behaviour.
Incest is often linked with notions of chaos and disorder. We saw above that the Chinese and
Indonesian terms for it emphasize concepts of disorder and disharmony. The later Greek com-
pound haimomixia also has implications of undifferentiated mixing and mingling. When the
incest taboo is breached by a member of the community, it is as though a door has opened into
the world of chaos - unnatural births and natural disasters may be inflicted on the community as
114 Burstein
(1982). Also agreeing
that dynastic
soli-
darity was a particular motive for Ptolemy II: Turner
(1984)
138-9; Walbank
(1984) 67; Carney (1987); Whitehome
(1994) 91. For criticism, see Hazzard
(2000) 87-9.
115 Will 1
(1979) 149
suggests a connection between
Magas' revolt and the marriage of Ptolemy II and
Arsino II, though he acknowledges he cannot determine
cause and effect.
116 Ogden (1999) 67, 80.
117 OED
(2nd edn). See also Arens
(1986) 6-7.
118 See Bischof
(1972) 28. INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY 21
a whole 119 The
(soon-to-be)
incestuous Oedipus confronts such a manifestation of chaotic
disorder in the monstrous Sphinx
- woman, lion and bird. To
step out of the area of folk belief
and into that of scientific
investigation
for a moment, anthropologists
too have associated incest
with disorder:
'complete
social chaos ... the upsetting of age distinctions, the mixing up of
generations,
the disorganization of sentiments, and a violent exchange of roles'.120
Breaching
the boundary between civilization and the chaotic forces of disorder, however,
is
not without its compensations, provided
such a breach is enacted by
the approved individual(s).
Incest appears
to unlock power, particularly creative power. Numerous creation myths empha-
size the power of
sexuality, especially
incestuous
sexuality,
to create order out of chaos. In
Greek myth
the mating of Gaia with her son Ouranos is instrumental in the creation and order-
ing of the world;
in Zoroastrian belief, Ohrmazd
joins with his daughter Spendarmat (the earth)
to further the task of creation;121
in the Bible, Lot and his daughters repeople
the race after the
fall of Sodom and Gomorrah;122 and the creation beliefs of many cultures feature 'the represen-
tation of brother and sister as a
symbolically parental couple
in descent
ideology'.123 Rudhardt
emphasizes
the transformative power of incest in Greek mythology
in particular, where many
tales
featuring
incest result in a metamorphosis. Myrrha,
for example, after
seducing her father
Kinyras,
flees from his anger and is transformed into a tree from which is born the infant Adonis.
Although both Myrrha and Kinyras are human, the offspring of their incest achieves a divine
status, though Adonis remains a liminal deity, enduring an endless cycle of death and rebirth
(and
like other gods of this
type, able to extend his power of resurrection to his human
worshippers).124
Royal
incest should be seen in the
light of this powerfully creative incest of the cultural
imag-
ination. Royalty
too is a liminal state, at the boundaries of
society, and perhaps at the borders
between human and divine. By committing incest, by stepping beyond
those bounds, royalty
evokes that creative power. Mary Douglas points out that those in a transformative state - for
instance, those undergoing a rite of passage
- bring back with them from the liminal and disor-
dered places
to which
they go, beyond
the margins of the
community, a power
to recreate
order.125 By indulging
in an act representative of chaos, royalty may deliberately provoke and
flirt with disaster, only
to overcome it and restore the order necessary
for the continuance of
society.
In effect, royal
incest
fights
fire with fire, or rather, chaos with chaos.
Seen in such a
light, royal
incest 'draws attention to actors engaged
in cultural performance
rather than reproductive strategy'.126 William Arens has argued
that
incest, particularly royal
incest,
is primarily a
symbol of power, rather than a means to attain heirs of
'pure' blood.127
Speaking of the African Shilluk and their king, who is considered to be divine, he
says,
'The
theme of incest plays a major part
in the deification procedure,
for it reflects the ability of the
would-be king
to violate a basic rule and survive the encounter with a
symbolic act of potency
119 See Seligman (1950) 308; Fox
(1980) 6; Reynolds
and Tanner
(1995) 170.
120 Malinowski
(1927) 251. The term 'chaotic' is
also used
(not unnaturally) by sociologists and clinicians
to describe not only family circumstances which are con-
ducive to incestuous sexual abuse
(see Rudd and
Herzberger (1999); Bourcet et al.
(2000)), but also the
internal mental state of incestuous abuse victims
(Brown
(1993) 32-3).
121 See Herrenschmidt
(1994), who connects
Zoroastrian xwet6das
(incestuous marriage) with creation
myth. This
type of marriage was considered a religious
duty;
it evoked the ancient creation, and assured the con-
tinued survival of the world
(Mitterauer (1994)).
122 Genesis 19.30-8; see Arens
(1986) 120.
123 Moore
(1964) 1309
(based on a
survey of 42
peoples, including
the Greeks). See also Durham
(1991)
346-7 on the connections between
incest, creation myths
and culture heroes; Davenport (1994) 15, 36-7.
124 Rudhardt
(1982) 745-6, 762-3.
125
Douglas (1966) 94-104; see also Turner
(1967);
Endsjo (2000).
126 Arens
(1986) 122.
127 Arens' arguments linking
incest with power are
compelling, though both Arens and Bixler
(1982a, b) are
too insistent in denying
the link between royal
incest and
royal reproduction, at least insofar as it applies
to the
Ptolemies; as noted above, almost all Ptolemaic incestu-
ous marriages resulted in offspring. 22 SHEILA L. AGER
and creation.'128 Luc de Heusch,
in his discussion of royal
incest among certain African cultures,
argues
that the incest is bound up with the sacralization of the new king and the new order which
he establishes.129 Oedipus'
incest too was
inextricably bound up with and emblematic of his ascent
to the throne. The power unlocked by royal
incest is not merely a demonstration of personal
potency, a potency which,
if exercised
selfishly, would be no more than
tyranny.
It is
(or should
be) a power wielded on behalf of
society.
'The king and
society are one, while his vitality and
goodwill are essential to Shilluk continuity. With him, there is order, and without him, chaos.'130
To bring
this discussion back to the Ptolemies,
it is
important
to note the well-established
cosmic role of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Pharaoh is not only a ruler on earth who hears petitions
from and renders
judgements
for his human
subjects, he is also the defender of cosmic order
against cosmic chaos. As part of his battle against chaos and destruction, the new Pharaoh is
seen as the avenger of his father, the dead Pharaoh; on the divine plane,
the new Pharaoh is the
god Horus, avenging
the death of his father Osiris at the hands of Set.131 He replays
the cosmic
drama of the gods and their creation of the world, a creation threatened by chaos with the death
of each Pharaoh, a creation whose order is restored by
the power of each new Pharaoh.132 The
king
is responsible
for Maiit,
for cosmic order and
justice.133 In assuming
the role of Pharaoh, the
Ptolemaic rulers would also, at least in Egyptian eyes, have borne this crucial cosmic responsi-
bility. Clearly
these cosmic roles did not necessitate royal incest, either for the Pharaohs or for
the Ptolemies. If
they had, we would have expected
the Pharaohs in particular
to have been
much more rigorous about pursuing
incestuous marriages
than
they appear
to have been.
Nevertheless, the symbolic power
inherent in incest would certainly resonate with these roles.
The pairing of male and female is by definition a creative one, and the
symbolic creative power
of incest may be one factor in the unusually prominent
role played by Ptolemaic women in com-
parison with other Hellenistic dynasties.
The
symbolic
link between incest and power may not always have been a conscious one: 'the
participants [are not] necessarily aware of this cultural intent or message'.134 But there is another
symbol
- a
fundamentally Ptolemaic one - which may be connected with
incest, and this is a link
which may well have been
forged deliberately and consciously by
the Ptolemies themselves.
LUXURY, DECADENCE AND PREJUDICE
'Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for
luxury and damned incest'
(Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5)
We have seen that the Greeks linked incestuous behaviour with other behaviours
implying a lack
of restraint in general, especially
in the area of overindulgence
in food. Ptolemy VIII is the
supreme example of excessive and illicit
indulgence
in the areas both of sex and of food. He is
also the Ptolemy most reviled in the literature, whether ancient or modemrn. To Mahaffy, he was
'a monster steeped in murder and incest'; to Grace Macurdy, a 'mountain of corrupt and sinful
flesh', a sort of Hellenistic Jabba the Hutt.135 Incest has become the clearly marked signpost of
a more generalized decadence, and the effects of incest - inbreeding - have provided to more
scientifically minded contemporary scholars a convenient answer to the putative degeneration of
the Ptolemaic dynasty.
128 Arens
(1986) 123.
129 De Heusch (1958).
130 Arens
(1986) 129.
131 Koenen
(1983, 1993); Bonhame and Forgeau
(1988) 63-70.
132 See Winter
(1978); Heinen
(1978); Bonhame and
Forgeau (1988) 110-20; Koenen
(1983, 1993). De Heusch
argued
that the African cultures which practised royal
incest adopted
it because of diffusion from Pharaonic
Egypt.
133 Quaegebeur (1978) 246; Bonhame
and Forgeau
(1988) 132.
134 Arens
(1986) 148.
135 Mahaffy (1895) 377; Macurdy (1932) 155. INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY 23
The revilement of Ptolemy VIII and other members of his
family
in the ancient sources, how-
ever,
is on the whole far less linked to the notion of incest
specifically
than to the notion of their
luxurious decadence, their
truphe,
the very opposite of that cardinal virtue of
s6phrosund.
That
pampered lifestyle of
luxury,
soft
living, gourmandizing, intoxication, displays of wealth and
lack of self-control in general contrasted
sharply both with Greek notions of
s6phrosund
and with
Roman ideals of
stern Catonic
simplicitas. That contrast appears nowhere more clearly
than in
the tale of Scipio's visit to Alexandria, an occasion marked by a walkabout by
the Romans and
their host, Ptolemy VIII Euergetes:
Scipio [Aemilianus] Africanus and his fellow ambassadors came to Alexandria to survey
the entire
kingdom. Ptolemy welcomed the men with a great reception and much pomp, held costly banquets
for
them, and conducting
them about showed them his palace and other royal
treasures. Now the Roman
envoys were men of
superior virtue, and since their normal diet was limited to a few dishes, and only
such as were conducive to health, they were scornful of his extravagance as detrimental to both body
and mind. ...
[The envoys] apprehended
that a very great power could be built
[in Egypt],
if this king-
dom should ever find rulers worthy of it.136
The king could hardly keep up with them in walking because of his inactive life and his pampering of
his body, and Scipio whispered softly
to Panaetius, 'Already
the Alexandrians have received some
benefit from our visit. For it is owing
to us that
they have seen their king walk.'137
As Heinen has pointed out,
it is unthinkable that Ptolemy VIII would have intended to cut
such a poor figure
in front of his arrogant Roman guests.138 Euergetes was merely
the best para-
digm of a
longstanding dynastic self-presentation, a presentation
that deliberately
laid emphasis
on the wealth, luxury, and magnificence of the ruling family.139 To the Ptolemies, truphe was a
measure of their wealth and power, and was the
logical outcome of a dynastic propaganda
that
emphasized
the generosity and beneficence - the euergetism
- of the monarchy.140 They delib-
erately highlighted
their
luxury and magnificence by taking on the epithets Tryphon and
Tryphaina, and by staging
such
staggering public displays as the great procession of Ptolemy II,
the fantastic Bacchic tessarakonter of Ptolemy IV, and the unforgettable arrival of Kleopatra VII
at Tarsos.141 Emblematic of the
liberality of the Ptolemies is the cornucopia,
the horn of plenty
associated with Ptolemaic queens on coinage and on ritual vases.142 It was noted earlier that the
corpulence of Ptolemy VIII and Ptolemy X, among others, was clearly a
lifestyle 'disease'; seen
in the context of deliberate propaganda,
their well-fleshed persons were one more visible
symbol of royal truphe. Far from attempting
to disguise
their obesity,
their official portraits
enhance and emphasize
it.143
Aside from the beneficence to one's
subjects implicit
in the adoption of
luxury and magnifi-
cence as a dynastic signature, truphe
is representative of power.