Berenike Phernophoros and Other Virgin Queens in Early-Ptolemaic Egypt

Abstract

Summary The main function of Hellenistic queenship is increasingly understood as contributing to the definition of the basileus. The early Ptolemies produced the most peculiar version of the ‘sister queen’, known throughout the Near East as an ideological construct, but taken literally in Egypt from the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphos (285/282–246) and Arsinoe II Philadelphos (278/275–270), the ‘Sibling-Lovers’. The most famous example of a ‘virgin queen’ is Berenike, the daughter of Ptolemy III Euergetes and Berenike II, best known from the Kanopos Decree, which regulated her posthumous cult (238). Often understood as a merely honorary title for some or potentially all princesses in Alexandria, the basilissa title of unmarried girls has found little scholarly attention so far. Altogether, there are surprisingly few royal daughters for whom we have clear evidence: besides the aforesaid Berenike, her sister Arsinoe III (died 204) and previously Berenike (later known as Phernophoros, died 246), the daughter of the Philadelphoi. Claims that Arsinoe II or her sister Philotera had enjoyed the same status at the court of Ptolemy I Soter (323–282) cannot be substantiated, so that their basilissa titles should be explained by marriage with a king. The phenomenon of virgin queenship was thus of limited duration. It is best interpreted as a ramification of an emphatically endogamous royal dynasty: Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III pledged their most distinguished daughter to the future successor even before he had been chosen from among his brothers.