The Ancients - Cleopatra's Daughter

Episode Date: February 12, 2023

Cleopatra VII is one of the most famous individuals from the ancient world. The final Queen of Ancient Egypt, and a woman who used her position to directly influence Roman politics and society, there's more to her than Shakespeare plays would suggest. And while Cleopatra's story ended in tragedy, what about her children who survived? Cleopatra Selene, named after her mother, is a story lost to history - the true, final ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty, what do we know about her today?In this episode Tristan is joined by Dr Jane Draycott from the University of Glasgow, to learn about the astonishing life of this other Cleopatra. Cleopatra Selene II grew up during the last days of Ancient Egypt, and in Rome during the first years of its new Empire. She would go on to rule as Queen of Mauretania, becoming one of the most important women of the Augustan age. So what can we learn from Cleopatra Selene, and is it time she's recognised as a giant of the ancient world?The Senior Producer was Elena GuthrieThe Assistant Producer was Annie ColoeEdited by Aidan LonerganFor more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, well, amongst the most famous names from the whole of ancient history must be Cleopatra. Cleopatra VII, the queen, the pharaoh, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt before Augustus, before the Romans completely annexed it, took it over.

But Cleopatra, she wasn't the last Ptolemaic ruler full stop, no, because she was survived amongst her children by a daughter, Cleopatra Selene. It's her story that we'll be telling today. A remarkable tale where she ventured from growing up in Egypt in the last years of her mother's reign to travelling west to modern-day Morocco, to modern-day Algeria, where she married a king, the client's king of Rome, the king of Mauritania, Juba II. There she lived for many, many years. She helped establish an Alexandria of the West. She helped ensure that the Ptolemaic line, which originated with one of the generals of Alexander the Great, well, Cleopatra Selene ensured that this prestigious, quite murderous family endured

deep into the imperial Roman period. I'm a big fan of Hellenistic history, so I'm so glad that in today's episode we're focusing, we're giving a spotlight to this incredible figure's story, Cleopatra Selene, who is so often overshadowed by her famous mother. And in today's episode, to tell this story, I was delighted to interview Dr. Jane Dracott from the University of Glasgow. Jane is Cleopatra Cellini's 21st century biographer. She knows her story inside out, and it was a pleasure to interview her all about this queen.

So without further ado, to talk all about Cleopatra Selene, the famous Cleopatra's daughter, here's Jane. Jane, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome indeed. I'm really excited about this topic because Hellenistic history, always a plus, and this period of Hellenistic history especially, because it's the common belief that the Ptolemaic dynasty, well, it ended with the death of the famous Cleopatra in 30 BC, but that's not exactly true, is it? It's not, no.

Who is this figure? Why is it not exactly the case that it ends in 30 BC? Well, we can say that certainly the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt ended in 30 BCE with the death of Cleopatra VII and her son Caesarian, the son of her and Julius Caesar. son Caesarian, the son of her and Julius Caesar. But what is less well known is that Cleopatra actually had three more children with Marcus Antonius. And these three children did not die like Caesarian in 30 BCE. They were taken to Rome by Octavian, who would become Augustus, taken to Rome by Octavian, who would become Augustus, and they were raised in his household. Now, there are three of these children, two boys, a girl. So Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, they were fraternal twins. And then their younger brother, Ptolemy Philadelphos. And Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphos do seem to have died quite young, or at least they never did anything of historical significance that anyone felt like writing about, which I think

is unlikely considering their parentage and their position. But let us assume that they died young. That leaves us with Cleopatra Selene, so the only daughter of Cleopatra. And she lived in Rome for a time in the household of Octavian. Then she married a young man called Juba, also known as Gaius Julius Juba. He was the son of Juba of Numidia, a king that had chosen the wrong side in the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. He likewise had grown up in Rome. But the pair of them, once married, were sent off by Augustus to rule the Roman client kingdom of Mauritania in Africa. And so we see a bit more of the Ptolemaic dynasty or a second Ptolemaic dynasty, a new Ptolemaic dynasty, however you want to think about it. But we see the daughter of Cleopatra going off and continuing the Ptolemaic dynasty in Africa, first with herself, then with her son

Ptolemy, who becomes king of Mauritania after Juba and Cleopatra are dead. And well, Ptolemy himself is executed by Caligula some years later. And so again, possibly we can say the Ptolemaic dynasty comes to an end, a definite end this time, except it maybe doesn't because he had children himself, at least one daughter, and we can follow her a little bit longer in history. Then it gets a little bit murky but it is possible there's a tiny possibility that we can trace her line of descent all the way through to julia domna who would marry the emperor severus and have children with him and also a little bit later than that the queen of palmyra as Azanobia. So there are various stopping points

that you could say, this is when the Ptolemaic dynasty really finishes. Well, I love that Ptolemaic legacy. Let's delve into the detail of this particular figure, Cleopatra Selene now. What do we know about her early life? When is she born? She's born in around 40 BCE, the latter part of that year, because Antony and Cleopatra very famously meet at Tarsus. Antony summons Cleopatra to see him. He is the Trenweir with control of the eastern part of the ancient Mediterranean. And so Cleopatra VII, as a Roman client queen, allied queen. He summons her to him. He wants an explanation for why she apparently supported Brutus and Cassius in the civil war. He wants to take advantage of the natural resources of her kingdom to prepare for his Parthian campaign. And so he summons her to see him.

She goes, but she goes with the intention of having the uphand and getting what she wants out of this interaction. And she very much succeeds. They have this very famous encounter. She sails her fabulous royal barge up the river, entrances Antony with her wealth, with her power, with her prestige, with her sense of drama, and with her own personal charisma, according to Plutarch. So Anthony and Cleopatra have what is in retrospect, this very historically significant meeting, although of course, at the time, it was fairly regular, fairly routine. It's only later, with hindsight, that it becomes this very dramatic meeting of West and East and Rome and Egypt, a sort of redo of the Trojan War in a way. Cleopatra is often compared to Helen of Troy for this kind of reason. But anyway, they have this meeting,

they wine and dine each other. Cleopatra invites Antony back to Egypt to spend some time, have some fun. He does. He spends a couple of months in Egypt, enjoying himself, eventually leaves. When he goes, he leaves Cleopatra pregnant and that pregnancy results in the fraternal twins, Alexander Helios, a boy, Cleopatra Selene, a girl. And then they are brought up by Cleopatra in Alexandria, in Egypt, as a prince and princess of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Do we see Cleopatra Selene involved alongside her parents in any big Alexandrian events in the 30s BC when she's just a child? Well, that's a good question because ancient writers really aren't that interested in children.

The only time they discuss children is if something significant happened in their childhood, which impacts upon them as an adult. So as far as Cleopatra Selene's day-to-day childhood is concerned, we don't really know very much about it at all. We can surmise that growing up in Alexandria as a princess, she would have been incredibly well-educated, making use of the scholars in the museum and the library, making use of the example set by her mother and the neighbouring queens of African kingdoms. But as far as what she did of significance, the main thing we really should think about are the donations of Alexandria. And these happened in searchable BCE. And it was an occasion where Antony, having attempted his path in campaign and not been

very successful, but the best thing he managed was to conquer and annex the kingdom of Armenia, he has what is, at least as far as his detractors in Rome are concerned, he tries to have a Roman military triumph in Alexandria. And this is a terrible thing to do because you should have your Roman military triumph in Rome, not anywhere else. And not only does he do that, but as part of this sort of grand occasion, he bestows a lot of territory on Cleopatra and on her children. And so we have different accounts of the donations of Alexandria from Plutarch, from Cassius Dio, other references in ancient literature. But what seems to happen here is that he devolves onto each of Cleopatra's children certain territories, and Cleopatra

Selene gets Crete and the Sarinaica. And the reason that she gets these territories, It suggests that the plan was Cleopatra at this time, Cleopatra VII, was ruling Egypt in tandem with her eldest son, Caesarian. In reality, Cleopatra was doing the ruling. Caesarian up to that point had been a child. He was gradually becoming an adult. So in 34 BCE, an adult. So in 34 BCE, he was around 12 or so. And so over the next few years, there are signs in the archaeological record of him actually exerting himself as pharaoh, as king, because, of course, a king is meant to be superior to a queen. So Cleopatra was ruling in tandem with Caesarian, but she was his mother, he was her son. They couldn't really marry and have children of their own. The Ptolemaic dynasty did practice incest. They did tend to go for brother-sister marriage, but mother-son marriage, probably not really practical for the reasons that

it wouldn't necessarily produce line of descent. So if we're thinking brother-sister marriage is what the Ptolemies like to do in order to retain the power and influence very close to the core family, in order to imitate the gods, well, Caesarian only has one sister. And there aren't any other Hellenistic princesses out there because all of the other Hellenistic kingdoms have collapsed. They have been conquered, their territories have been annexed, their royal families have been scattered. So it looks like the plan was for Caesarian and Cleopatra Selene to marry and rule Egypt together.

And since she had been given Crete and the Cyrenaica, those had been Ptolemaic territories. So they would now be brought back under the sphere of Egypt. So this is the main important thing in Cleopatra Selene's childhood, the fact that she is declared a queen of these territories, the fact that it's probable that her future would have been to be queen of Egypt after her mother. And so after that, the next important thing really that we know about that happens to her is the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, and the following year, the conquest and annexation of Egypt and the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit,

I'm dusting down my magnifying glass to investigate some of history's most notorious murders and brutal crimes. Was it a quarrel? Or was the brilliant playwright Christopher Marlowe actually murdered in that Deptford Inn? Was Amy Dudley, wife of Elizabeth I's favourite Robert, pushed down a flight of stairs to her death? Were the Guise, that great French family, actually bloodthirsty murderers who secured their power through ruthlessness and violence? And what's the truth about the Hungarian noblewoman who allegedly killed hundreds of young women? Join me, but not on an empty stomach,

for not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. who allegedly killed hundreds of young women. Join me, but not on an empty stomach, for not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So, Jane, take it away. What happens to Cleopatra Cellini, who seems destined for such big things only a few years earlier what happens to her when the romans come for egypt after the defeat of anthony cleopatra at the battle of actium cleopatra was very clearly trying to safeguard, not necessarily herself, maybe herself, but certainly her children. She was trying to retain the kingdom of Egypt as an autonomous kingdom for her children. And so she was communicating with Octavian with this in mind. She had essentially given Antony

up as a lost cause. She had realised that he was no longer someone that could help her. He was gradually losing his power, his influence. He had become public enemy number one in Rome. So he was no longer a good ally for her, even though he was the father to three of her children. So she was going behind his back, trying to get rid of him and some semblance of autonomy for herself and her children. But she eventually realised that she, like Antony, was a lost cause and Octavian was probably not going to be happy with retaining her as Queen of Egypt. She also didn't want to be a prisoner or a private citizen. She certainly didn't want to be displayed in triumph in Rome. So she had to look to the future of her dynasty, the future of her children, and try and safeguard things for them.

And Octavian too, he had a similar sort of attitude. Because although by conquering Egypt, removing Antony and Cleopatra, and Caesarian as well, because he has caesarean murdered because as he famously was told by a friend of his there can only be one son of caesar two sons of caesar is too many so he has caesarean removed as well that leaves him with the three young children alexander helios cleopatra salini they are around 10 at this point totally phil is around six. So they are children. They are not intrinsically threatening at this point in time because they're just too young to do anything to him,

to be in any way independent. So as long as he can keep control of them and stop anybody else getting them and exerting influence over them, he can keep them under his thumb. He can, with them in his possession nobody else really can attempt to gain possession of egypt because he not only can he say well i conquered and acquired this territory it's mine for rome he also he can say i have the children so if you want

to say that egypt doesn't belong to me e Egypt doesn't belong to Rome, Egypt belongs to the heirs of Cleopatra, well, I've got them too. So realistically, nobody can lay claim to Egypt as long as the children are alive and as long as they are in Octavian's possession. So apparently, according to Suetonius, he raised them as if they were his own kin. And in a manner of speaking, they were because his sister Octavia had been married to Antony. She had two children by Antony who were roughly the same ages as Alexander Helios and Cleopatra and Ptolemy from the Delphos. And Antony was sort of going back and forth between Cleopatra and Octavia for a time. So Octavian's nieces were the half-sisters of Cleopatra's children. So they were, in a manner of speaking, part of his

extended family. And so he raised them in his household. He, we can assume, raised them to have a certain Roman outlook. They would have been educated in the Roman way. They would have been set the Roman example by Octavia, by her daughters, by Octavian's wife, Livia, Octavian's daughter, Julia. So Cleopatra Sphaini, having been brought up as an Egyptian princess, she would then have learned how to be a different type of woman, how to be a Roman matron instead. a different type of woman, how to be a Roman matron instead. Such an interesting clash of ideas, especially if Cleopatra's mother thought herself as Isis, a god on earth, to then be this sort of Roman matron figure. But having had that re-education almost, what happens to Cleopatra Selene next? You hinted at it right at the start. How does

she end up meeting and being betrothed to this figure called Juba? Well, Juba is in a very similar situation. He lost his father through Julius Caesar and Ptolemy's civil war. He was claimed as a prize by Julius Caesar. He was taken back to Rome, exhibited in Caesar's quadruple triumph instead of his father because his father was dead. And he was raised in Caesar's quadruple triumph instead of his father because his father was dead. And he was raised in Caesar's household and educated as a Roman. He became a very, very gifted scholar and writer and explorer. So he was a very good example of what happens to foreign non-Roman children if they are brought to Rome and Romanized. And this is something that, particularly during the Augustan Principate, but also later in history as well, this is something

that starts to happen, that client kings and people adjacent to the Roman Empire, they send their children to Rome to learn how to be Roman, how Rome works, so that they can then later when they come back and step into their positions as prince or king in their kingdoms, they can have good relations with Rome and that can ensure the survival of their kingdoms. So that's from the kingdom's perspective. And then from the Roman perspective, it's a good idea too, because that means they get sympathetic Roman minded people in these positions of influence around Rome. So Juba had been raised in Rome, been educated the Roman way, done military service with Augustus in Spain, along with the future Emperor Tiberius. And so he had learned

how to be the epitome of young Roman manhood. But of course, his kingdom, Numidia, no longer existed. It had been turned into the Roman province of Africa. So there wasn't really anywhere for him to go back to. So he was just in Octavian's household, being a young Roman, doing the kinds of things that young Roman men do. And of course, Cleopatra Selene is in Octavian's household as well. And there's a little bit of an age gap between them because of course, Cleopatra Selene is in Octavian's household as well. And there's a little bit of an age gap between them, because of course, he's been there for much longer than she has. They did, however, they had a lot in common. And so you can sort of envisage how it might have worked that he would have been held up to her and initially her brothers, as an example, you know,

they could see their future being. So if you behave, and if you take advantage of everything that Rome has to offer you, you can be like Juba. And Juba's great in many ways. He's very highly thought of, of Augustus, of the imperial family, of other people, educated people around the ancient Mediterranean. So people like Strabo, like Pliny, et cetera, they all had good things to say about Juba and his kingship and his scholarship and his geographical exploration. So very possibly they had a good relationship as children, as teenagers, and apparently Octavia served as matchmaker between them. But it also just made

practical sense because did Augustus want Cleopatra Cellini falling under the influence of someone else? Even once she was older, once she was a woman, who would she marry? Who could he marry her to that was safe, that wouldn't be potentially a threat to him, to his heirs, to Rome more broadly. Well, someone who had already proven themselves and was part of the family, Tuba. So it made sense for the pair of them to get together, both North African royal exiles who had had to learn to be Roman and who needed to be kept very much under the thumb to keep them behaving. But it also solved the problem of what to do with this huge chunk of territory in the sort of Northwest of Africa, which had been separate kingdoms.

But like Numidia and Juba's father's kingdom, the two kingdoms in Northwest Africa, their kings had chosen the wrong side in the civil war, this time the civil war between Octavian and Antony. So both of those kings had died, these kingdoms were vacant, but they're also very strategically important territory because they're so close to the province of Hispania that Octavian had spent so much time attempting to pacify, gradually finally had pacified. And so it made sense to bring those under the sphere of Rome, but rather than making them provinces, they could be a kingdom, they could be a client kingdom ruled by Juba and Cleopatra Salini. And that solved the problem of what to do with Juba

and Cleopatra Salini, not just keep them in Rome doing not very much, but make them useful, make them pacify this area as they had the North African heritage that potentially would prove attractive to the peoples of this region. Now, that's not to say it did, because Juba seems to have spent quite a lot of time over the next few decades trying to impose Roman military control over the indigenous peoples of this region. But that was the idea. Very much the idea, it seems. And so when Cleopatra, Selene and Juba arrive, they've established themselves in Mauritania, this huge kingdom of Morocco and Algeria today. I mean, do we know anything about how they went about trying to modernize their kingdom? Do we know any of the steps that they took?

It's a real shame that when it comes to the Roman client kingdom of Mauritania, we don't have a Mauritanian counterpart to Josephus, who was writing about the kingdom of Judea and gives us lots of information about all the herods that ruled that kingdom and the things that they did and the things that they built and so on and so forth as far as mauritania is concerned the kingdom itself only really existed for about 65 years so quite a small window to reigns jubileum patricidini then their son ptolemy afterwards and, we can infer that whatever they were doing, it was successful because the kingdom doesn't make it into the Roman historical records because there's no reason for it to be mentioned in the Roman historical records until Ptolemy comes

at the hands of Caligula. So clearly whatever they were doing, it was working. So we have to look at the archaeological record for some indications of what it was that they were doing. So we know, firstly, that they had two capital cities. One was based on the Mediterranean coast at a place called Isle that was a pre-existing city. The other, Vellubilis, was in the south of the kingdom. And it seems that they based themselves in Isle, which makes sense because it's the one that gives them the easiest access to the ancient Mediterranean, to the Roman Empire. They renamed that city Caesarea to honor Octavian, who subsequently becomes Augustus. and they do seem to have undertaken a rather dramatic building program to turn this city into a showcase city so it somewhat topographically

resembles Alexandria it's a city on the coast it's got a little island so they build a lighthouse on the island that looks like the Pharos they build build themselves a palace, Greco-Roman style buildings that every sort of civilized, sophisticated urban city should have. So theater for theatrical performances, an amphitheater for games. They have a forum for business, you know, financial and legal. They have temples and sacred groves in the Roman style. Some of these are Roman. They honor Augustus and the imperial family. Some of them are Egyptian, and they are honoring Cleopatra

Selene's heritage. And that is something that we also see in the material culture of the kingdom. We see that they issue coinage both separately and together. So Cleopatra Selene has coinage that is just as valid and valuable as Juba's coinage. And Juba presents himself in the standard way, Rex, Juba in Latin, a sort of idealized portrait head of himself. Cleopatra Selene's coinage is much more interesting and potentially subversive. So on her coinage, she has her lettering in Greek, and she has her name, Cleopatra. Sometimes it's Queen Cleopatra, sometimes it's Cleopatra's daughter of Queen Cleopatra, but she always has her lettering in Greek. And she has portraits of herself and she presents herself

very similar to her mother, similar hairstyle, similar diadem. But she also uses a lot of Egyptian motifs as well. The goddess Isis, crocodiles, the ibis, other sorts of accoutrements, other sorts of accoutrements, the crescent moon that sort of reminds people of her name. So what we can infer from this, and as well that the general presence of Egyptian things in the Kingdom of Mauritania, Egyptian temples, Egyptian religion, Egyptian statuary, Egyptian animals, is that a concerted effort is being made by Juba and Cleopatra Cellini to reference her heritage, her lineage. And that's because she was much more prestigious than Juba. She had her Egyptian and Macedonian heritage going all the way back to Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. She had, however, also Roman heritage. Her father was Antony and his

family was a very ancient Roman family. She was also distantly related to Julius Caesar through Antony's mother. And of course, she was related more recently to Octavian through his sister and his nieces. So she was the one who was bringing with her all of the cloud, the Greek, the Macedonian, the Roman, and the Egyptian cloud, whereas Juba only really had his Numidian cloud, which paled in comparison, really. But the pair of them together were able to be this quite formidable power couple, I suppose you could say. They were able to supplement each other. Juba had the sort of the military expertise.

Cleopatra Cellini brought other things to their relationship. And so together they do seem to have ruled Mauritania very competently. As you say, this ancient power couple that are often, well, so often overlooked, aren't they? And I mean, I could pick up on so many things there, so many different strands we could go down now. But I think what I find really cool there was what you said with Io. It's almost as if with the renaming it to Caesarea, the bringing of Egyptian culture, Ptolemaic influences there. It's almost as if they, as you say, they create this Alexandria of the West. Absolutely. they say they create this alexandria of the west absolutely and the interesting thing about this is

that we don't have any references to juba having been to alexandria at this point in his life so it's possible that he went to alexandria with octavian and the roman forces in 30 bce he would have been quite young for military service at that point, but it is possible, but it's not mentioned anywhere specifically that he did. So we can perhaps think, well, at this point in time then, the only person out of the two of them who has been to Alexandria is Cleopatra Selene. She is the only one of the two of them who knows what Alexandria looks like and what a cosmopolitan, sophisticated, multicultural, Hellenistic city looks like. And so she's the one then that is in the position to say, well, we're rebuilding the city. We're going to rebuild it as this great Hellenistic city. It needs to have this, this, this, and this. It

needs to look this way. We need to have these architects and artisans doing this stuff. And you also see in Juba's writings, when he talks about Egyptian things, he talks about them in a very particular way. Where's he got this information from? How does he know these particular anecdotes about Cleopatra? Well, presumably from someone who was there at the time and who was Cleopatra's daughter and had lived through these events. So although we don't have explicit references to Cleopatra Salini, because, well, generally in Roman literature, you don't have explicit references to women unless they're doing something wrong. If women are doing things the way that Roman men want them to do things, they don't get mentioned at all. So I think it's entirely

possible that Cleopatra Selene, rather than failing loudly like her mother was succeeding quietly, she had learned from Octavia, she had learned from Livia, that if you wanted to get things done as a Roman woman, the best way to do it was to do it in a sort of subtle way and not be sort of showy and not be too aggressive and assertive. And yes, we can see her perhaps doing that very well and getting things done in the way that she wanted. And well, Juba, having grown up in the household of Octavian, having seen Octavia and Livia as examples himself as what Roman women could be, the influence they could wield on the men in their lives who were the ones who had the official positions and the official power. Presumably, he was more diverse to having an accomplished woman working in tandem with him to achieve his goals. Because we can sort of envisage them having similar sorts of goals in this joint project that they were embarking upon.

She sounds this absolutely extraordinary figure. i you're completely right there because leading on to the next point the name of their child it's not juba the third it's ptolemy isn't it and then once again is that another good piece of evidence showing the the prestige the importance of cleopatra selene in this power couple in mauritania i would say so i mean we often today dismiss the ptolemaic dynasty as a bit of a joke because we know the end of the story, really. And the evidence we have for them comes predominantly from the Romans, from Roman writing. So the Romans didn't like the Ptolemaic dynasty in simplistic terms because they were royalty. The Romans don't like royalty. They were Macedonian,

but at the same time, they were Egyptian as well. The Romans don't like the Egyptians. They don't like the East for a variety of sort of very stereotypical xenophobic reasons. So the Romans don't have a very high opinion of the Ptolemaic dynasty. And granted, as time went on, as tends to be the case generally with royal dynasties, while the founders and the first few rulers are very dynamic, powerful, very accomplished people, their descendants tend to be less so. They don't have to be quite so dynamic and powerful and accomplished because they're given their power. They inherit their power rather than having to carve it out themselves. And so gradually the Ptolemaic dynasty lost its power. Its kings were less gifted in many respects. And they were also having to deal with a changing world,

the gradual decline of the Hellenistic world in favor of the Roman world. So the kings had far less power and influence, fewer resources available to them. So the Ptolemaic dynasty does become a bit of a joke, a bit of a punchline as far as the Roman writers are concerned. And Juba had the same thing as being a North African royal exile who had lost his kingdom. So they know that they're starting off from a position of weakness. But if they want to establish themselves and their dynasty, they need to work hard to do it. And so it is interesting that they choose the name Ptolemy for their son, because as I said, at this time, the Ptolemaic dynasty is not really very well thought of at all. But it's also perhaps an indication of their optimism that they can

perhaps rehabilitate that dynasty. They can look back to the very beginning of the dynasty, Ptolemy I, Ptolemy II. This is when the Kingdom of Egypt is at its greatest extent. It's the time when the museum and the library are being founded in Alexandria. It's being made a sort of cultural scientific scholarship beacon around the Mediterranean. So this is clearly what they're trying to do with this by rebuilding their capital city to look like Alexandria, by putting down insurrections around the borders of their kingdom, and by founding a new Ptolemaic dynasty, choosing the name Ptolemy for their son,

hoping to sort of start afresh, really. Jane, this has been an absolutely great chat. It's wonderful to talk to the Ptolemies and how the legacy of the Ptolemies lived on. Now, we've only scratched the surface. You cover so much more of this figure, Cleopatra Selene, her son Ptolemy, and so much more in your newest book, which is called? Cleopatra's Daughter Egyptian Princess Roman Prisoner African Queen brilliant Jane it just goes for me to say it last but certainly not least thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today well thank you for inviting me to come back it's been a pleasure well there you go there was Dr Jane Dracott explaining the incredible story of Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of the

legendary namesake Cleopatra, last pharaoh of Egypt. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. Now last things from me, you know what I'm going to say, but if you want to help out the ancients as we continue our infinite mission to share these amazing stories from our distant past with you and to give figures like Jane the spotlights that their research deserves, well, all you need to do is just leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps as we continue in this mission, this infinite mission of sharing awesome stories like that of Cleopatra's daughter with you.

Long may it continue. But that's enough from me, and I'll see you in the next episode.