16. The King Whose Mother Made Clear He Was Not Her Favorite Child
Caesar’s Cleopatra was not her dynasty’s first scandalous Cleopatra. A century earlier, when Ptolemy VIII Potbelly died in 116 BC, his wife and reigning queen, Cleopatra III, made her son Ptolemy IX, nicknamed Chickpea, her co-regent. However, Ptolemy IX had not been her favorite son, and she had been forced to choose him because of public pressure.
She worked out some of her resentment by forcing Chickpea to divorce his sister-wife Cleopatra IV, and replace her with his mother’s sister and Ptolemy IX’s aunt, Cleopatra Selene I. The ditched sister and ex-wife fled to Syria. There, she married into the royal family and reigned as queen until she was murdered. As to Ptolemy IX Chickpea, Cleopatra III accused him of having tried to murder her and deposed him in 107 BC. In his place, Cleopatra III installed her favorite son, Alexander, who ascended the throne as Ptolemy X.