BERENICE II Y III (247-74 BC)

BERENICE II

Daughter of Maga, king of Cyrene (in modern Libya), whose marriage to Ptolemy III Euergetes reunited her country with Egypt.

Maga´s queen, who favoured an alliance with the Seleucid dynasty of Syria, attempted to thwart the marriage by summoning Demetrius the Fair, a Macedonian prince, as a husband for Berenice. The Princess arranged Demetrius murder and married Ptolemy about 245.

When Ptolemy set forth to avenge the murder of his sister (the widow of Antiochus II) in Syria, Berenice dedicated a lock of her hair for his safe returno. According to the court astronomer, it was transferred to heaven, where it formed a new constellation that was consequently named Coma Berenices or Hair of Berenice.

Berenice and Ptolemy hasd four children: the future Ptolemy IV Philopator, Arsinoe III, Magas, and Berenice, who died as a child. The Queen survived her husband, but her son Ptolemy IV linked her to a plot with her father, Magas, and had her poisoned.


BERENICE III

Queen of Egypt, daugther of Ptolemy IX, the most strongwilled member of the royal family, ruled during a period of violent civil strife.

Daughter of either Cleopatra Selene or Cleopatra IV, Berenice first married her uncle, Ptolemy X, sometime before 101. After the death in 101 of the dowager queen, Cleopatra III, the widow of Ptolemy VIII, Berenice became full queen.

In 87 Ptolemy X was expelled from Egypt by an insurrection of the people of Alexandria, who believed that he had assasinated the dowager queen. He recruited a mercenary army in Syria and after returning to Egypt, plundered the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria in order to pay his troops. Outraged, the Alexandrian populace again expelled him, and he fled with Berenice to Lycia in Asia Minor.

After her husband was killed, Berenice returned to Egypt. She married Ptolemy XI, who had been desthroned in 110 and 107 but was restored as king. When Ptolemy died in 80, Berenice became the sole ruler of Egypt.

Young Ptolemy Alexander, son of Ptolemy X, had meanwhile been befriended by Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Roman dictator, with whose aid he was sent to Egypt to be married to Queen Berenice. Neither the Queen nor the people of Alexandria were consulted about the matter. When Ptolemy learned that Berenice was loath to surrender her authority, he arranged for her murder, for which the enraged Alexandrians killed him; he was the last legitimate Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt.