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27. 10. 2012

The equation between wealth

(and its display) and power is easily made, and requires no elaboration. But there is a more sub-

tle connection as well. Truphi is the inverse of

s6phrosund. Alexander the Great was famous

136 Diod. 33.28b.1-3

(Walton

translation 1967). Cf.

Athen. 549e; Justin 38.8.

137 Plut. Mor 200f-201a (Babbitt

translation 1931).

138 Heinen

(1978, 1983); Gehrke

(1994).

139

Truphe as a deliberate tool of Ptolemaic propa-

ganda was first discussed by Tondriau

(1948c).

140 Heinen

(1983). On Ptolemaic

truphe,

see also Tondriau

(1946,

1948c, 1950, 1952); Cerfaux and Tondriau

(1957) 192-3,

206, 207; Heinen

(1978, 1983); Dunand

(1986); Hauben

(1989); van Nuffelen

(1998/9).

147 OGI 54

(the Adoulis

inscription).

148 Portrait of Ptolemy

I as Dionysos: Heinen

(1978).

On association of individual Ptolemies with Dionysos,

see Tondriau

(1948a); (1952) 457-61. For other icono-

graphic associations with Dionysos

in Ptolemaic portrai-

ture, see Lunsingh Scheurleer

(1978); Heinen

(1978);

Queyrel (1984, 1985); Sullivan

(1990) 230. The

long

robe wom by Ptolemy VIII, which Athenaios terms a chi-

toniskos

(549e, cited above), was probably a deliberate

affectation of Dionysiac dress

(Heinen (1978, 1983)), or

perhaps even an approximation of Pharaonic dress

(Bevan (1968 [1927]) 308 n.1). Whitehorne

(1994) 108

and Ogden (1999) 98 make much ofAthenaios' use of the

diminutive term, and argue

that for a 'little tunic' to reach

the ground, Ptolemy VIII must have been short 'to the

point of dwarfism'

(Whitehorne).

It is true that Justin

says Ptolemy VIII was short, but given

that Ptolemy's

official garb must always have been selected with a view

to the message

the king wanted to send,

it is

impossible

that he would have tolerated a garment

that did not fit. It

seems more

likely

that the term,

if it was really used by

Athenaios' Stoic source, might have been used in a

derisory

fashion

('the king's

little

frock'). The chiton-

iskos remark is very flimsy testimony

to take as evidence

of an

inbreeding depression

that

imposed dwarfish stature

on Ptolemy VIII

(especially when we consider that he was

not as inbred as some members of the

family). INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY 25

word went out to all that Aphrodite was making merry with Dionysos

for the good of Asia'.149

With the return to Alexandria, Kleopatra and Antony pursued

the Dionysiac lifestyle with

intensity and abandon, cultivating a group of associates-in-indulgence known as the

Amimetobioi, the 'Inimitable Livers'.so50

Dionysos of course is Egyptian Osiris, and Ptolemaic queens, as we saw above, were associ-

ated habitually with Isis as well as with Aphrodite.151

In an Egyptian context, then, the god of

truph^

is a god of incest. If Dionysos

is the divine poster-child

for

luxury, bounty and magnifi-

cence, his Egyptian avatar Osiris is the embodiment of

sibling love, the power of that

love, and

its association with the royal

throne.152 The

sister-spouse of Osiris, Isis,

is the throne - that is the

meaning of her name - and it is she who collects the dismembered body of her brother-spouse

and

(at

least partially) restores life to it.153 Incestuous love here, as in other myths and tales of

creation, has a creative, transformative power, and can restore life to the dead. In mainstream

Greek myth, Dionysos

is not primarily associated with

incest, though he does

inspire

sexual

licence

(and can provoke his enemies to doom themselves by acts of forbidden

sexuality).154 In

Orphic myth, however, Dionysos

is both the child of incest and the victim of cannibalism.ss55 He

is the son of Zeus and Zeus's daughter Persephone, and,

like Osiris, he undergoes a

sparagmos

- torn limb from

limb, he is devoured by

the Titans. We have seen how incest and cannibalism

are often associated, and how both are representative of borderline states, of the breach of lim-

its, and the power

that may be brought back by

those who pass beyond

those limits. Both Osiris

and Dionysos are liminal deities who pass

the ultimate boundary of death, and return, bringing

power back with them.156

Incest and

truphe were thus twin pillars of the Ptolemaic royal programme, though whether

all the

symbolic values of both were explicitly understood by

the Ptolemies themselves is

irrecoverable. In any case,

it is certainly not to be

supposed

that the pioneering Ptolemy II ever

tried to downplay

the incestuous marriage

to his sister, any more than he or any of his successors

would have tried to downplay

their display of magnificence.s7e Both incest and truphi would

lose all their

symbolic value if the

spotlight of public attention was not focused on them. Sarah

Pomeroy has queried why Arsinoe Philadelphos would have drawn attention to her own

'highly

questionable' marriage through her patronage of marriage

in the festival of Aphrodite and

Adonis; the answer

surely

is that attention is precisely what she and her brother wanted. Other

scholars too have I think been misguided

interpreting royal actions in the

light of an

assumption

that Ptolemy II wanted to mitigate

the

impact of the marriage. Fraser thinks that the

149 Plut. Ant. 26. See Dunand

(1973) 42-3. On Kleopatra

and Antony as Isis and Osiris, see Brenk

(1992).

150 Plut. Ant. 28. Tondriau

(1946) argues

that this

group, typically condemned as mere seekers after sensa-

tion, was in fact a Dionysiac

thiasos

typical of the

Ptolemaic court. In any case, given

the evidently

inebri-

ate

lifestyle, one would hope they really did have inim-

itable livers.

151 Equation of Dionysos and Osiris: Hdt. 2.42; Diod.

1.13; Plut. Mor. 364e-365f.

152

Spells

in Egyptian love-magic evoked the love of

Isis and Osiris; the Trobriand Islanders, who were most

horrified by sibling incest, also ascribed the formula for

love-magic

to a

legendary brother-sister incestuous pair

('the most forbidden is the most potent', Fox

(1980) 38-9).

153 Diod.1.21; Plut. Mor. 357f-358b. See Witt

(1997)

37.

154 Consumption of wine, Dionysos' drink, and the

loss of control associated with it can lead to incestuous

sex: Hyg. Fab. 132; Athen. 444c-d; see Nencini

(1997);

Clarysse (2001). It is worth mentioning

in passing

that

Dionysos

is a first cousin

(several

times removed) of

Oedipus.

155 On the Alexandrian association of Dionysos both

with Osiris and with Orphic elements, see Cerfaux and

Tondriau

(1957) 214; Fraser 1

(1972) 194, 202-7; Rice

(1983) 80-1.

156 See Rudhardt

(1982), who also points

Persephone and Adonis as deities who are the offspring

of incest and who have a

special power over death.

Arsino II appears

to have been particularly

instrumental

fostering

the cult of Adonis at Alexandria

(Theokritos,

Idyll 15; Cerfaux and Tondriau

(1957) 216). Reed

(2000)

324-34 notes the Ptolemaic

tendency

to assimilate Adonis

and Osiris.

157 The fact that he adopted his children to his sister,

thereby creating

in a sense offspring of the

incest, would

certainly have served to

intensify

the propaganda (I am

grateful

to one of the anonymous JHS referees for draw-

ing my attention to this point). 26 SHEILA L. AGER

epithet 'Philadelphos' would have been intended to 'soften the incestuous nature of the relation-

ship', by emphasizing

fraternal rather than erotic love - and yet

such an epithet inevitably draws

attention to the incest. Hazzard argues

that Arsinoe is absent from Kallixeinos' account of

Philadelphos' pompe

in part because Ptolemy did not want to highlight

the incest - but if he did

not wish to do so, whatever would have prompted him to his marital emulation of Zeus and Hera

in the first place (also Hazzard's argument)? Hauben believes that Philadelphos established a

cult of the royal couple, enhancing

their divine nature, precisely out of a desire to sublimate the

incestuous character of that couple

- but as with the epithet,

such an action

surely accentuates

rather than deflects attention.158 The intense emphasis placed on the

figure of Arsino II from the

time of her marriage

to her brother, and continuing after her death, an emphasis which has always

drawn the attention of scholars,

is no doubt a part of this picture.

Incest and

truphe^

- those proverbial signs of decadence - were thus deliberate aspects of

Ptolemaic propaganda, and were intended to

symbolize

the power of the dynasty, rather than its

degeneracy. But the Ptolemies were walking a fine

line, and in the end their choices backfired.

Truphei and

luxuria, to Greeks and Romans alike, were the mark of the

tyrant. While Ptolemaic

displays of bounty and munificence may have found an appreciative audience among many of

the dynasty's followers, this was a prejudice

that died very hard, and it is the prejudice which

dominates the

literary record. Unrestrained

luxury and unlimited power, bringing with them a

complete (and frequently perverse)

sexual licence, were associated with

tyranny, whether the

unconstitutional rulers of Archaic Greece like Periander or Hippias, or the

legitimate but despotic

Persian king Xerxes.159 The sexual hubris of

tyrants was the negative model of which the

Ptolemies attempted

to provide a positive inversion, with very mixed success.

The writers of antiquity largely adopted

the view of the Roman embassy of Scipio, contemp-

tuous of a

lifestyle

that pursued pleasure and

indulgence beyond all measure and that resulted in

such grotesque and unheroic

figures as poor Ptolemy VIII. Truphei not only enfeebles those

individuals who

indulge

it,

it is also disastrous for entire nations composed of such individuals.

Athenaios emphasizes

the anandria and malakia of peoples who abandon themselves to

luxury.160

Polybios was certain that the

long decline of the Ptolemaic empire could be laid at the door of

Ptolemy IV, who neglected

the real business of government and empire

for the sake of his own

'shameful amours and senseless and constant drunkenness'.161

It is among modem historians that we find a more emphatic

focus on the incest

specifically.162

It seems that it is modem

scholars who have shuddered most

(with a kind of horrified glee) at

the sexual escapades of the Ptolemaic dynasty. An ancient author such as Josephus, who

abominated Kleopatra VII,

is more critical of her for being cruel to her little brothers than for

marrying

them.163 For Polybios,

the shamefulness of Ptolemy

IV's sex life

lay

in his activities

outside his sister-wife's bed rather than those within it. Justin, who loved to revel in the sordid,

does not include in the canon of crimes committed by Ptolemy VIII against Kleopatra II

the fact

that he married her. Even the Christian writer Orosius, writing in the fifth century AD, castigates

Ptolemy VIII more for casting his sister aside than for marrying her in the first place.164 This is

158

Pomeroy (1984) 36; Fraser 1

(1972) 217; Hazzard

(2000) 67; Hauben

(1989).

159 Herodotos associates all three with perverse

sexu-

al acts or desires, including

incest

(5.92, 6.107, 9.108); cf.

Polyb. 6.7, and see Holt

(1998); Vernant (2000). On links

between

tyranny, truphd and hubris, see Nenci

(1983)

1028; Passerini

(1934); Tondriau

(1948c); Cozzoli

(1980); and Fisher

(1992) 111-17, 329-42, 350-2.

160

514d-515a

(and

see Book 12 passim).

161

5.34.10 (Paton translation, 1923). Cf Justin 29.1;

30.1; Porphyry, FGrHist 260 F44; Str. 17.1.11.

162 Note the comments of Morriss

(1997) 276-80,

who argues

that contemporary Anglo-American culture is

in fact much less tolerant of the blurring of boundaries

(especially

sexual ones)

than many cultures perceived as

less advanced.

163 Ap. 2.57-8; AJ 15.89; BJ 1.359-60.

164 HAV 5.10.6. No author speaks

ill of the incestu-

ous union of Kleopatra II and Ptolemy VI, no doubt

because it was to all appearances an amicable one, and

was such a contrast to Kleopatra's subsequent marriage. INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY 27

not to

say

that we find no negative characterization of Ptolemaic incest in the ancient sources

(Sotades

is the classic example), but such comments are very sparse compared

to the emphasis

laid on incest and its evils by modem writers.

(As

for Sotades, his unfortunate remark may have

been intended more as a bad

joke

than a moral

lecture.)

If the Ptolemaic dynastic model was ultimately a failure, at least in the eyes of posterity,

Imperial Roman efforts to employ

the same model met with little more success. Both Caligula

and Claudius may have attempted

to emulate the Ptolemies in their own unions. Caligula's

alleged

incest with his

sister(s?) has been doubted, but it is possible

that he was

trying

present an

Imperial model, at least in the Greek East, that would have met with recognition and

acceptance.165 Claudius' marriage

to his niece Agrippina presents a more unequivocal case of

royal

incest. Indeed,

it may be that,

like Ptolemy II, Claudius deliberately drew attention to the

incestuous nature of the marriage, and may have been

inspired

to do so by

the example of the

Hellenistic dynasty.166 But Claudius was battling

the same prejudices, and in the end faced the

same outcome: rather than

impressing his contemporaries with the unique and

special qualities

of the

Imperial dynasty, he merely convinced posterity of the decadence of

Imperial morals.

CONCLUSION

It has

long been unfashionable for historical

scholarship

to exercise moral

judgements, and we

rarely

find any more such

latter-day Scipionic remarks as Bevan's comment on Ptolemy

IV:

'love of ease, wine, lasciviousness, and

literary dilettantism had swallowed up

in this young

degenerate every natural affection'.167 And yet

the time-honoured

image of a crumbling dynasty

choking on its own excesses, as Magas choked on his own fat, dies very hard indeed. Incest

seems fated to be

inextricably bound up with a continued notion of Ptolemaic decay, moral

degeneracy and collapse, and it is now

inbreeding

that is indicted for compromising Ptolemaic

'vigour', a magic and marvellously vague word both in historiography and in genetics.168

Although

the historical queen Kleopatra VII was an energetic and effective monarch, the

Kleopatra of the Western artistic and

literary imagination has been for centuries endowed with a

languidness characteristic of the best Ptolemaic

truphi and inbred lassitude.169

The tension between

languor and vigour, between activity and passivity

in Ptolemaic history,

is an historiographic topos

that can be traced back to Polybios, who commented on the

(to him)

unfortunate fact that the slothful and

luxury-ridden Ptolemy

IV was too inclined to be peaceful,

and did not follow up his victory at Raphia with an all-out invasion of the realms ofAntiochos III

(5.87). While modern

scholarship has distanced itself considerably

from the male-dominated

and military-oriented world inhabited by Polybios,

there are still echoes of that world and its

viewpoint

in many modem assessments of Ptolemaic history. Military strength

still tends to be

equated with masculine

'vigour', and the

softening and

feminizing qualities of

truphe are held

to be at the heart of the disintegration of the Ptolemaic empire. Whether consciously or not, there

still tends to be a ratification of the Polybian viewpoint that the loss of military dominance and

the rejection of active imperialism is representative of a process of decay.170 The Ptolemies are

165

Caligula, like Ptolemy Auletes, adopted

the title

Neos Dionysos (Athen. 148d), and presented his sister

Drusilla in the east with the

iconography of Demeter,

associated with

fertility and rebirth, a representation

found also among

the Ptolemaic queens (Wood (1995);

cf Green

(1998) 784; Moreau

(2002) 93-6).

166 Green

(1998) 779-80; see also Smith

(1963).

167 Bevan

(1968 [1927]) 221.

168

See, e.g., Whitehorne (1994) 88; Scheidel

(1996a)

16-17; cf Mahaffy (1895) 307; Macurdy (1932) 222.

169 See for example Theophile Gauthier's 1838 novel-

la, Une nuit de Cldopdtre,

in which his heroine exhausts

herself walking

from the bedroom to the bathroom.

170 Hazzard's comment

((2000) 156) on the Ptolemaic

kingdom ('it started as a military monarchy headed by a

king and ended as a civilian monarchy headed by a queen')

is a more up-to-date version of

(but one that still resonates

with) Kornemann's conclusion in 1923, that the Ptolemaic

family,

'which had come from

strong masculine

Macedonian roots, fell to the force of feminism'. 28 SHEILA L. AGER

still seen as somehow

'decadent', only now it is the science of genetics

that explains their

rottenness.171 Incest has led to

inbreeding, which has led in turn to degeneracy and loss of vigour.

But it is the argument of this article that we cannot use the new morality of science any more

than we could use the old morality of Victorian prudery

to seek a solution to the

thorny problems

of the Ptolemaic dynasty

in the wormy heart of incest.

SHEILA L. AGER

University of Waterloo

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