Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "KYRINAIKI Ancient country LIBYA" .
EVESPERIDES (Ancient city) KYRINAIKI
Berenice, daughter of Magas, who was first governor and then king of Cyrene. Athenaeus (xv.
p. 689, a.) calls her, if we follow the common reading, "Berenice the Great",
but perhaps he Maga should be substituted for he megale. She was betrothed by
her father to Ptolemy Euergetes, as one of the terms of the peace between himself
and his half-brother Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), the father of Euergetes. Magas
died, however, before the treaty was exe-cuted, and his wife Arsinoe (Just. xxvi.
3), to prevent the marriage of Berenice with Ptolemy, offered her, together with
the kingdom, to De-metrius, brother of Antigonus Gonatas. On his arrival, however,
at Cyrene, Arsinoe fell in love with him herself, and Berenice accordingly, whom
he had slighted, caused him to be murdered in the very arms of her mother; she
then went to Egypt, and became the wife of Ptolemy. When her son, Ptolemy IV.
(Philopator), came to the throne, B. C. 221, he put her and his brother Magas
to death, at the instigation of his prime minister Sosibius, and against the remonstrances
of Cleomenes III. of Sparta. The famous hair of Berenice, which she dedicated
for her husband's safe return from his Syrian expedition in the temple of Arsinoe
at Zephyrium (Aphrodite Zephuritis), and which was said by the courtly Conon of
Samos to have become a constellation, was celebrated by Callimachus in a poem,
which, with the exception of a few lines, is lost. There is, however, a translation
of it by Catullus, which has been re-translated into indifferent Greek verse by
Salvini the Florentine (Polyb. v. 36, xv. 25; Just. xxvi. 3, xxx. 1; Plut. Demetr.
ad fin., Cleom. 33; Catull. lxvii.; Muret. ad loc.; Hygin. Poet. Astron. ii. 24;
Thrige, Res Cyren.59-61). Hyginus speaks of Berenice as the daughter of Ptolemy
II. and Arsinoe; but the account above given rests on far better authority. And
though Catullus, translating Callimachus, calls her the sister of her husband
Euergetes, yet this may merely mean that she was his cousin, or may also be explained
from the custom of the queens of the Ptolemies being called their sisters as a
title of honour; and thus in either way may we reconcile Callimachus with Polybius
and Justin (See Thrige, Res Cyren.61; Droysen, Gesch. der Nachfolger Alexanders,
Tabb. xiv. xv.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
