Ptolemy XII: Cleopatra's father from hell

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So how had it come to this? How did Egypt, with all its material riches and even richer cultural heritage, arrive at a point where it was subsumed into the Roman empire? One answer to these questions lies in the legacy of Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, a man who sought to shore up his position by funnelling funds to Rome’s politicians, but in so doing bankrupted his country and alienated his own elite.

Ptolemy is not a man who comes down through the years with much credit. The Greek geographer, philosopher and historian Strabo, writing in Geographica, dismissed Ptolemy as one of the worst of the dozen Egyptian rulers to bear this name. Not only did Ptolemy descend from a line “corrupted by luxurious living” but he was a man of “general licentiousness”.

A telling detail is that Ptolemy’s nickname, ‘Auletes’, literally meant ‘flute player’ and reflected his eccentric habit of joining the musicians in Dionysian revels. The philosopher and lawyer Cicero was equally damning in his pithy assessment, dismissing Ptolemy as a man lacking “any royal disposition”.

Parlous position

So that’s it then. Case closed. Ptolemy XII was a terrible ruler whose daughter never stood a chance. And yet his hapless reign invites a further question. Given the parlous position of his kingdom when he assumed power, did he stand any better chance of consolidating his rule than his famous offspring?

To answer this question more fully, we first need to jump back three centuries to the death of Alexander the Great in June 323 BC. Over the preceding decade, Alexander had constructed the greatest empire the world had yet seen, one that took in swathes of south-east Europe, western Asia and north Africa. The great empire-builder’s sudden demise was an Earth-shattering event, and it triggered four decades of war as his generals fought one another for control of his vast territories.

Egypt, as one of the jewels in Alexander’s crown, found itself sucked into the spiral of conflict – and, when the dust finally settled, one man was left standing: a Macedonian Greek called Ptolemy Lagus. He had already earned himself a place in history by intercepting Alexander’s funerary cortège as it made its way across the Syrian desert and ordering his burial in the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. Then, in 305/304 BC, he made history once again by having himself crowned king of Egypt.

Ptolemy’s coronation – as Ptolemy I Soter (the Saviour) – was a true turning point in the story of Egypt, for he was the founder of the ancient kingdom’s last dynasty, one that would endure until Cleopatra’s suicide 275 years later.

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The Ptolemaic Dynasty, as this royal house is known, differed from anything that had before ruled Egypt. For a start, its rulers were Greek, skilfully blending their Hellenistic cultural heritage with the traditions and iconography of their Egyptian predecessors (while adopting the pharaohs’ alleged habit of marrying their sisters). Yet there was another factor that distinguished the Ptolemaic era from what had gone before: and that was that its leaders would have to contend with the inexorable rise of Rome.

The Ptolemies had the misfortune to rule in a period when the Roman Republic was slowly but surely establishing itself as the coming force in the Mediterranean world. At first, this was nothing more than a background distraction, and the early Ptolemies were able to go about their business (which often involved vicious infighting between rival claimants to the throne) relatively unhindered. However, as time advanced – and by the dawn of the first century BC in particular – Rome was beginning to exert an uncomfortable squeeze on its neighbour south of the Mediterranean.

This became all too evident during a brutal civil war between two scions of the dynasty – Ptolemy IX and his younger brother Ptolemy X – in the early 80s BC. As that conflict raged, Ptolemy X offended the people of Alexandria so deeply that they expelled him from the country.

In a bid to regain his throne, Ptolemy X took out a large loan from the Roman Republic and, as collateral, left Egypt to the Roman state if he was to die without an heir. Fortunately, he had a son and so the kingdom retained its independence.

Yet the die of Roman meddling in Egyptian affairs had well and truly been cast. Things did not get any better under Ptolemy X’s son and heir, Ptolemy XI. This latest ruler married his cousin, stepmother and possible half-sister, Berenice III – and then murdered her just 19 days later. Unfortunately for Ptolemy XI, Berenice was highly popular with the people of Alexandria – and, in their rage at his crimes, they lynched him.

And so, when Ptolemy XII assumed the throne in 80 BC, he found himself in possession of a weak and chaotic kingdom – one that was increasingly beholden to the powerbrokers in Rome. In that respect, you could say he was dealt a bad hand. It’s just that – in the eyes of the likes of Cicero and Strabo – he played that hand very badly indeed.

Roman meddling

In the early years of Ptolemy XII’s reign, it seems Rome was satisfied with the continuation of Ptolemaic rule. The Roman senate certainly did not press the claim to Egypt they had because of Ptolemy X’s unwise will.

Things began to change in 65 BC, when Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of the most powerful men in Rome, proposed the annexation of Egypt as a Roman province. Luckily for Ptolemy XII, the Roman senate rejected the idea. The fact the proposal was made at all, however, illustrates the dangers to Egyptian independence at a time when Roman politicians were increasingly seeing the annexation of Egypt as a good opportunity for career advancement.

Ptolemy XII was forced to take immediate action to keep his throne and protect the sovereignty of Egypt. War with the powerful Roman Republic was not an option, so he instead embarked on a campaign of bribery. The goal of this campaign was for Ptolemy XII to be recognised as king by Rome – and, pursuing this aim, he bribed Roman officials from different political parties. Ptolemy XII tried to establish a particularly strong relationship with the leading general and statesman Pompey. The Egyptian king even went as far as sending Pompey a heavy gold crown.

Bribing the Roman elite did not come cheap and Ptolemy XII had to raise taxes, which resulted in resistance within Egypt. The hostility of the Egyptian population to their king was so great that Ptolemy was forced to reach out to Pompey in 63 BC and request his assistance in putting down a rebellion within Egypt. Despite the gradually worsening situation in Egypt, Ptolemy XII kept sending equipment to the army of Pompey, although the Roman general refused to help with the rebellion in return. This in turn left Ptolemy XII with no other choice but to borrow even more money from Roman lenders, chief among them the powerful banker Gaius Rabirius Postumus.

The political situation in Egypt only kept worsening as heavy taxation was met with strikes. It was clear that Ptolemy XII had to do something – and quickly. So, the Egyptian ruler changed ‘favourites’ and, instead of fixing his primary hopes on Pompey, he promised the exorbitant sum of 6,000 talents (roughly the entire annual revenue of Egypt) to both Pompey and a man with whom the kingdom of Egypt would become all too familiar in the coming decades: Julius Caesar.

In the short term at least, this turned out to be the right move. In 59 BC, during his first consulship, Caesar ensured the Roman senate confirmed Ptolemy XII as Egypt’s king.

Bribes and exile

But Ptolemy’s troubles were far from over. Rome’s recognition did little to aid the monarch in dealing with the strained political situation within his own domain. While the Romans did not annex Egypt, they did seize Cyprus. As monarch of the island, Ptolemy XII’s dishonoured half-brother, also called Ptolemy, killed himself with poison.

The Alexandrian elite, who had placed the half-brother on the Cypriot throne in the first place, viewed the annexation as a massive failure by Ptolemy XII. With the country left penniless by the vast bribes paid to Rome, the Egyptian court forced their monarch to leave Egypt in 58 BC. Ptolemy XII headed for Rome and, at some point in 57 BC, he was received at Pompey’s villa in the Alban hills. The disgraced Egyptian king entered exile in the company of his daughter, 11-year-old Cleopatra VII.

Ptolemy XII’s dreams of being the powerful leader of a dynamic independent Egypt were in disarray. And things got even worse when, in his absence, his other daughter, Berenice IV, took control of the throne with her mother, Cleopatra VI. This joint reign did not last long as Cleopatra VI died before the end of 57 BC. Fearing that the Romans would contest the new Egyptian ruler, Berenice IV was encouraged to marry. In the spring of 56 BC, she wed a nobleman named Archelaos.

Although Ptolemy XII had found an ally in his host, Pompey, while in Rome, the possible reinstatement of the Egyptian king had become a complicated political matter. The issue was to be decided on whether the Roman senate believed Ptolemy could pay his debts to Roman creditors.

Berenice IV and Archelaos decided not to stand by idly while this was debated, but instead sent an embassy comprised of a hundred men headed by the Alexandrian philosopher Dion. This embassy was to argue to the Roman senate that Berenice and Archelaos were the rightful rulers of Egypt and, moreover, that Ptolemy XII was not able to repay his loans. It was now that Ptolemy showed his true colours and sent hired assassins to kill the embassy en route to Rome.

Most died in the Roman port city of Puteoli, while those who managed to make it to the imperial capital were murdered there instead. The philosopher Dion was poisoned in his host’s home. A senate investigation into these murders was planned, but as Ptolemy XII had received money from Roman bankers in 57 BC, and an investigation represented a huge risk to recovering these loans, it never occurred. The matter was hushed up as much as possible.

The final battle

The final resolution of the ‘Egyptian question’ came in 55 BC, when Ptolemy issued yet another series of bribes to his Roman backers. These resulted in Aulus Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, throwing his weight behind Ptolemy’s campaign to win back the Egyptian throne. After marching through Palestine, Ptolemy’s Roman-backed army headed for Alexandria.

In front of the city, the forces of Berenice IV and Archelaos were routed. Mark Antony, who oversaw the Roman cavalry, rescued the body of Archelaos after he was killed in the battle, thus ensuring him a proper royal burial. Cleopatra VII, then 14 years old, travelled into Egypt with the Roman force, and Mark Antony would later say this was when he fell in love with her.

Back on the Egyptian throne, Ptolemy XII wasted little time in consolidating his power and had Berenice IV and many of her sup- porters murdered. Desperate to pay his debts, he placed one of his most prominent Roman supporters, the banker Rabirius Postumus, in charge of the finances of Egypt.

The Roman’s attempts to recover the money that Ptolemy had borrowed were so aggressive that the Egyptian king had to place him under special protection to shield him from angry Alexandrians. Rabirius Postumus was then allowed to escape from Egypt back to Rome.

Who knows where Ptolemy XII might have turned next for financial help, but he was nearing the end of his life and seems at least to have tried to prepare his country for the future. At some point during 52 BC, he made his daughter and oldest surviving child, Cleopatra VII, co-regent. He also made a will stipulating that, in keeping with tradition, she was to rule with her eldest brother, Ptolemy XIII, by her side. The Egyptian king tasked Rome with making sure the terms of his will were carried out.

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At the start of 51 BC, Ptolemy XII died. His bribes had managed to secure Egypt’s autonomy, but the economy of the country was shattered, the island of Cyprus was lost and Rome now exerted enormous influence over Egypt. His daughter inherited a country that was bankrupt and heavily dependent on the whims of Roman generals and politicians. And it was Cleopatra’s continued involvement with Rome that would eventually be her undoing.

Dr Diana T Nikolova is the collections access officer at the Garstang Museum of Archaeology, part of the University of Liverpool.

This article was first published in the Christmas 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine