Ptolemy IV married his full-sister Arsinoe III. Ptolemy IV married his full-sister Arsinoe III (pictured). But biologically, he was the son of Arsinoe I. That is why King Ptolemy III always appears as Arsinoe II’s son. And Arsinoe II adopted her husband’s children, including Ptolemy III. They simply did not have surviving sisters.īack to the family tree, siblings Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II were now married. In the 300 years that the Ptolemies ruled Egypt, only two other kings did not marry their close relatives: Ptolemy III and Ptolemy V. Most of his descendants followed his example and married their sisters. The Greeks that lived in Egypt were scandalized. So, cleverly, Ptolemy II waited until his kingly father died, and then married his sister Arsinoe II, who apparently, he was in love with. Now, this marrying-your-full-sister-thing was a tradition of the old, native pharaohs of Egypt. And then, he married his full-sister Arsinoe II. Ptolemy and Arsinoe had several children, including the future Egyptian king Ptolemy III.
Ptolemy II first married Arsinoe I (family tree below).Īrsinoe, like Ptolemy II himself, was the daughter of one of Alexander’s generals-turned-kings: Lysimachus. Ptolemy II repudiated his first wife and married his full-sister Arsinoe II (pictured). This is the couple that founded the Ptolemaic dynasty. And he married Berenice I, a Macedonian noblewoman (her family tree is below). Ptolemy’s name was ‘Ptolemy son of Lagus.’ That is how the sources refer to him, and that is the name he used while his friend Alexander was alive.Īfter becoming pharaoh, Ptolemy took the name of Ptolemy I Soter. Lagus was his official father and the husband of his mother Arsinoe. That would have also made him the descendant of a long line of Macedonian kings.īut that is probably not true. So Ptolemy was claiming to be Alexander the Great‘s half-brother. To give his family more glamour, he circulated the gossip that he was the illegitimate son of King Philip II of Macedon. So Ptolemy, now pharaoh of Egypt, had no royal blood. And his parents, too, were Macedonian nobles: Lagus and Arsinoe. There were 9 generations between Ptolemy and the last Ptolemaic queen, Cleopatra VII. His descendants ruled the country for the next 300 years. Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. In the partition, he grabbed Egypt and became its pharaoh. There were 9 generations between him and Cleopatra.