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Who Were Cleopatra’s Grandchildren?
I’ve spent the past few years writing about Cleopatra’s daughter–a fascinating young woman that most people don’t even know existed. Today I want to talk about the next generation, the children that the infamous Queen of the Nile may have bounced on her knee if she’d lived to a ripe old grandmotherly age.
As far as we know, Cleopatra Selene was the only survivor of the Ptolemaic dynasty. But she seems to have been determined not to be the last of her line.
Though Selene’s parents were two of the most famously fertile individuals in ancient history, it is only certain that Selene had one son. He was born to her late in life and may have hastened her death. The name she chose for him is both the single most telling detail about her life and the most mysterious. Breaking with ancient tradition, her son wasn’t named after her husband, King Juba II.
Instead, Selene’s son was named Ptolemy.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. It indicates that even after having been married to Selene and ruling his own country for at least a decade, Juba’s lineage was still considered to be inferior to hers. Perhaps it indicates that she was the true ruler of Mauretania. It also may have led some to question whether or not Juba II was even the father of the boy.
In a time when it would have been considered their duty to produce children, Juba and Selene appear not to have been up to the task. Perhaps Juba and Selene did not fancy sharing one another’s bed. On the other hand, child mortality rates were extremely high in the ancient world. There may well have been other children that we just don’t know about.
An inscription from ancient Athens indicated that Juba had a son and a daughter, who is unnamed. However, this daughter need not have been the child of Cleopatra Selene because King Juba actually had another wife, Princess Glaphyra of Cappadocia.
Now, historians have argued that as a Roman citizen, Juba was unlikely to have broken with Roman law and taken more than one wife at the same time. It must be pointed out, however, that like Juba, King Herod was also a Roman citizen and had more wives than he could keep track of. Juba’s father had kept many wives and it’s entirely possible that the young king may have done the same to earn the respect of his Berber peoples. It strikes me that admirers of King Juba II who insist that he couldn’t have taken a second wife because he wouldn’t have taken a second wife may be projecting onto him some virtues of modern morality. After all, even the most Roman of the Romans–Julius Caesar–is rumored to have tried to pass a law that would allow him to take more than one wife.
A more persuasive argument, to my mind, is that Archelaus the King of Cappadocia was unlikely to allow his daughter, Glaphyra, to play second-wife to Cleopatra’s daughter. Therefore, she was probably Juba’s second wife after Cleopatra Selene’s death.
So, what does that mean for Juba’s daughter? His marriage to Glaphyra was extremely short and this daughter is never mentioned in conjunction with her, so the daughter was probably Cleopatra Selene’s child. (Professor Duane Roller has suggested that Juba may have reinstated the tradition of a harem, in which case this unnamed daughter may have belonged to a concubine. But if so, it is far less likely that she would be mentioned in an inscription.)
The most probable explanation is that the girl mentioned in the inscription is Selene’s daughter. If so, the girl was likely named in the tradition of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Another Cleopatra Something or Berenice or Arsinoe. (In my own forthcoming novel, Song of the Nile, she will be named Cleopatra Isidora.)
A third child is also hinted at. Some scholars have suggested that Selene may have had two sons, both named Ptolemy, one of whom died young. This would reconcile some confusion in the historical record about Ptolemy’s age, and might also explain why Selene would have tried for another child so late in life when it was so dangerous for her to do so. If true, it would mean that Ptolemy wasn’t the only son born to Juba and Selene, but the only surviving son.
He would go on to be the King of Mauretania and he is likely the father of the girl we now believe to be Cleopatra’s great-great-granddaughter, Drusilla of Mauritania!
Snake Charming, Serpent Symbolism & Slithery Politics in the Ancient World
The heroine of my novels, Cleopatra Selene, is the daughter of the much more famous Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the notorious Queen of the Nile who is best known for having committed suicide by way of clutching a venomous serpent to her breast. There is some debate over whether or not the story is true, but the legendary iconography remains.
The idea that Cleopatra was a seductress, a wicked woman who lured good Roman soldiers to their deaths, fits in with the Judeo-Christian idea of both women and serpents. The bible presents the snake to us as an object of wicked temptation, luring us to offend the divine order of the universe. But this Judaic view of the serpent is only one of the perspectives in the ancient world.
To the Egyptians, the cobra was a sacred animal that represented the ancient cobra-goddess Meretseger, who guarded the tombs of pharaohs. Another cobra-goddess was Wadjet, who was a guardian and protectress. The symbol of the cobra was so closely associated with the idea of royalty and the right to rule that it would become part of the official crown in the form of the uraeus, an icon of royalty that Cleopatra adopted herself. In fact, she chose three–one serpent to represent herself, her son Ptolemy Caesarion and the Roman man she claimed was her husband, Julius Caesar.
If Cleopatra did choose to die by the bite of a cobra, it would have been a highly symbolic political act–one that declared her the rightful ruler of Egypt, at one with the old gods of Egypt, and immortal. (The shedding of skin helped to perpetuate the image of the snake as an immortal animal.)
Despite her mother’s association with snakes–or perhaps because of it–Cleopatra’s daughter seems to have eschewed their symbolism in favor of crocodiles. However, she was likely to have encountered snakes in the Kingdom of Mauretania, where she was sent to rule. Snake charming was a popular entertainment in the ancient world and ancient magicians were said to be able to turn staves into snakes.
Snake charming, then as now, was accomplished by way of training a serpent, then pretending as if the music has hypnotized the dangerous animal. In reality, most of these performing snakes had their mouths sewn loosely shut or their fangs removed. However, the reputation of the charmers was often strong enough that they were called upon to rid villages of dangerous snakes.
But even if the Hellenized Queen Cleopatra Selene hadn’t been impressed by the reverence of Egypt for the snake, or by the snake charmers of North Africa, she would still have had to contend with the Greek idea of serpents.
In Greek mythology, the serpentine caduceus is a staff held by Hermes, who was a messenger god, a guardian of commerce, a protector and a guide to the dead. This symbol of the caduceus is often mistaken as a symbol of healing because it is confused with the single serpent and rod of Asclepius, the Greek God of medicine and healing. The shedding of snake skin represented for the Greeks a rejuvenation of the body or spirit. The serpent itself is also a representation of the dual nature of a physician who deals with both life and death. Because of this, the serpent was a highly respected animal in ancient Greece and figured prominently in mystery cults. Even the mother of Alexander the Great was said to keep serpents as pets and was rumored to have been seduced by Zeus in the form of a snake.
With the image of the serpent so prevalent throughout culture and mythology, it’s no surprise Cleopatra Selene was depicted wearing a snake armband on the cover of Song of the Nile!
Weddings in Ancient Rome…and today
SONG OF THE NILE, begins with the wedding of my heroine, Cleopatra Selene, to the man the emperor has chosen for her. Like any bride, she is nervous and excited about her future. Her groom is the newly made King of Mauretania, and she is about to become a queen of a new world. But she’s also only fourteen years old, inexperienced, and vulnerable.
Selene was a Hellenized Egyptian royal princess who was raised in Rome, and Roman girls married young. This was especially true if they were noble or royal because their value to their husbands was often to be found in their ability to bear children and continue the line. Consequently, a girl was marriageable at the age of twelve.
This strikes us as obscenely young and entirely foreign–after all, we live much longer lives than the ancients and have some very different points of view when it comes to marriage.
But weddings in Rome weren’t altogether different than weddings today. In fact, if an ancient Roman girl were to accidentally stumble upon a modern wedding ceremony, chances are good that she’d recognize it for exactly what it was. This is because many of our modern wedding traditions can be traced directly to the ancients.
For example, the tradition of a wedding ring started because the Romans believed that the nerve of the fourth finger of the left hand ran directly to the heart. A ring was often a betrothal gift. Roman brides also wore veils, though theirs were dyed a bright saffron color and topped with a wreath of flowers. Wedding cake is also nothing new. The Roman version was made of spelt or barley or wheat. Sometimes it was a loaf broken over the bride’s head. Then the bride and the groom would each take a bite to symbolize that they have now eaten together and should stay together. (In modern times, the bride and the groom feed each other the cake and sometimes smoosh it in each other’s faces. You tell me which is the more romantic take on the tradition!)
After the vows were spoken and the contracts were signed, there was a celebration–usually a wedding breakfast–during which guests drank, did their version of the chicken dance, then escorted the bride and groom out to a host of bawdy jokes. That part of a modern wedding where the guests all throw rice or blow bubbles at the bride and groom? The ancients would throw a sweet mixture of fruit and nuts to symbolize their wish for the couple’s fertility and prosperity. (Imagine being pelted with trail mix on your happy day!)
Finally, a Roman bride was always carried over the threshold…albeit, not by the groom. In ancient times, she would ritually adorn the doorway to her husband’s house and then slaves, freedmen or wedding attendants would carry her inside.
Finally, there was no requirement that a marriage be consummated, but it was certainly expected!
So-Called Barbaric Nomads & Troublemakers on the Edge of the Roman Empire
To the ancient Romans, just about everyone was a barbarian. (Except the Greeks, who gave them the word in the first place, not to mention an inferiority complex to go with it.) Whether it was Blue Picts of Scotland or Gallic and Germanic hordes, the Romans generally dehumanized those they made war upon. Such was the case with the native North Africans–the Berbers–who lived in the land Cleopatra Selene and her husband Juba II were sent to rule.
A number of Berber peoples put up a fight. Jugurtha, Juba I, Tacfarinas–all these Berber warriors made a lot of trouble for the Romans. Especially Tacfarinas, who instigated full-scale rebellion after the death of Cleopatra Selene. However, one of the most interesting Berber-Roman wars was the one led by Lucius Cornelius Balbus against the Garamantes. I mention this war in my novel, Song of the Nile.
When I wrote about this conflict, I was at a disadvantage, as we know very little about the Garamantes. Like most of Berber culture before the spread of Islam, their civilization is lost to us. Or at least…it was lost to us. S.L. Stevens recently brought to my attention ground-breaking archeology that could change everything we know, or thought we know, about these “barbaric nomads and troublemakers on the edge of the Roman empire.”
Satellite imagery of Libya suggests that there are castles in the sand…fortifications and cities and artwork. The remains of a highly civilized people. I’m so excited about this! If you are too, I hope you’ll recommend it on Stumble Upon:
Photos of Cleopatra Selene’s Lost World
The ancient kingdom of Mauretania, once ruled by Juba II and Cleopatra Selene, is lost to the sands of time. But there are the ruins. I’ve posted photos of the area near Selene’s capital city, Iol-Caesaria, modern-day Cherchell Algeria. Now, thanks to Aaron Sakulich, I have the opportunity to share some images of the other major city of Mauretania: Volubilis. I’m amazed at the majesty these ruins hint at. I can imagine Selene riding a carriage along this road, passing under the triumphal arch, and walking in the shade of these columned avenues. I can see her feet sweeping along these mosaics, or climbing these stairs. Let’s take a little journey back in time.
