11. Mothers Aren’t Supposed to Have Favorite Children, but This Mother Surely Did
Ptolemaic family intrigues complicated the reign of Ptolemy IX Soter II, nicknamed Lathyros (“Chickpea”). By then, marrying siblings was an established family tradition in the Ptolemaic dynasty, and this Ptolemy married his sister Cleopatra IV sometime before he became king. When his father, Ptolemy VIII Potbelly passed in 116 BC, his mother and the reigning queen, Cleopatra III, made him co-regent. However, it seems that Ptolemy IX had not been her favorite son, and that she had been forced to choose him because of public pressure from the citizens of Alexandria. She worked out some of that resentment by forcing Ptolemy IX in 115 BC to divorce his sister-wife Cleopatra IV, and replace her with her own sister, Ptolemy IX’s aunt, Cleopatra Selene I.
Ptolemy IX’s sister and ex-wife fled Egypt to the neighboring Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom, where she married King Antiochus IX and became queen consort in 114 BC. Her reign proved brief, however, as her husband was defeated and deposed by a half-brother. Cleopatra IV sought sanctuary in a temple, but soldiers followed her in, and eliminated her there. As to Ptolemy IX, Cleopatra III accused her son and co-regent of having tried to plot to have her eliminated, and deposed him in 107 BC. His place was taken by his brother and Cleopatra III’s favorite son, Alexander, who ascended the throne as Ptolemy X.