Ptole-Patra and More Ancient Celebrity Break-Ups
From Ben and Jen to Miss Piggy and Kermit, recent months have been filled with celebrity breakups. But, of course, today's stars of stage and screen weren’t the first to have talked-about personal lives. Here are a few shocking splits that rocked antiquity.
In the tradition of her pharaonic predecessors, Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt - yes, that powerful last pharaoh - married two of her brothers. Disgusting, perhaps, but that was the kingly way in ancient Egypt. Even though these marriages were most likely shams to portray the Ptolemaic siblings in a royal light, Cleopatra still caused waves when she wed her two bros – then left them both!
When Ptolemy XII Auletes died in 51 B.C., his oldest son, Ptolemy XII, nominally became pharaoh, although he was only ten or twelve years old! As decreed in his father’s will, he married his older half-sister, Cleol. Their political relationship was a tempestuous one, especially since Big Sister wanted power in her own right. The two split and got back together a few times as they both negotiated with the Powers That Be in Rome – at this time, Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great.
At this time, Ptolemy and Cleopatra were at war. As Appian recalls in his Civil Wars, Pompey fled to Egypt, trusting that, because he had been friendly with Ptolemy XII, the latter’s kids would be kind to him. Au contraire! Pompey ran into Ptolemy in Egypt, and the pharaoh had him beheaded.
When Caesar eventually showed up in Egypt, he wasn’t happy to find his old frenemy dead in such a manner. As Plutarch dishes, “When Theodotus came to him with Pompey's head, Caesar refused to look at him, but he took Pompey's signet ring and shed tears as he did so.” Cleopatra cleverly allied herself with Caesar – legend has it she had herself delivered to him, wrapped in a rug – and her brother-husband was killed during civil unrest in Alexandria.
Cleopatra was now a single woman, but she didn’t end up marrying Caesar. Instead, her next bridegroom was her other brother, Ptolemy XIV. This was probably at Caesar’s command, since he figured a pharaoh-queen needed her male counterpart by her side. After Caesar’s death in 44 B.C., Cleopatra no longer had to please her lover. Besides, she had a male heir of her own in her young son with Caesar, named Caesarion. So she had Ptolemy XIV bumped off, leaving her free once again. Scandalous!
Augustus, who helped bring about about the end of the Roman Republic and usher in the Imperial Age, tried his best to make his family look proper. In fact, that was far from the case. Besides, propaganda aside, Augustus’s own personal life was far from exemplary. Case in point: his abandonment of his wife, who'd just given birth, to marry another woman!
After being wed to, and divorced from, Clodia, stepdaughter to Mark Antony, Augustus was looking for a new wife with powerful relatives. Augustus – Caesar’s adopted son-cum-great-nephew - took as his wife Scribonia, kin by marriage to the Pompeys. Scribonia was also proven to be fertile, although she was probably getting on in years by ancient standards by this time. Besides, allying himself with Pompey would prove a counterweight to Antony’s faction – or so he hoped.
Scribonia wound up pregnant with her husband’s child, but, by then, Augustus had found an alliance with a woman he liked a whole lot better. That matron was Livia Drusilla, a scion of the ancient Claudian gens and mother of a son already – Tiberius - by her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. At the time she and Augustus met, she was pregnant with a second boy, Drusus.
Augustus and Livia - who probably wasn’t a poisoner, as she was portrayed even in antiquity - presumably got on well, but he was also far from happy with Scribonia. Suetonius gossips in his Life of Augustus, Augustus said he was ‘unable to put up with her shrewish disposition," as he himself writes.’” Just one problem – his wife was with child!
So, like a true gentleman, Augustus waited until Scribonia gave birth to his only biological child, a daughter named Julia. That same day, he divorced Scribonia. Soon after, Augustus arranged for Livia’s divorce from her husband. Suetonius writes, “…at once [he] took Livia Drusilla from her husband Tiberius Nero, although she was with child at the time; and he loved and esteemed her to the end without a rival.”
Happily single, these two joined themselves in matrimonial bliss. Although their union produced no progeny – Suetonius claims Augustus had “by Livia no children at all, although he earnestly desired issue. One baby was conceived, but was prematurely born” - Livia and Augustus remained wed until death parted them. And, ironically for the "ever-so-moral" Augustus, his daughter and granddaughter ended up being more sexually liberated than his chastity laws allowed, so he exiled them both.
Best known today as a child-murdering monarch in ancient Judea, Herod the Great was really historical individual with great political cachet in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Although he wound up king of Judea, Herod was not himself of the Hasmonean royal family. In order to succeed to the throne, he had to wed a princess of that house. His previous wife, Doris, didn’t fit this category, so he turned to the Princess Mariamne, who carried Hasmonean blood in her veins.
That did the trick. As the historian Josephus writes in The Jewish Wars, “…for those who did not before favor him did join themselves to him now, because of his marriage into the family of Hyrcanus [a Hasmonean prince and former High Priest].” He adds, “So did he now marry Mariamne, the daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, and the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, and was become thereby a relation of the king.”
The trouble started with Alexandra, Mariamne’s own mother. When her father, the previously mentioned Hyrcanus, was welcomed back to Jerusalem, he wasn’t named High Priest. Wary of putting persons of royal blood in high places, Herod “sent for an obscure priest out of Babylon, whose name was Ananelus, and bestowed the high priesthood upon him,” says Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews. Alexandra was furious, opining that her own son, Aristobulus, should hold the position, and begged Mark Antony to intercede on her kid’s behalf.
Herod gave in, but wound up forcibly drowning his young rival, so Alexandra sent to Mark Antony, eager for vengeance. The Roman requested that Herod prove his innocence in the matter of Aristobulus’s death. Leaving his uncle in power, Herod ordered the man to kill Mariamne if Antony murdered Herod himself. When he returned, his sister, Salome, poured poison of Mariamne’s alleged machinations in his ears. Salome had long resented Mariamne, who, when they argued, “took great freedoms, and reproached the rest [of Herod's relatives] for the meanness of their birth.”
When Herod had to leave Judea again, he left his mother-in-law and wife in the fortress of Alexandrium for their security, but the two women thought it was “a garrison for their imprisonment.” By now, Mariamne didn’t trust her husband and expressed it. In fact, “this much troubled him, to see that this surprising hatred of his wife to him was not concealed, but open; and he took this so ill, and yet was so unable to bear it,” so Herod began a love-hate relationship with her.
Now was the time that Herod’s mother and sister turned him against the imperious, but innocent, Mariamne. It didn’t help that she refused to have sex with him and was angry at him for the deaths of a number of her Hasmonean relatives. Salome even concocted a love potion she claimed was from Mariamne, leading Herod to suspect his wife was trying to poison him. The king brought his wife to trial, having “laid an elaborate accusation against her for this love-potion and composition.” Herod tried to commute her death sentence to exile, but Salome - and even Alexandra - emphasized Mariamne's alleged treachery. Thus, Mariamne was killed.
Herod still remained infatuated with her memory, however, so much so that it impaired his ability to govern. Josephus notes that “he therefore laid aside the administration of public affairs, and was so far conquered by his passion, that he would order his servants to call for Mariamne, as if she were still alive, and could still hear them.” Eventually, he ended up putting a bunch more people to death, including his sons by Mariamne.
1. Cleopatra VII and Two of Her Brothers
In the tradition of her pharaonic predecessors, Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt - yes, that powerful last pharaoh - married two of her brothers. Disgusting, perhaps, but that was the kingly way in ancient Egypt. Even though these marriages were most likely shams to portray the Ptolemaic siblings in a royal light, Cleopatra still caused waves when she wed her two bros – then left them both!
When Ptolemy XII Auletes died in 51 B.C., his oldest son, Ptolemy XII, nominally became pharaoh, although he was only ten or twelve years old! As decreed in his father’s will, he married his older half-sister, Cleol. Their political relationship was a tempestuous one, especially since Big Sister wanted power in her own right. The two split and got back together a few times as they both negotiated with the Powers That Be in Rome – at this time, Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great.
At this time, Ptolemy and Cleopatra were at war. As Appian recalls in his Civil Wars, Pompey fled to Egypt, trusting that, because he had been friendly with Ptolemy XII, the latter’s kids would be kind to him. Au contraire! Pompey ran into Ptolemy in Egypt, and the pharaoh had him beheaded.
When Caesar eventually showed up in Egypt, he wasn’t happy to find his old frenemy dead in such a manner. As Plutarch dishes, “When Theodotus came to him with Pompey's head, Caesar refused to look at him, but he took Pompey's signet ring and shed tears as he did so.” Cleopatra cleverly allied herself with Caesar – legend has it she had herself delivered to him, wrapped in a rug – and her brother-husband was killed during civil unrest in Alexandria.
Cleopatra was now a single woman, but she didn’t end up marrying Caesar. Instead, her next bridegroom was her other brother, Ptolemy XIV. This was probably at Caesar’s command, since he figured a pharaoh-queen needed her male counterpart by her side. After Caesar’s death in 44 B.C., Cleopatra no longer had to please her lover. Besides, she had a male heir of her own in her young son with Caesar, named Caesarion. So she had Ptolemy XIV bumped off, leaving her free once again. Scandalous!
2. Augustus and Scribonia
Augustus, who helped bring about about the end of the Roman Republic and usher in the Imperial Age, tried his best to make his family look proper. In fact, that was far from the case. Besides, propaganda aside, Augustus’s own personal life was far from exemplary. Case in point: his abandonment of his wife, who'd just given birth, to marry another woman!
After being wed to, and divorced from, Clodia, stepdaughter to Mark Antony, Augustus was looking for a new wife with powerful relatives. Augustus – Caesar’s adopted son-cum-great-nephew - took as his wife Scribonia, kin by marriage to the Pompeys. Scribonia was also proven to be fertile, although she was probably getting on in years by ancient standards by this time. Besides, allying himself with Pompey would prove a counterweight to Antony’s faction – or so he hoped.
Scribonia wound up pregnant with her husband’s child, but, by then, Augustus had found an alliance with a woman he liked a whole lot better. That matron was Livia Drusilla, a scion of the ancient Claudian gens and mother of a son already – Tiberius - by her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. At the time she and Augustus met, she was pregnant with a second boy, Drusus.
Augustus and Livia - who probably wasn’t a poisoner, as she was portrayed even in antiquity - presumably got on well, but he was also far from happy with Scribonia. Suetonius gossips in his Life of Augustus, Augustus said he was ‘unable to put up with her shrewish disposition," as he himself writes.’” Just one problem – his wife was with child!
So, like a true gentleman, Augustus waited until Scribonia gave birth to his only biological child, a daughter named Julia. That same day, he divorced Scribonia. Soon after, Augustus arranged for Livia’s divorce from her husband. Suetonius writes, “…at once [he] took Livia Drusilla from her husband Tiberius Nero, although she was with child at the time; and he loved and esteemed her to the end without a rival.”
Happily single, these two joined themselves in matrimonial bliss. Although their union produced no progeny – Suetonius claims Augustus had “by Livia no children at all, although he earnestly desired issue. One baby was conceived, but was prematurely born” - Livia and Augustus remained wed until death parted them. And, ironically for the "ever-so-moral" Augustus, his daughter and granddaughter ended up being more sexually liberated than his chastity laws allowed, so he exiled them both.
3. Herod the Great and Mariamne I
Best known today as a child-murdering monarch in ancient Judea, Herod the Great was really historical individual with great political cachet in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Although he wound up king of Judea, Herod was not himself of the Hasmonean royal family. In order to succeed to the throne, he had to wed a princess of that house. His previous wife, Doris, didn’t fit this category, so he turned to the Princess Mariamne, who carried Hasmonean blood in her veins.
That did the trick. As the historian Josephus writes in The Jewish Wars, “…for those who did not before favor him did join themselves to him now, because of his marriage into the family of Hyrcanus [a Hasmonean prince and former High Priest].” He adds, “So did he now marry Mariamne, the daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, and the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, and was become thereby a relation of the king.”
The trouble started with Alexandra, Mariamne’s own mother. When her father, the previously mentioned Hyrcanus, was welcomed back to Jerusalem, he wasn’t named High Priest. Wary of putting persons of royal blood in high places, Herod “sent for an obscure priest out of Babylon, whose name was Ananelus, and bestowed the high priesthood upon him,” says Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews. Alexandra was furious, opining that her own son, Aristobulus, should hold the position, and begged Mark Antony to intercede on her kid’s behalf.
Herod gave in, but wound up forcibly drowning his young rival, so Alexandra sent to Mark Antony, eager for vengeance. The Roman requested that Herod prove his innocence in the matter of Aristobulus’s death. Leaving his uncle in power, Herod ordered the man to kill Mariamne if Antony murdered Herod himself. When he returned, his sister, Salome, poured poison of Mariamne’s alleged machinations in his ears. Salome had long resented Mariamne, who, when they argued, “took great freedoms, and reproached the rest [of Herod's relatives] for the meanness of their birth.”
When Herod had to leave Judea again, he left his mother-in-law and wife in the fortress of Alexandrium for their security, but the two women thought it was “a garrison for their imprisonment.” By now, Mariamne didn’t trust her husband and expressed it. In fact, “this much troubled him, to see that this surprising hatred of his wife to him was not concealed, but open; and he took this so ill, and yet was so unable to bear it,” so Herod began a love-hate relationship with her.
Now was the time that Herod’s mother and sister turned him against the imperious, but innocent, Mariamne. It didn’t help that she refused to have sex with him and was angry at him for the deaths of a number of her Hasmonean relatives. Salome even concocted a love potion she claimed was from Mariamne, leading Herod to suspect his wife was trying to poison him. The king brought his wife to trial, having “laid an elaborate accusation against her for this love-potion and composition.” Herod tried to commute her death sentence to exile, but Salome - and even Alexandra - emphasized Mariamne's alleged treachery. Thus, Mariamne was killed.
Herod still remained infatuated with her memory, however, so much so that it impaired his ability to govern. Josephus notes that “he therefore laid aside the administration of public affairs, and was so far conquered by his passion, that he would order his servants to call for Mariamne, as if she were still alive, and could still hear them.” Eventually, he ended up putting a bunch more people to death, including his sons by Mariamne.
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