American Research Center in Egypt

Cleopatra "the Syrian" and a Couple of Rebels: Their Images, Iconography, and Propaganda
Author(s): Wendy Cheshire
Source: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 45 (2009), pp. 349-391

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"the Syrian" and a Couple

of Rebels:
Cleopatra
Their Images, Iconography,
and Propaganda
Wendy

Cheshire

Abstract
Following upon theacme ofPtolemaic political domination, economicprosperityand

cultural

development

in the third century,

seven-year-old

child

inherited

the Egyptian

thronein 204 BC, opening thewayfor several ambitious outsiders toviefor defacto power
in the land. It shall be attempted in thefollowing to identifythefaces and monuments of
a few of the lead players inEgypt's unstable regimeduring thereign ofPtolemy V and
his Syrian bride,Cleopatra I, and todemonstratetheworth of theseobjectsas political pro
paganda

in a society

increasingly

fraught

with

ethnic

tensions.

The political landscape into which Ptolemy V was born in 212 was already sown with the seeds of a
social uprising. The boy's father, Ptolemy IV, had designated him in infancy as his successor, but the
sudden death of the king in the summer of 2041 and the mysterious murder of Queen Arsinoe III

shortly thereafter left the young throne heir as an orphan with no capability to rule.2 The boy came
under the guardianship of two scheming courtiers, Sosibius and Agathocles,
according to Polybius at
the behest of a fictive testament of their own making.3 After the death of Philopator, with a child
sta
mercenaries
nominally on the throne, the two guardians paid the throng of Greco-Macedonian
reassure
as
twomonths advance wages to
the tran
tioned inAlexandria
them and keep them in place
tactics of governing were implemented. Previously
to the interim leaders were exe
and
abroad,
suspected opponents
cuted.4 The aging Sosibius died shortly thereafter, and the brutality and ineptness of the remaining
co-ruler, coupled with widespread
suspicion that, in particular, the late queen had been murdered,
led to an organized mob lynching of Agathocles
along with his family and close allies in 203. The

sition regime became established.

prominent officials were deployed

Scorched-earth

eight-year-old Ptolemy was then transferred to the guardianship of two other courtiers, Tlepolemus
and Sosibius (the son of the recently deceased guardian, Sosibius), and, from 201 until his attainment
of majority and his coronation in 197/6, of the illustrious military leader Aristomenes.5

1
Werner

death between
v.Chr. (Munich, 2001), 470, on the date of Philopator's
HuB, Agypten in hellenistischer Zeit, 332-30
A
and
of
cf.
Gunther
149f., n. 38. All dates in
204;
Holbl,
2001),
History of thePtolemaic Empire (London,
mid-July
mid-August
this study are BC unless otherwise noted.
2
s.v. "Ptolemaios
RE 23 (1959), cols. 1691-1702
(23)" (Hans Volkmann).
3
15. 25; HuB, Agypten, 450, 474f.; Holbl, History, 127ff., 134.
Polybius
4
HuB, Agypten, 476.
5
is related in great detail by Polybius,
15. 25. Giinter Grimm,
"Verbrannte Pharaonen?"
The entire scandal-ridden
episode
an
events
material.
The
illustrative archaeological
28 (1997), 233-49,
esp. 233-35,
alongside
gives
analysis of the
of the events given by Polybius is clearly biased against Ptolemy IV and his clique; cf. Holbl, History, 133. HuB, Agypten,
a reconstruction
account
of events.
of the sequence
also regarding Polybius'
skeptically, offers

AntWelt
version
474f.,

350 JARCE 45 (2009)

In the interim period of his nominal rule as a child, Ptolemy V was
to the populace
and
presented
through imposing gold octadrachms
silver tetradrachms bearing his portrait on the obverse and an eagle
on

BASILEOS
the reverse, encircled by the legend PTOLEMAIOU
a
domed fore
(fig. I).6 The portrait's clear, simple lines, outlining
head, onto which fall thin locks of fine, straight hair, a narrow,

the
nose, a huge round eye and a tinymouth, communicate
a
a
in
of
little
clad
the
of
frail,
monarch?chiton,
image
boy,
regalia
chlamys and the Hellenistic
royal fillet. On some issues the diadem is

pointed

decorated

with grain (fig. 1), while on other issues the boy wears a
that appears to be interlaced with sprigs of wheat.7 At

radiate diadem
1. Silver Tetradrachm,
Fig.
Ptolemy
V. New York, American Numismatics

Society 1961.152.655.
the American

Numismatic

Courtesy of
Society.

the same time were minted, evidently for a short pe

approximately
riod only, gold octadrachms
and silver tetradrachms with the por
traits of his recently deceased
and
parents, Ptolemy Philopator

or not one or both of the Philo

Philopator.8 Thus, whether
were
had
been
in grand style
commemorated
murdered,
patores
they
only a few years later.
the theory that the splendid gold and silver coins were first issued by Sosibius
Arsinoe

Kyrieleis9 advanced
in 204/3 as payment for the troops' loyalty. Grimm10 objected
and Agathocles
that these emissions
in power,
could not possibly have been minted before the demise of the two scheming opportunists
no
who had
and quite possibly had murdered
IV and
loyalist intentions whatsoever
Ptolemy

court and mercenaries

III. Destined primarily for members of the Alexandrian
in service to
the crown, with an explicit propagandistic message
in support of the continuity of the Ptolemaic
line,
the coins must have been minted after the execution of Agathocles
in late 203 to assure the populace
one of the
that the monarchy was not in jeopardy.11 These
imposing coins were, then, intended by
interim leaders to make a statement of a fresh beginning after the disastrous tyranny of
succeeding

Arsinoe

Sosibius
Not

and Agathocles.
only was the survival of the Ptolemaic

upon the death of

Ptolemy Philopator, but serious social unrest sparked by anti-Greek factions plagued the countryside
as well. No doubt Polybius accurately assessed the situation,
recognizing that domestic troubles had
when
IV
for
first
time
in
the
recruited,
begun
Ptolemy
significant numbers, Egyptian soldiers to aid
III at Raphia
the Greco-Macedonian
forces in defeating Antiochus
in 217.12 The Ptolemaic victory

was due

in major

Ioannes

25; 42, 7.9-43;

Nikolaos

in Alexandria

dynasty

part to the effort of the Egyptians,

threatened

but the ensuing

political

developments

must

II, 175-83;
III, pis. 41, 19.21.23
Svoronos, Ta nomismata ton kratous tonPtolemaion
(Athenai, 1904-1908)
Ptolemaios'
V. und seiner Eltern/'/ZM/ 88 (1973), 213-46,
Helmut Kyrieleis, "Die Portratmunzen
esp.
idem, Bildnisse der Ptolemaer (Berlin, 1975), 52, pi. 40; Grimm, "Verbrannte Pharaonen?"
fig. 3a.

43, 3.6.8.13;

figs. 3, 5-6, 8-11;

Ta nomismata, II, 176f.; Ill, pi. 41, nn. 15-18. Some
issues on which the king's portrait is a bit plumper
Svoronos,
(pi. 41,
nos. 15, 17)
a few years older, but the sequence
of
of the coins is not, to date, entirely certain. The conclusions
might show him
in his monumental
inaccuracies
Svoronos
for this period and continue
work, despite all his important insights, contain numerous
218,

'

to be revised inmore recent publications.

8
230-43,
233, 246, figs, la, 2a.
Kyrieleis, "Portratmunzen,"
figs. 20-27, 30-34; Grimm, "Verbrannte Pharaonen?"
9
"Portratmunzen,"
213ff., figs. Iff., esp. 236-38, 242-43;
idem, Bildnisse, 52; Hu6, Agypten, 476, n. 23, disagrees for reasons of
see further his n. 9.
chronology;
10
"Verbrannte
Pharaonen?"
AntWelt 28 (1977), 453-59,
245f., 249, n. 79; idem, "Der Ring des Aristomenes,"
esp. 458f.
11
states explicitly the mistrust
concern
that Tlepolemos
had regarding Agathocles's
for the young
(15. 25-31)
Polybius

intentions of Aristomenes
king's welfare and the honorable
period, caution must be used regarding some of the author's
12
Polybius 5.107, 2-3; HuG, Agypten,

towards

prejudicial

the crown. As
accounts;

this is the only detailed

see n. 5.

source

for the

CHESHIRE

351

as crass
to the native populace
have appeared
ingratitude. After the war, all significant governing
power was immediately returned to the Greco-Macedonian
military aristocracy. R W. Pestman,13 re
events
to
the
of
and
sequence
constructing
leading up
during the native revolts, cited incidents of
as
as
unrest
internal
A
rebellion
of
213.
sporadic
early
significant proportions erupted in 207/6 that,
according to an inscription at Edfu,14 forced work on the decoration of the temple there to be halted.
In 215/4, as part of a program tomake his great-grandparents, Ptolemy I and Berenice I, dynastic
gods at the head of what was, essentially, the Thirty-First Egyptian Dynasty, Ptolemy IV installed a

second college of eponymous priests of the Ptolemies, parallel to the priesthood

inAlexandria,
in the
town
of
as
I
cultic
Soter
received
honors
Ptolemais.15
the
There,
Upper Egyptian
Ptolemy
already
founder?hews
ktistes?of the city,16which had a polls structure with an autonomous Greek system of
Philopator also transferred there from Thebes all the top administration of Upper
oikonomos, basilikos grammateus,
Egypt: the strategos (who later became epistrategos of the Thebaid),
ton
and
the
The
addition
of
hierdn.18
eponymous priests of the Ptolemies
sitologos, trapezites,
epistates
administration.17

drew prestige to thatminor locality as a pro-Alexandrian

foil to the Amun priests of Thebes. Resis
tance in Thebes
is revealed in the dating formula in contracts drawn up by scribes of the local Amun
the "eponymous priests of the Ptolemies in Ptolemais."19 Thebes
priests omitting a clause mentioning
had broken away from the Macedonian
rule, but there is no evidence that the Ptolemies ever relin

quished control over Ptolemais during the period of the Upper Egyptian rebellion.20 Superficially
as a topographical entity
n
Thebes kept its venerable tradition in the integrity of the Thebaid
(pi ts
Nw.t)21 but in reality most of its governing and fiscal powers had been stripped away.
There were undoubtedly various causes for the social unrest in the Thebaid,
and Polybius is not
to
was primarily
all
them.
have
been
informed
about
the
revolt
of
that
likely
suggested
Vandorpe22
triggered by a "decline in living conditions," while Holbl23 cited the taxes imposed on the populace
as a cause.
Clearly

the reason

for the success of the native revolt in Upper Egypt was recognized by
of the Egyptian population, who had so effectively contributed
self-confidence
Polybius?the growing
to defeat the army of Antiochus
at
III
Raphia.24 Not only had the native Egyptians been empowered
at that time to fight the enemy, but they had gained training, weapons
in fighting
and experience
against

the army of another Hellenistic

kingdom. Had

they had any serious grievances

before against

13
on Thebes
in Sven P. Vleeming,
Thebes. Acts of a Colloquium
and Chaonnophris,"
and
ed., Hundred-Gated
"Haronnophris
the Theban Area in the Graeco-Roman
Period. PLBat 27 (Leiden,
1995), 101-37, with reference to earlier literature; also HuB,
on the conflict.
504-13,
Agypten, 445-49,
14
zur Zeit Ptolemaios'
V. Epiphanes,
Teil I,"MDAIK
"Die agyptischen Tempelbauten
42 (1986), 81-98, esp.
Eddy Lanciers,
Teil II," MDAIK
43 (1987), 173-82, esp. 180; HuB, Agypten, 444f.; Anne-Emanuelle
Veisse, Les "re
94; idem, "Tempelbauten,
a la conquete romaine. StudHell
voltes egyptiennes": Recherches sur les troubles interieurs en Egypte du regne de Ptolemee IIIEvergete
41
(Leuven, 2004), 14f., 22-26.
15
Gerhard
Ptolemais
in Agypten. AAWL
18 (1910),
in Oberdgypten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Hellenismus
160;
Plaumann,
W. Clarysse and G. Van der Veken, The Eponymous Priests ofPtolemaic Egypt. PLBat 24 (Leiden,
1983), 40-52.
16
W. Otto, Priesterund Tempel im hellenistischen Agypten I (Leipzig?Berlin,
1905), 160ff.: Plaumann, Ptolemais, 39-54. Accord
a
sources.
never
to
Soter
called
in
these
is
Plaumann,
Ptolemais,
51-53,
Ptolemy
god
ing
17
Plaumann,
Ptolemais, 4-24.
18
a Gate, Harbour
are
for Many
These administrative
and analyzed by Katelijn Vandorpe,
"City of Many
changes
presented
a Rebel,"
in Vleeming,
ed., Hundred-Gated
Thebes, 203-39,
esp. 210.
19
Veisse, Les revokes, 230f.
20
Veisse, Les revokes, 18.
21
a Gate," 210.
Vandorpe,
"City of Many
22
a Gate," 232.
"City of Many
23
H6M, History, 131, 153f.
24
Polybius 5. 82, 6; 85, 8; 65, 9; 107, 1-3; K. Goudriaan,
Ethnicity inPtolemaic Egypt (Amsterdam,
und das hellenistische
Heerwesen,"
nicki, "Das ptolemaische
Egitto (1988), 213-30; Holbl, History,
revokes, 5f.,

1988),

Jan K. Win
131; Veisse, Les

121-25;

129ff., esp.

352 JARCE 45 (2009)

in
the regime inAlexandria,
they were inadvertently already mobilized,
a sense, to collectively show their
displeasure.25
The native revolt was already fully underway when the public learned

III had died, both under unrevealed

cir
that Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe
cumstances, and the two non-royal courtiers publicly displayed the ash
urns with the presumed
cremated remains of both rulers.26 Grimm27

to the fact that the cremation of the dead, while an hon

even
ored practice
among royalty in Macedonian
religious tradition,
in particular
would have been a horrifying concept to the Egyptians,
when it involved their king. The well-being of their own country de
drew attention

on the proper mummification

and burial of their pharaoh ac
to
most
the
elaborate
funerary rituals in their repertoire.
cording
Complete destruction of the king's corpse by firewas a horror to Egyp
tian religious sensibility; only hard criminals and enemies were occa
sionally sentenced to death by burning.28 The cremation of the king's
pended

Hg.

2. Bronze
Athens,

group.
um,

Pancratiasts'

Dimitriou

Muse

National
Collection

ANE

2547. Courtesy of theNational

Archeological

Museum

the interim regime's lack of respect or inter

corpse thus demonstrated
est in the customs of the vast majority of the population
they ruled.
can
more
situation into
visualize
the
of
the
directly
Nothing
enormity

which

Athens.

the young Ptolemy V was thrust after the death of his father than
statuette in Athens (fig. 2) representing a small child as a vic

a bronze

torious fighter versus a fallen enemy in the brutal sport of pankration.29

an art historian. The Athens stat
Its significance can perhaps be best appreciated
through the eyes of
uette belongs to a specifically Greco-Egyptian
of two competing athletes, in
of
small
bronzes
type
a
or
one
of
which the standing, victorious combatant is always either king
the patron gods of the gym
nasium, Heracles or Hermes.30 The defeated athlete, who has fallen to his knees and is pinned down
is generally portrayed with coarse or barbaric features. The earliest known replica
by his opponent,
of the type, a bronze statuette in Istanbul, was created around mid-third century BC and was sup
scale original that commemorated
Ptolemy Ill's vie
posed by Kyrieleis to be a copy of a monumental

25
A parallel

can be drawn to the rampant outbreak

of violent crime
male citizen had participated.
Once
virtually every able-bodied
veterans
of social outcasts and disenfranchised
took to the streets, using
soon
the army to loot and murder,
of the
giving birth to the reputation
see Winnicki,
in
in
the
late
third
"Heerwesen."
century
Egypt,
beginning
26
(15.25) relates
Possibly only the king's corpse was cremated. Polybius
in which

spices
27

(ardmata).
"Verbrannte

in the United
the war was
the weapons
"Wild West."

States

after the end of the Civil War,

a previously
number
unimagined
in
skills they had acquired
and martial
On the problems
raised by anachoresis

over,

that the silver urn of Arsinoe

III was

filled only with

248; idem, "Der Ring," 454, 462.

Zur Sanktionierung
abweichenden Verhaltens im alten Agypten, PA 21
Vergehen und Strafen.
"
in Heinz
in den ptolemaischen
'Feinde'
Felber, ed.,
2004), 60, 74, 97; Giinter Vittmann,
(Leiden-Boston,
Synodaldekreten,"
Feinde und Aufruhr. Konzepte von Gegnerschaft in dgyptischen Texten besonders desMittleren Reiches (Leipzig, 2005), 206 with n. 45.
29
ANE
AntPlas
Dimitriou
Collection
12
2547: Helmut
Museum,
Athens, National
Kyrieleis,
"Kathaper Hermes kai Hows"
"Die statuarischen
Darstellun
idem, Bildnisse, 54f., 173, cat. no. E6, pi. 43; Brigitte Frohlich,
(1973), 133ff., no. 3, figs. 4-9,15;
28

Renate

Pharaonen?"

235, 239-45,

Muller-Wollermann,

14 (1998), 107ff., 260, cat. no. 2 (bibliog.),

Herrscher,"
Antiquitates
fig. 3. The brutal sport of pankration
more savage moves
as
of
while
such
the limbs back in
comprised
techniques
wrestling
allowing
biting, kicking, and wrenching
see E. N. Gardiner,
the latter of which is illustrated in Greco-Egyptian
Athletics of theAncient
bronze groups;
painful positions,
The Traditional
World
1930 = 2nd ed. Chicago,
Greek Combat Sport and
(Oxford,
1980), 212-21;
John Arvanitis, Pankration.
Modern Mixed Martial Art (Boulder, Colorado,
2003).
30
in der hellenistischen Skulptur und
133-46; Christian Kunze, Zum Greifen Nah. Stilphanomene
Kyrieleis,
"Kathaper Hermes"
gen der hellenistischen

ihre nachhaltige Interpretation (Munich,

2009),
phus, AAT 77 (Wiesbaden,

2002),

155ff. with bibliog.

in n. 860; Wendy

Cheshire,

The Bronzes

ofPtolemy II Philadel

CHESHIRE

353

II in the Third Syrian War.31 Koenen32 believed

it to symbolize Ptolemy IPs
tory over Antiochus
defeat of a rebellion by Gaulish mercenaries
in the Egyptian Delta in 274.33 The original monument,
a specific historical event,34 and it is
following Greek tradition, probably commemorated
likely that
the sporadic small-scale replicas were produced at specific occasions
involving athletic competitions,
as well. The

symbolism of the composition as the triumph of the king over the forces of chaos was
timeless. The majority of these small bronze groups35 show an imitation of certain aspects of Egyp
tian style; they are rigidly oriented in basic geometric forms, their poses static, their limbs bent at
or forming isosceles triangles after the traditional canons of Pharaonic art,
right angles
enacting the

timeless, standard formula of the invincible king smiting the hapless enemy.36
The Athens group (fig. 2) differs from the other replicas of the type in its spatially open, centrifugal
unmistakable
take-off on the Ludovisi Gaul and other works of theMiddle Hellenis
composition?an

style emanating from Pergamum.37 The victorious youth in this group is not steadily gaz
down
upon his easy conquest, as it appears on the other replicas; instead his body is twisted in a
ing
a gaze of pathos towards the heav
spiraling movement, his head thrust back in his neck and directing
ens, in accordance with theHellenistic Greek taste for expressive representation. The elegance of the
tic baroque

taste,
composition, avoiding jarring angles or lumpy, baroque modeling, might reflect Alexandrian
but the centrifugal torsion of the victor's body and his open gaze out into the distance are elements
of contemporary Middle Hellenistic
style. The snakelike, loosely spiraling motion and long, smooth

limbs, along with the fluid turn of the head far upwards and around to the right, the mouth slightly
a bronze Nike
opened but the face not contorted, are comparable on
figure that formed part of the
a
at
in
Vani
plastic decoration of Hellenistic bronze vessel discovered
Georgia.38 The publishers' dat
that came from this
ing of the Vani vase, along with several additional, spectacular bronze appliques
or another similar large vessel, in the second half of the second century on the basis of the elongated,
slender proportions of the Nike is certainly too late. The beautiful head appliques of Pan, Ariadne, a
are characterized by the vibrant modeling
of swelling flesh surfaces,
satyr and a pair of maenads39

appear to pulsate, breathlessly parted lips and an intense heavenward gaze that keenly recall
theNyx on the Great Altar of Zeus from Pergamum,40 or in the case of the Pan applique head, some
of the giants on the same frieze.41 The head of Pan42 is astonishingly similar to the fallen enemy of
to his half-human, half-animal
the Athens pancratiasts' group although more grotesque, appropriate
form.43 The angular articulated surfaces of the goat god's prominent cheekbones, beneath which the

which

31

"Kathaper Hermes," 142.

am Ptolemaerhof,"
in E. Van't Dack, P. Van Dessel,
and
"Die Adaptation
agyptischer Konigsideologie
Ludwig Koenen,
W. van Gucht, eds., Egypt and theHellenistic World. StudHell
27 (Leuven,
1983), 143-90, esp. 170f.
33
For the historical
and origin of the group, see Kyrieleis,
136f.; Koenen
(see n. 31);
"Kathaper Hermes,"
interpretations
to additional
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 194ff., with references
literature.
Cheshire,
34
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic
Cf. J. J. Pollitt, Art in theHellenistic Age (Cambridge,
1991),
1986), 266-68;
Sculpture (London,
in Ellen Reeder,
S. Ridgway
ed., Hellenistic Art in theWalters Art Gallery (Baltimore,
11-14; the words of caution by Brunilde
32

Kyrieleis,

noting, but definitely too pessimistic.

listed by Kyrieleis,
"Kathaper Hermes," 133ff.
36
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 60-64.
Kyrieleis,
"Kathaper Hermes," 136f.; Cheshire,
37 Cf. Arnold
Schober, Die Kunst von Pergamon
1951), 53ff., figs. 6f., 13f., 28f.; Ludger Alscher, Griechische Plastik
(Bregenz,
IV (Berlin, 1957), 52ff., 250 (Index), fig. 13a-c.
38
et le monde
"La Georgie
Otar Lordkipanitze,
grec," BCH 98 (1974), 925ff., fig. 15.
39
in
"La
Vickers,
Vani, une Pompei georgienne (Besancon,
16a-e;
idem,
1995), 37-41; Michael
Georgie,"
Lordkipanitze,
fig.
Vani (Princeton,
2008), 41, fig. 16; Darejan
Jennifer Y. Chi, ed., Wine, Worship, and Sacrifice: The Golden Graves of Ancient
in Chi, ed., Wine, Worship and Sacrifice, 118-24, figs. 5-10.
and Guram Kvirkvelia,
Kacharava
40
Heinz Kahler, Pergamon. Bilderhefte Antiker Kunst 9, ed. DAI (Berlin, 1949), pi. 28.
41
Kahler, Pergamon, pis. 32, 33b.
42
Chi, ed., Wine, Worship and Sacrifice, 41, fig. 16, 118f., fig. 5a, b.
43
Cf. Kyrieleis,
"Kathaper Hermes" fig.
1988),
35

29-30,

Examples

are worth

JARCE 45 (2009)

354

lean cheeks form sunken hollows, the clearly offset, wavy ridges of the eyebrows, even the expression
to the Athens group. A signifi
of the eyes and the piercing of the pupils are stylistically comparable
cant difference on the Alexandrian
statuette is that?typically for the reticence of Egyptian art?the
mouth of the fallen combatant is closed, the face showing little expression despite the pain of his
strained position. The elongated limbs of the Nike from the Vani urn are a peculiarity of the type; ap
on
a
pliques of
shield-bearing Nike that are incessantly repeated
black-glazed hydriai and amphorae44
on
or appear that way
in
the
first
of
the
third
taken
half
have
century
already
elongated proportions,

in their twisted movements,

adjusted to the arched form of the shoulder of the vase. The Vani bronze
in a major
from the vessel was doubtless manufactured
Nike, which along with the other appliques
center such as Pergamum,
should be dated in the decades
around 180 BC, the Athens pancratiast
group during the reign of Ptolemy V, 205/4-180.
Not only respective of style is the Athens statuette unique within the type, but also because
the vic

tor's head is represented as decidedly childish, almost babyish. Helmut Kyrieleis convincingly attrib
uted the portrait to Ptolemy V.45 The domed forehead, short-cropped locks of thin hair, the pointed,
slightly arched nose, large round eyes and a tinymouth undeniably represent the same boy who is
on the
coins (fig. 1). Certain features on the coin
portrayed
gold and silver PTOLEMAIOUBASILEOS
long, pointed nose, the bony, protruding chin, the tightened facial expression, rings of
not have appeared
the neck?would
in thismanner on a young child but were exagger
ated by the glyptic artist in Egyptianizing taste to give the boy king's image a more mature effect. Por
traits of Ptolemy V from his later years show that he did not, in fact, grow up to look much like the

portrait?the
flesh around

early coin images (see infra). The cheeks of the Athens bronze "king as pancratiast" are fuller and the
nose smaller than on the coin images, on this piece rendered according to a Hellenistic Greek artist's
interpretation of a little boy. The Athens bronze portrait figure of Ptolemy V provides a date for the
entire statuette some time within his reign but most probably during his childhood rule under guard
ianship. The coin portrait types of Ptolemy V as a little boy continued to be minted until he reached

and was crowned sole ruler in 197.46 The body of the victorious athlete belongs to a
rather than a small child, but the babyish face reveals his tender age.
Throughout his years under the guardianship of courtiers, the official portraiture of the orphaned
Ptolemy V retained the image of a small, frail child in a huge role. This sort of propaganda
paralleled,
in a sense, the native Egyptian image of a boy pharaoh (such as Tutankhamun)
or the designated heir
to the throne; regardless of the age of the prince regent, he could still have been represented in offi
cial contexts, such as on temple walls, with a long braid of hair on one side of his head, the symbol of
a young child.47 An alabaster head in Berlin48
dia
portraying Ptolemy V adorned with a Hellenistic
an
crown
of Upper and Lower Egypt (pschent) represents the boy
dem,
Egyptian youth lock and the
at
time
the
this
caricaturized
with
facial features seen on his coins. The essential
pharaoh
pinched,
difference on the Greek bronze work is that the artist emphasized
in the Athens
the childishness
victor's chubby-cheeked, cherubic face with itswide eyes and tiny, slightly parted lips, in a sentimental
adolescence

young man

manner

44

that was far from heroic but appealed

Cf. Wolfgang

to popular

taste in the Hellenistic

Greek world. The

"Vom Topfer und Toreut,"/?A765/66

Zuchner,
190ff., figs. 23-25
(1950/51),
(with additional
references).
on
idem, Bildnisse, 54f. On the ambiguity or idealization
"Kathaper Hermes"139f.;
portraits of the king in the other repli
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 196f., 200, 202f.
cas, two of which may represent Ptolemy III, see Cheshire,
46
"Portratmiinzen,"
224, 230, 240, 242f.
Kyrieleis,
47
On the Egyptian precedent
for the image of a child king, see, for example, HuB,
Agypten, 534f.
48
Museum
14568: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
in Herwig
Klaus
Parlasca
54ff., 134ff., 172, cat. no. El, pi. 41,1-4;
Agyptisches
Maehler
and Volker Michael
27-29.
Strocka, eds., Das ptolemdische Agypten. Akten des internationalen
Symposions,
September
"Der Ring," 462f., 467, fig.
1976 (Mainz, 1978), 28; Grimm,
45

CHESHIRE

355

a
third century Sicilian poet, Theocritus,
composed
touching idyll about the mythical child hero,
and
his
in
feats
Heracliscus,
superhuman
already
infancy, but the poem was actually a thinly disguised
own
for Ptolemy Philadelphus'
metaphor
princely upbringing.49 Like the victorious athlete of the
was represented inHellenistic
court
art, as well as inAlexandrian
group, Heracliscus
an
as
never
near
sometimes
the
adorable
humorous
but
with
child,
poetry,
anywhere
sobriety of
or
can not be
crown
statuette
of
of
creation
deities
The
date
the
the
Athens
princes.
precise
Egyptian

Athens bronze

through style analysis alone, but the artist's emphasis on the childlike features of the king,
including the long hair of a youthful Apollo, seem to imply that he had not yet attained his majority.
The small scale group, which is of high artistic quality, might have been created as a memento
for
gained

in 203/2 or in
prestigious visitor or a successful competitor at the Ptolemaieia held at Alexandria
199/8, possibly to stand in the gymnasium in their own home town.50
Already in 199/8, two years before his coronation, the young Ptolemy received an eponymous cult
as King Ptolemaios Epiphanes, translated in Egyptian Pr-(i Ptlwmys (pi ntr) ntypr,
or "the
pi i-irpr, etc.,
comes
was
Pharaoh Ptolemaios, (the god) who
forth." The cult
served by the Priest of Alexander

the Great inAlexandria, while parallel to that, a cult of the living pharaoh was installed alongside the
cult of Ptolemy Soter in Ptolemais.51 Holbl52 was certainly correct in observing that the firstmention
of the Upper Egyptian priestly office in a Theban papyrus of 199 occurred at a time when the pro
Alexandrian
forces had temporarily seized control of the city,which had strong leanings towards the
(see infra). The innovation in the Upper Egyptian ruler cult at that time, somewhat
a politically moti
prematurely elevating the young Ptolemy V to divine status, may thus have been
move
to
in
the
South
and among
reinforce the crown's influence, particularly
vated, opportunistic

Egyptian

rebels

the native populace.53

In receiving the byname Epiphanes, Ptolemy V was
epiclesis with an implication of transcendence?with

the first king of his line to receive a non-secular

the possible exception of Ptolemy Soter, whose

success but had divine parallels. The epithet undoubtedly
of the royal presence as a dazzling or glorious epiphany, like the

from a military

titlewas primarily derived

drew on the Egyptian perception
sun or a star in the
sky.54Although

Ptolemy V had not yet attained majority as was necessary for

the
Priest
of Ptah inMemphis,
the concept of the royal epiphany was
by
High
as king"
inherent to Egyptian kingship since remote antiquity. The term for "making an appearance
on occasion of any royal audience or
at
of
the
the
of
but
Window
(obviously
Appearances
palace

his ritual coronation

visit), used also to express "accession to the throne," the verb h(y, was actually an extended meaning
to
of the word for the rising or the shining of the sun.55 Clearly the likening of the king's appearance
the sun in the skywas a grandiose statement, and thus the term hcywas reserved for festive uses.56 As
49
am Glan,
Eine agonistische Inschrift und fruhptolemdische Konigsfeste (Meisenheim
1977), 80ff.; Cheshire,
Ludwig Koenen,
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 163-68.
50
see the remarks of Holbl, History, 171.
of the Ptolemaieia,
On these celebrations
51
12If.
Pestman, Chronologie, 137f.; Minas, Ahnenreihen,
52 Donald
Redford, History and Chronology of theEighteenth Dynasty ofEgypt. Seven Studies (Toronto,
1967), 171.
53
9 (Mainz, 2000),
Treverensia
Martina Minas, Die hieroglyphischen Ahnenreihen der ptolemaischen Kbnige, Aegyptiaca
122,
of the Ptolemaieia
held in
that the reforms in the ruler cult under Ptolemy V were introduced on the occasion
124, supposes

to the public within one of

in 199/8. It is easy to imagine that the holders of the new cult offices were introduced
on occasion
of the games in the capital, but it is far less likely that administrative
the customary festive processions
changes in
on the basis of such a frivolous venue.
the ruler cult apparatus would have been undertaken
solely
54
see also Ludwig Koenen,
Redford, History, 3ff.; HuB, Agypten, 505. On the significance of the Greek byname Epiphanes,
as a Religious
in A. Bulloch
"Die Adaptation
168f., and idem, "The Ptolemaic
Figure,"
King
agyptischer Konigsideologie,"

Alexandria

et al., eds., Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in theHellenistic World (Berkeley-Los

55
Wb. Ill, 239-41;
Erichsen, Glossar, 359f.; Redford, History, 3-27.
56
Redford, History,

Angeles,

1993),

64-66,

79.

JARCE 45 (2009)

356

there had, as yet, been no festive inaugura

Egyptian practice was concerned,
tion. In terms of the Egyptian calendar, there was also no interim regency, however, and the boy
In this way, a
king's reign began the day after his father's death as "year one" of the new pharaoh.
far as traditional

lacuna in the dating system was avoided, as was a hiatus in the vital presence of a pharaoh guiding the
of the new king in Alexandria,
land.57 Polybius (15. 25) relates of the hastily arranged proclamation
at which time he first donned the diadem of a Hellenistic monarch. The perception of divine king

ship would have been obvious not only to every Egyptian, but also to every Greek immigrant to Egypt
who had walked past a native temple, ever seen the pyramids or witnessed a native religious celebra
tion. In that sense, the proclamation
of the young Ptolemy V as "The Manifest God" had a traditional

in Egyptian religion, even though his coronation was still some two years
away.58
was given the additional byname Eucharistos,
V
for
Ptolemy
"bringer of good will/graciousness,"
trans
which the Egyptian translations vary between a phonetic writing (iwkrsts, etc.) and approximate
foundation

lations into colloquial Egyptian, meaning

"the doer of good things" (pi i-irmd.t nfr.t,pi ir ni-nfr.w,
to the Pharaonic epithet for the king, ntr nfr, "the
that
this
title
reverted
Koenen60
etc.).59
suggested

good god," and thismay well be what the Egyptians were thinking. Yet the fact that the Egyptian scribes
struggled to find a proper equivalent for the Greek term suggests that the concept of eucharistos was not
quite inherent to their own royal ideology. A rarely attested epithet of Ptolemy V inDemotic, pi nb (pi)
sp, was also thought by Zauzich and de Cenival to be a translation of Eucharistos.61 The uncommon

Demotic

phrase, which might be translated "the Lord of Reward," reveals that the new royal bynames
some sense of hope in their new
and their variants were probably intended to instill in the populace
of
the
The
his
in
soldiers, for
concept
king rewarding
subjects,
pharaoh.62
particular his mercenary
their service recalls the statement of Polybius about the two guardians of the young king
paying the

loyal to the crown during the transition regime,63 and it corresponds well to the
of
the coins of Ptolemy V (see infra). Itwas presumably due to the peculiar circum
symbolic imagery
stances of the child rule and the urgent need for a ruler on the throne in a time of social
uprising that

military

to remain

numerous

variants for the king's epiclesis appeared

almost at once, all giving approximate
equiva
lents for the concept of being pharaoh. This explanation
of an ad hoc solution is supported by the
fact that the epithet Eucharistos disappears again from the titulary of Ptolemy V after his
to
marriage

Cleopatra

57
58
59

I in 195.64

Redford, History, 12, 19-22, 25.

In this sense also Minas, Ahnenreihen,

122.

to earlier literature.
Pestman, Chronologie, 42, 161; Minas, Ahnenreihen,
121-24, with references
60
"Die Adaptation
von
"Zu den agyptischen Wiedergaben
157, 168; Giinter Vittmann,
agyptischer Konigsideologie,"
Eupa
tor," GM 46 (1981), 21-26, esp. 21; Holbl, History, 166.
61
Karl-Th. Zauzich, Die dgyptische Schreibertradition in
Aufbau, Sprache und Schrift der demotischen Kaufvertrdge aus ptolemdischer
a un
Zeit (Wiesbaden,
de Cenival,
"Un acte de renonciation
consecutif
1968), I, 110; Francoise
partage de revenus liturgiques
123, n. 470, notes that this rare title is not
(P. Louvre E 3266)," BIFAO 71 (1972), 32, 52, n. 2. Minas, Ahnenreihen,
memphites

in Pestman, Chronologie.
included
62
Cf. Erichsen, Glossar, 502, s.v. "sp? Werner HuB,
V. als Harpokrates?"
AncSoc 36
Agypten, 534f. and idem, "Ptolemaios
on the intentions of the court
to instill the
with hope that their new
(2006), 45-48,
esp. 48, commented
propaganda
populace
young king would bring them prosperity.
63
See nn. 3-4.
64
The assessment
of Carl G.Johnson,
that Egyptian
influ
145-55,
"Ptolemy V and the Rosetta Decree," AncSoc 26 (1995),
ence was not present
in the Greek version of the Rosetta Decree
is based on the expectation
that a translation from the con

Greek would have been an exact duplicate

in meaning.
This was not always
servative, hieroglyphic
titulary to the Hellenistic
the two cultures, but it can not be denied
that the Egyptian percep
possible due to the large philosophical
disparities between
tion of the pharaoh
as Horus,
the son of the sun god Amun-Ra,
in a mystique
of ceremony, material wealth and un
enveloped
an
touchable power, must have made
impression on them.

CHESHIRE

357

The Egyptian scribes, undoubtedly

receiving their instructions from the King's Scribe, the sh nsw
who worked in conjunction with the High Priest of Ptah inMemphis,
translated Epiphanes back into
Demotic and into hieroglyphs using the verb pr, literally "to come out of, come forth."65 The wordpr
was used not only for such expressions as "the sun
coming forth above the horizon," but in colloquial

contexts. The common formula from Demotic

language in countless different mundane
legal con
tracts? nty nb ntyprn-im=w, "everything that comes out of them (i.e., out of said business obligations),"
"all future proceeds,"
suffices to demonstrate
the potential banality of the term.66 In the
meaning
case of the king, pi ntypr provided an Egyptian term for the Greek byname
a divine vision
suggesting
but has a nuance

of "the one who comes forth (next)," or inmodern

terms, "the natural successor,"
as
a
sense
in
had
basic
Greek
of
"to
show
be
up,
just
epiphanein
present." That is to say, help was on
the way or a new age had arrived. That the Egyptian scribe knew well that the word h(y was the actual
in the glory of his position is evident in the
theological equivalent to express the king's "appearance"
the
of
of
(for pr) has
frequent writings
hieroglyphic titulary
Epiphanes inwhich the house phonogram
been

replaced
read h(y).67

by the rising sun disc with rays beaming

down

to earth (which could also have been

a
Kyrieleis68 surmised that small group of gold octadrachms and silver tetradrachms of Ptolemy V
that are labeled on the reverse with the legend PTOLEMAIOY
"of Ptolemy, the Man
EPIPHANOUS,
must
to
in
ifest One,"
instead of BASILEOS
refer
the
PTOLEMAIOY,
boy's Egyptian coronation

in 197/6, shortly after his celebration of majority (anakleteria) in Alexandria.

It is indeed
the cere
logical to assume that new coin types of Ptolemy Epiphanes were issued to commemorate
was
at
in
the
the
directed
Greek
which
mony
young Ptolemy's
capital,
subjects, reaffirming
primarily
that the boy had a strong hold on the throne. Since, however, a ruler cult for the "Manifest God"
in 199/8, undoubtedly with the
and Ptolemais
(Theos Epiphanes) was already installed in Alexandria

Memphis

the shaky authority of the underage king, his court advisors might have issued the
coins a few years earlier as well, possibly distributing them as a
EPIPHANOUS
to
his
allies.
It
that
the king's portrait on these coins often still appears to be that
is
payoff
noteworthy
a
of young child. If the coins with the ruler's official epiclesis were first issued tomark his celebration
intent of bolstering
festive PTOLEMAIOU

a more mature

portrait type would presumably have been used. A silver tetradrachm in

to a youth coming of age
Trier,69 among others, appears to convey a sense of solemnity appropriate
and facing the responsibilities of a king, but there is still uncertainty in the chronology of the individ
of majority,

ual

issues.

on the splendid octadrachms

Already Svoronos70 saw a connection between the various monograms
and tetradrachms of Ptolemy V and the names of the most influential military leaders and courtiers
around the child, as were described in such detail by Polybius. Kyrieleis71 recognized the place of the

not in the later years of the Philopatores, as did

III gold octadrachms
Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe
effort on behalf
Svoronos, but alongside the festive Ptolemy V emissions all as part of a propaganda
of the guardians of the underage king. The re-ordering of the Philopatores festive emissions, which
to the early Ptolemy V coins, necessitated a scholarly revision
carry many of the identical monograms
of some of themint attributions, which were dependent

on the chronology

65
Wb. I, 518.
66
Erichsen, Glossar, 134.
67
Gauthier, Livre des rois IV, 348-30, nos. 75B, 76B, 77A, 78, 80.
68
Ta nomismata IV, 257f.
Portratmunzen,"
218, as did earlier Svoronos,
69
"Der Ring," 453, fig. la-b.
Universitat Trier OL
1997.1: Grimm,
70
Ta nomismata IV, 224-28,
271-75.
257-68,
71
215-43.
"Portratmunzen,"

of the vacillating relations

JARCE 45 (2009)

358

of key figures at the Ptolemaic court. Thus coins with the monogram ZQ, identified by Svoronos72 as
Sosibius, a close advisor to Ptolemy III and after him to Ptolemy IV,were argued by Kyrieleis73 not to
has shown that, on
have been minted until early in the reign of Ptolemy V. Grimm,74 meanwhile,
must
to
the
Sosibius
the
refer
another
(II),
monogram
chronological grounds,
politically active son of
the illustrious court advisor of the same name.

Silver and gold coinage of Ptolemy V, on which the

on
a
lance
his shoulder, other times a small lance tip appearing as a
king is represented carrying
can fairly certainly be attributed to a well-known military officer in the clique
monogram
only,75
around Ptolemy V. The lance monogram
is otherwise attested on coinages of central and northwest
ern Greece, particularly inAetolia, and itwas a symbol of the Aetolian
League.76 The accompanying
as
on
certain of these coins have been read
themark of the mint of Scopas, the
letters II, K, A, ?, O

in central Greece for the young Ptolemy V in either

strategus who was recruiting mercenaries
this decipherment
it
of the monogram
has been doubted by M0rkholm,78
203/2 or 199.77 Although
other
well
led
these
Greek
appears historically
troops against
grounded. Among
things, Scopas

Aetolian

III in the Fifth Syrian War and perhaps afterward to help the Ptolemies quell the uprising
of Egyptian insurgents in the Thebais.79 Another monogram
found frequently on these coins has
as that of AP for the Acarnanian Ar(istomenes),
an illustrious military and political
been deciphered
leader who, after holding the offices of Priest of Alexander
and archisomatophylax, took over the

Antiochus

role of the young Ptolemy V from 201/0 until the boy was crowned in 197/6, and con
guardianship
tinued to advise him thereafter until forced to commit suicide in 192.80 Regency emissions marked
with themonogram
TIO have been attributed with probability to themint of Po(lycrates), an eminent

courtier and governor of Cyprus who sided politically with Aristomenes

and led a military campaign
to subdue the Upper Egyptian rebels.81 A suggested attribution of portrait coins
with
monogrammed

to Ni(kon), an admiral in the navy under Ptolemy IV and a member of the clique of
Agathocles,82
has been questioned by Grimm on the grounds that the position of the former at court would have
with the assassination
in 203.83 The Second Philensis Decree,
of Agathocles
inscribed
disappeared

NI

onto

the walls of the Isis Temple in Philae in the latter part of the reign of Ptolemy V,84 credits the
with
king
having deployed Greek troops to guard the temples, and relates that he recruited addi
tional Greek soldiers abroad, supporting the evidence known for Scopas and Aristomenes. The grain
motif of the coin images may have referred to the livelihood of the mercenaries
when at home in
Greece.

As

into disuse

they were often farmers, their crops might have been ravaged in times of war or fallen
in their absence, causing extreme hardship to their families at home.85

72 Ta nomismata

73

74
75

IV, 225ff.

See n. 9.
See n. 10.

Corn Supply, 216ff.

"Portratmunzen,"
217, 218, 220, n. 26; BMC Thessaly-Aetolia,
194f., nn. 1, 2, 4ff.; 196, nn. 16ff.
Kyrieleis,
77
Ta nomismata IV, cols. 263f.; Kyrieleis,
18.53f.
Svoronos,
"Portratmunzen,"
218, 219f.; HuB, Agypten, 478, n. 37. Polybius
notes
in Alexandria
that Scopas was poisoned
to Kyrieleis,
in 197. According
coins with the lance
220, in the Epiphanes
"... programmatisch
eine besondere Verbundenheit mit dem traditionellen Soldner-Reservoir Mittelgriechenland
demonstriert werden
sollte"
78
"Some coins of Ptolemy V from Palestine," INJ 5 (1981), 6f.
79
HuB, Agypten, 490-92,
502-3, 508.
80
Ta nomismata, 257; Kyrieleis,
"Der Ring," 453ff.
Svoronos,
"Portratmunzen,"
215-18; Grimm,
81
"Die Portratmunzen,"
to
225; HuB, Agypten, 503 n. 10, 504, 508, 512, 521. The attribution of the monogram
Kyrieleis,
76

Rickham,

"Some coins of Ptolemy V from Palestine,"

5.
Polycrates has been doubted
by M0rkholm,
82
"Die
480.
Portratmunzen,"
223-30;
HuB,
Kyrieleis,
Agypten,
83
"Verbrannte Pharaonen?"
249, n. 79.
84
Urk. II, 222.8-223.8;
cf. idem, "Die historische
45; Lanciers,
Bedeutung,"
"Tempelbauten,
"Philensis-Dekrete"
(Erich Winter).
85
Garnsey, Famine, 111, 145.

II," 179; LdA

4,

1027f.,

s.v.

CHESHIRE

359

The decoration of the royal diadem on coin portraits (tetradrachms and octadrachms)
of Ptolemy
on
a
V with small ears of grain on the Hellenistic
others
with
radiate
fillet
and
crown,
royal
(fig. I)86
a
possibly with blades of grain alternating between the sun's rays,87 is unique feature of the coins
of Ptolemy V and, as shall be demonstrated below, of his consort, Cleopatra
I. A common scholarly
woven
terms
of
in
the
diadem
with
of
Pharaonic Egyptian
interpretation
grain sprigs transposed
assumes a connection of the wheat/barleycorn motif with the chthonic, regenerative as
theology88
pect of Osiris. Another early interpretation89 attributed the symbolism of the grain in the king's dia
dem to the chthonic cult of Ptah, in whose Memphite
temple the king was crowned, but Kyrieleis90

coins that must date before 199, two

that the grain ears already occurred on Phoenician
sources
the
the
of
before
coronation.
As
varied
years
according to time and need, the symbol
grain
ism would probably not have been of a specific local nature. Egyptian iconography or the familiar
observed

imagery of the fecundity of the Land of the Nile91 is nowhere tangibly referred to in the symbolism
occurs on the coinage of this royal couple
of the grain?which
of the coins. The actual message
alone?is probably quite the opposite: the paucity of domestic grain reserves due to the native upris
ings, necessitating the importation of emergency supplies through the crown's intervention.

The Egyptian ceremony of enthronization, not performed until Ptolemy V was declared of age in
that the leaders of the rebels in Upper Egypt, who had
197/6, made a statement to the populace
factions out of many
assumed
titularies of Egyptian kings and driven pro-Ptolemaic
meanwhile
corona
were not legitimate
Upper Egyptian settlements and temples (see infra),
pharaohs.92 At his
tion by theHigh Priest of Ptah inMemphis, Ptolemy V received theHorus name of hwn h(y m nswt hr
st it=f ("the youth who appears as king on the throne of his father"),93 a phraseology
only slightly
varied from the titulary of his father, Ptolemy IV, hwn kny sh(-sw it=f ("strong youth, whose father
made him appear as king").94 It can thus be argued that the Greek epiclesis Epiphanes for Ptolemy V
was derived from the native concept for a festive appearance,
for which the relevant titulary would
only be granted

to him officially when

his Horus

name was bestowed

upon

him at his Egyptian

coronation.

The coin portrait of a child wearing a radiate crown, possibly interlaced with blades of grain, alludes
a guarantee of protection
to his epiphany?dependable
like the dazzling sun above the horizon?with
as
in the Rosetta Decree,
The
related
of his people and their vital needs.
coronation ceremonies,

included the execution of numerous Egyptian dissidents?another

pointed political statement defying
the rebels in the South, featuring the new king in the traditional pharaonic model of the triumph of
in divine terms in Egyptian religion by the
order over chaos.95 The same achievement, paralleled
over
Seth, is represented in the bronze pancratiast group inAthens (fig. 2). Ptolemy
victory of Horus
restoration of peace after the subjugation of the native revolt inUpper Egypt was praised
Epiphanes'
in the Rosetta
86

Decree

of 196 and

in the Philensis Decrees.96

It was proclaimed

in these documents

to imagine these woven

in gold thread or wrought of gold filigree and affixed to the diadem.
Ta nomismata III, pi. 41, 15ff.; IV, 263-66;
"Portratmiinzen,"
218ff., fig. 3; idem, Bildnisse, 52,
271-75; Kyrieleis,
"Verbrannte Pharaonen?"
figs. 3a, 4a.
pi. 40, 4; Grimm,
88
Notes 2 (1947), 10f.; Kyrieleis,
A. B. Brett, AmNumSocMus
Stuart Poole, BMC Ptolemies, 48, 60 ("Osiris/Serapis");
Reginald
245f.
"Portratmiinzen,"
89
244f.
"Portratmiinzen,"
Kyrieleis,
90
223, 244, n. 89.
"Portratmiinzen,"
91
Ta nomismata IV, 25If.
As supposed
by Svoronos,
92
Veisse, Les revokes, 187-94, esp. 189.
93
in n. 28.
Gauthier, Livre des Rois, 282, no. 26; HuB, Agypten, 504f., with references
94
nn.
384f.
Livre
des
268f.
Rois,
21-23, 26; HuB, Agypten, 336f.,
Gauthier,
95
Veisse, Les revokes, 194, with n. 132.
96
1927), 263-68; Kurt Sethe, "Die historische Bedeu
Edwyn Bevan, A History ofEgypt under thePtolemaic Dynasty (London,
aus
53
Ptolemaios
ZAS
der
Zeit
des
Philae-Dekrets
des
2.
(1917), 35-49; Veisse, Les revokes, 197-220.
tung
Epiphanes,"
87

One

has

Svoronos,

JARCE 45 (2009)

360

that a statue of the king, entitled "Ptolemy, the Avenger (or Protector) of Egypt (ndd Bky)" should
be placed in the most prominent place in every temple of the land alongside the local deity of that
a sword
temple, which was represented handing the (statue of the) king
(Eg. hps kny; Gr. hoplon nike
tikon).97 Even though different artistic means were used by the Egyptian sculptors, themessage of the
official statue thus had a military nuance, similar to the Athens bronze group (fig. 2).
the simmering animosity between the two Hellenistic
kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, the
Despite

a peace treaty and establish an entente with

danger of interference by Rome loomed larger. To secure
new
the Seleucid
house
threat, by 195 the guardians of the young Ptolemy V
royal
against this
III, Cleopatra.98
brought to realization his long-standing betrothal to a young daughter of Antiochus

the couple married

about ten.
Cleopatra

When

at Raphia

in 194/3, Ptolemy V was

sixteen years old, the Seleucid

princess

came to be known,99 was evidently

Cleopatra
Syra ("the Syrian"), as the child bride of Ptolemy V
well received in Egypt, and alongside her spouse she received an official titulary appropriate
for a
some
to
of
documents
label
her
distinction.100
fact,
queen
exceptional
Contrary
Egyptian
biological
Sister of the King,101 as was, in actual fact, her predecessor, Arsinoe III Philopator, and she lived to
play a significant role as Egypt's queen.
In 180, when Ptolemy V met his premature death,102 his son, Ptolemy VI, inherited the throne, and
once again, Egypt had a king of but five or six years old.103 The boy assumed the throne first under
of his mother, Cleopatra
the mother as
the guardianship
Syra. That Alexandrian
policy recognized
the supreme authority in Egypt is evident from official protocols, which name the queen first before

her under-age son: "the pharaohs, Cleopatra

themother, theManifest Goddess
(Thea Epiphanes), and
son
the
A
of
Manifest
God
Greek
(Theos Epiphanes)"104
Ptolemy,
Ptolemy,
inscription from Cyprus
names the mother/son
to
also
the
I105: "Queen Cleopatra,
co-regents
Cleopatra
giving precedence

are the
goddess, and King Ptolemy and her other children." The other children mentioned
sister
II
and
the
VIII
II.
future
and
To
what
extent,
brother,
boy king's
Cleopatra
Ptolemy
Euergetes
in actual fact, Cleopatra
I ran the political affairs of Egypt herself, independent of her court advisors,
from 180 until her own death in 176 is not known.106
I is based initially on the shaky testimony of
The identification of representations
of Cleopatra
the bust of a woman
coins from a Cypriote (Paphos) mint and whether
illustrated on Alexandrian

manifest

queen of
interpreted as physically individualized
portraits of the contemporary
are
as
of
likenesses
has been postulated
in scholarship just
often107 as
they
Cleopatra

these should be

Egypt. That

97

Sethe, Urk. II, 189, 8-10 (Rosetta Decree);

207,3 (Philensis I); 226,11-12
(Philensis II).
18. 51,10; App.ll.
to
3; Liv. 33. 40.3; Holbl, History, 140; HuB, Agypten, 499. The Seleucid
princess' marriage
in
been
two
her
the
childhood
IV
of
between
fathers,
rather,
already
arranged
Ptolemy
Egypt (or
by proxy
and Antiochus
III of Syria as part of a peace
treaty to end the Fourth Syrian War.
through his advisor, Agathocles)
99
App., Syr. 5, 18.
100
(London,
1994), 84ff.
John Whitehorne,
Cleopatras
101
A Demotic
document
of 191/90: Pestman, Chronologie, 15; in both
"Die Adaptation
Koenen,
bilingual Philensis Decrees:
98

Polybius
Ptolemy V had

159, n. 47; HuB, Agypten, 535, n. 27.

agyptischer Konigsideologie,"
102RE
23/2 (1959), cols. 1698L, s.v. "Ptolemaios
HuB, Agypten, 536.
(23)" (H. Volkmann);
103
On the uncertain date of birth of Ptolemy VI, see HuB, Agypten, 538, with references
to earlier literature.
104
Pestman, Chronologie, 146f.
105
SEG XVI,788;
HuB, Agypten, 540, n. 20.
106
HuB, Agypten, 537ff.
107
Ernst Kornemann,
KLIO
9 (1909), 138; Svoronos,
Ta nomismata IV, cols. 278ff.; Jean Charbonneaux,
"Sur la signification
et la date de la Tasse Farnese," MonPiot
50 (1958), 96f.; Gisela M. A. Richter, Portraits of theGreeks III (New York, 1965), 265;
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Royal Sculpture (Oxford,
1986), 76; tentatively Dimitri Plantzos, Hellenistic Engraved Gems (Oxford,
1999),

CHESHIRE

361
it has

been viewed with skepti

108
cism.
Results on the native Egyp
tian statues of Ptolemaic women
brought recently by Sabine Albers
the most im
meier109 have made
strides
portant
the portraiture
Cleopatra;
discussion

in reconstructing
of the "Syrian"

of the following
is an elaboration of her

much

conclusions.

3-4.

Copper
Figs.
can Numismatic
matic

assarion,
Society

Cypriote Mint,
1944.100.78697.

"Cleopatra
Courtesy

"
I. New

types of tiny
iconographic
a Paphian
coins
from
copper
on
the
obverse
female
bear
mint110
Three

York, Ameri

of the American

Numis

that are possibly of histori

sig
cal, rather than mythological,
on some emissions with the legend
heads

Society.

Since

each

of

types is circumscribed
it has rightly been supposed
that the heads
("of Queen
Cleopatra"),
a
would probably portray
queen of that name. One common emission of Cypriote assaria (figs. 3
a shallowly stamped image, bears the profile head of a woman wearing a
coins
with
4),111 tiny copper
thin diadem on the obverse, on the reverse the Ptolemaic emblem of an eagle standing on a thunder
PTOLEMAIOU.
bolt and the legend BASILEOS
The woman's hair is coiffed in long corkscrew curls
nificance.

BASILISSES

KLEOPATRAS

these head

the diadem, the hair above it being flattened against the cranium. The ringlets are shorter
the face. The diadem appears to be a thin band out of which poke blades of grain, the largest
sprig emerging over the top of the head on most unclear stamps like an indistinct, thickened section
of the diadem.112 A wreath of wheat or grain is common on coin images of Demeter and appears in
Ptolemaic
II.113 The theme of agricultural
royal iconography first on glyptic portraits of Berenice
reverse
to
is
carried
the
of
of
the
coins, where the "Ptolemaic
many
"Queen Cleopatra"
bounty
beneath
around

on a thunderbolt, carries a
around which is sometimes bound a
eagle," standing
single cornucopia,
on
a
diadem
The
head
the
is
female
obverse
royal
consistently repeated facial type, but cer
(fig. 4).
tain vacillations?in
from piece to piece as dies
particular the length and curvature of the nose?occur

were worn down

and re-cut. The face is long and thin, the forehead short and slightly receding to
the hairline, the cheek long and flat, a long, straight and pointed nose, firmly set lips and a
chin. Despite
her steely, determined
facial expression,
the
strong, bony, somewhat protruding
woman appears to be young. These issues, which on account of their small size and low value bear a

ward

on some
KLEOPATRAS
fairly crudely carved image, are identifiable through the BASILISSES
legend
it appears that the only queen before Cleopatra VII who would have had the
of them. Historically,

108
Marie-Francoise

Die Bildnisse der Ptolemderinnen

BCH
113 (1989), 326; Edelgard
Boussac,
Brunelle,
(Frankfurt-a.M.,
on the
the idea of recognizing
coins, in particular because
1976), 62f., rejected
portrait features in the female bust
Cypriote
to be minted on coinage of the following royal couple. Likewise Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
114.
the same facial type continued
109
zu den Frauenstatuen
Treverensia
10 (Mainz, 2002), 202-4.
des ptolemdischen Agypten, Aegyptiaca
Untersuchungen
110
Stuart Poole, British Museum?A
1883), lvii ff.
Reginald
of theGreek Coins: The Ptolemies (London,
Catalogue
111
New York, American
Numismatic
cf. Poole, BMC Ptolemies, lix f., pi. 18, 7; Forrer, Portraits, 25f.,
Society 1944.100.78697:

no. 78 (ill.); Svoronos,

Ta nomismata III, pi. 47, 15; Poole, BMC Ptolemies, pi. 18, 9.
112
Forrer, Portraits, 26, no. 80.
113
Martina Minas,
"Die Kanephoros. Aspekte
des ptolemaischen
Dynastiekultes,"
dans VEgypte ptolemaique au Hie siecle avant notre ere. StudHell
34 (Louvain,
1998),

inHenri

Melaerts,

ed., Le culte du souverain

362 JARCE 45 (2009)

right tomint coins in her own name, with her co-regent, Ptolemy,
a portrait?on
in secondary place and named?without
the reverse,
I. After the death of Ptolemy V, that
would have been Cleopatra
queen ruled as regent for her young son, the future Ptolemy VI
Philometor, from 181/80-174. Examples of these issues have been
at Saqqara
in four an
excavated in the Sacred Animal Necropolis
cient deposits underneath
the floor of a courtyard, their closed

context enabling a dating of the remarkably homog

archeological
enous hoards within the reign of Ptolemy VI.114
It can not be denied that the facial features of the woman on

these Paphian coins strongly resemble coin portraits of the adult

lean, bony face and protruding,
Ptolemy VI Philometor115?the
bony chin, a short forehead, a long and pointed nose, the firm set
he was only a boy of five or six years
as
I
had
old, Cleopatra
coins, at least at the Ptolemaic mint
regent
on Cyprus, issued with her own portrait and name on the obverse,
of the small mouth. While

Fig. 5.
Museum

Gold

Trustees

the boy being represented by the eagle and the legend Of King
Ptolemy on the reverse. Her coin image included several new fea

British

London,
Ring.
GR
1917.5-1.96.

The

of the British Museum.

tures;

not

only

was

Cleopatra's

name

a new

one

in

the

Ptolemaic

royal house (possibly not a significant matter at the time), but she
proclaimed her Syrian heritage openly in being represented with the non-Greek coiffure of long cork
screw curls. Her epiclesis Syra, "the Syrian," was another open declaration of international eunoia.

A plastically more fully carved image on one Cypriote issue of the same type116 almost certainly
portrays the same woman wearing a corkscrew coiffure and a thin diadem of corn, an attribute of the
and Triptolemus.117 The head shape is still long and
Eleusinian
Kore/Persephone,
gods?Demeter,

relatively lean, the cheek is long and flat, the nose decidedly
long and pointed, its sharply pinched
contour indicating a thin nose bridge. The modeling
is suppler, including a rounded sculpting of the
brow area that produces a slight shadow effect and a fleshier cheek. The flesh beneath the jaw ismore
swelling and rounded, the neck fuller and the expression of the large eye and the small, firmly set lips
a bit

softer.

In her recent study on Ptolemaic

stressed the coincidence
of
statuary of women, Albersmeier118
of the corkscrew curl coiffure on statues of Ptolemaic queens and on coin images of
the appearance
a woman, either a
or the queen herself, on coins simultaneously
goddess ("Isis/Demeter"?)
during the

I as guardian and regent of her young son, Ptolemy VI. While

those coin images
KLEOPATRAS
would appear to directly identify the head as the queen, there is
on the coins that lack this legend to differentiate the woman's head from the former

reign of Cleopatra
labeled BASILISSES

no evidence
issues.
114
M. Jessop

Price, in Geoffrey T. Martin, The Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara. The Southern
1981), 156-65, pis. 44-46.
Temple Complex (London,
115
Ta nomismata III, pi. 48, 19f.; IV, col. 302; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 58f., pi. 46.
Svoronos,
116
Ta nomismata II, no. 1384; III, pi. 47, 11; Poole, BMC
Forrer, Portraits, 26, no. 80 (ill.); Svoronos,
rer described
the bust this time as Isis, but there is no typological difference from the former image,
also Forrer, Portraits, no. 83 = Svoronos,
Ta nomismata II, no. 1387; III, pi. 47, 15).
117
Michael
of ears of
Blech, Studien zum Kranz bei den Griechen (Berlin, 1982), 256f. The diadem
to Triptolemus
Aravantinos,
eds.,
1984), 105, fig. 22.

on

assimilation

is still found

Bonanno

Studie Miscellanei

(Rome,
118
Frauenstatuen,

72ff., 203; Plantzos,

coin

portraits
28. Giornate

Hellenistic

Engraved

Dependencies

of theMain

Ptolemies, pi. 21, 3. For

a
one (see
only
stylistic

as a
an
grain
symbol of
cf. Sandro
Stucchi
in S. Stucchi and Margherita
of Gallienus;
nov. 1984
in Onore
di Studie
di Achille Adriani,
Roma
26-27

Gems,

CHESHIRE

363

this case clearly a portrait?is found on the bezel of a gold ring

in 1917 (fig. 5).119 Not only are the corkscrew curls and the lean,
a short forehead, a
bony face with
long, thin nose, long, flat cheeks, and firmly set lips similar, but the
serious mien of this woman, who ruled Egypt alone as regent for her underage son in a time of con

likeness of the same queen?in

which entered the British Museum
A

siderably civil unrest at home, mirrors the expression on the coin portraits. She wears
also a chlamys or cloak fastened with a fibula on the left shoulder?a male costume

a necklace

but

signifying her
as
Ptolemaic
Her
is
and
leader
of
the
diadem
almost
regent
position
figural
military.
royal
entirely
obscured by long blades of barley-corn that are bound into it on the side of the head with some

shorter sprigs above the forehead.120 On top of her head, she wears the horned sun disc, a native
of Isis. While
representations
vegetal
Egyptian crown adopted with frequency on Greco-Roman
wreaths were common inGreek iconography and fashion, the first occurrence of the ears of corn on

an Egyptian diadem is in the composite crown for the cult statue of the deceased, deified Princess
Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy III and Berenice
II, as specified in the Canopus Decree.121 The apo
theosis of the young deceased princess was attached onto the Choiak festival of Osiris, with which it
approximately coincided, and adhered in principle
attributes (such as animal's horns, uraeus serpent)

to Egyptian

funerary beliefs.122 The concept that

a tradi
or
"sprout"
"grow" out of the crown was
a
an
tional Egyptian mode of expression, essentially
synonym for hcy, "come forth."123 Thus
inscrip
Stela says of Arsinoe Philadelphus
that she
tion in the vignette in the upper sector of the Mendes
appears (or comes forth) as the uraeus on the forehead (or crown) of the king.124 It is necessary to
emphasize, however, that the grain attribute on the fully Greek diadems of Ptolemy V and Cleopatra
I made use of a symbol very familiar in the Greco-Roman
world, generally expressing agricultural

bounty that need not have had any funerary implications.125

The marble head of a woman from a statue in Egyptian type in Brooklyn (figs. 6-7),126 although
one would hope to understand with ease, has often confounded
artistically a very satisfying work that
119
London,

British Museum

GR

1917.5-1.96.

Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman,

in Susan Walker
and Sally-Ann Ashton,

Max.

in theDepartment
and Peter Higgs,

of bezel: 9.5 mm. See Frederick H. Marshall,

Catalogue
of the
(London,
1907), cat. no. 96; Peter Higgs
ofAntiquities, British Museum
eds., Cleopatra ofEgypt. From History toMyth (London,
2001), 67, cat.

breadth

no. 43 (ill.).
120
identified as
the forms that are mistakenly
The sprigs of grain, typical for the iconography of Cleopatra
I, are apparently
same
in Cleopatra ofEgypt, 67. These
above the fore
feathers of a vulture cap by Higgs and Ashton,
tiny, feathery protrusions
on the well-known
were recognized
as sprigs of grain by
silver patera from Aquileia
heads of two female allegorical
figures
von Aquileia,"
in
Isis (Hans Mobius,
"Der Silberteller
motif symbolizing
them to be an Alexandrian
who supposed
Mobius,
and Hagen
Nikolaus Himmelmann-Wildschiitz
Biesantz,
eds., Festschrift fur Friedrich Matz
(Mainz, 1962), 85, with pi. 24.
121
71 (Cairo, 1970), 989ff.; Sethe,
OGIS I, no. 56,11. 62f.; cf. Andre Bernand, Le Delta Egyptien dapres les textsgrecs I MIFAO
Tochter Ptolemaios'
"Die Apotheose
der Berenike,
Urk. II, 124ff., esp. 148f., 11. 3If.; S. Kothen-Welpot,
III.," in Maechteld

zum 65. Geburtstag. AAT 35 (Wiesbaden,

Schade-Busch,
ed., Wege Offnen. Festschrift fur Rolf Gundlach
1996), 129-32; Holbl, A
before
that corn ears from the first harvest should be placed as dedications
decree also stipulated
History, 108-9. The Canopus
her statue (Sethe, Urk. II, 150, 7-151, 4).
122
decree also stipulated
"Die Apotheose
der Berenike,"
S. Kothen-Welpot,
129-32; Holbl, A History, 108-9. The Canopus
before her statue (Sethe, Urk. II, 150, 7?151, 4).
that corn ears from the first harvest should be placed as dedications
123
Redford, History, 18.
124
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 110.
Cheshire,
125por
an important corn pro
a sprig of barley-corn on the coinage of Metapontum,
the ever-recurring
example,
image of
I?II
and corrections by Ann Johnston, The Coinage ofMetapontum
ducer in South Italy; cf. Sydney P. Noe, with additions
(New
to the Egyptian hieroglyph
for bd.t, "barley" (Wb. I,
York, 1984), pis. 1-22, 24-45. The astonishing
similarity of this symbol
486), is perhaps not accidental.
126
not known. H. -12.7 cm, see Bulletin of theBrooklyn Museum
12 (1971), 20f.;
of Art 71.12. Provenance
Brooklyn Museum
and Alexandrianism,
inM. True and K. Hamma,
Bernard V. Bothmer,
eds., Alexandria
April
Symposium, J. Paul Getty Museum,
inWalker
and Higgs,
1993 (Malibu,
eds., Cleopatra of Egypt, 164, no. 163, with
22-25,
1996), 218, fig. 12; Sally-Ann Ashton,
color ill. ("Cleopatra
Frauenstatuen,
39, 202f., 204, cat. no. 38, pi. 30c-d
I"); Paul Stanwick,
VII"); Albersmeier,
("Cleopatra
Portraits of thePtolemies (Austin, 2002), 34f., 37,40, n. 1, 80, 87,124f., cat. E13 (bibliog.), figs. 17lf. ("Cleopatra

JARCE 45 (2009)

6-7.
Figs.
Museum.

Marble

Head,

"Cleopatra

I.

"
Brooklyn,

N.Y.,

The

Brooklyn

Museum

of Art

71.12.

Courtesy

of the Brooklyn

scholars. They have dated it variously from the early to mid-second

century to the end of the Ptole
maic Period, the most recent trend attributing it to Cleopatra VII. The symmetrical, vertically aligned
features, the hardened oval shape of the head and the severe attitude evoked by the firmly set lips

to an overall effect similar to the

strongly Classicizing
style of Late Hellenistic/Republican
art, but the austere look is deceiving. The sculptor of the Brooklyn piece achieved a similar
result decades before the beginning of the Classicizing
era, transposing an individualized Hellenistic
observed
that
portrait type into a solemn, timeless image of Pharaonic demeanor. Albersmeier127
the highly arched, hairless eyebrows, carved in a stylized fashion as the sharp edges of scooped-out
contribute

Roman

orbital cavities, and sharply cut upper and lower lids to frame the large eyes, once inlaid in another
in Copenhagen.128
She
material, are already found on a basalt portrait of Arsinoe III (r. 217-205/4)
also recognized
the stylistic and physiognomic
similarities of the Brooklyn head to the granite head
that has been indis
fragment from a statue of a young pharaoh in a nemes head cloth inAlexandria129
as
a
VI.
of
That
is
well
attested by coin
putably accepted
portrait
Ptolemy
king's physical appearance
portraits130 that represent him with thick, wavy hair, a long, narrow and lean face, high cheekbones
and a square chin, traits also reproduced on a granite torso of a young pharaoh inAthens.131 Albers

127
202.
Frauenstatuen,
128
jEIN 1472: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
118, 184, cat. M5
Ny Carlsberg
Glyptothek
(bibliog.), pi. 102, 1-2; Stanwick, Portraits,
104f., cat. no. 44; Albersmeier,
Frauenstatuen,
190, 200, 202, 203, 330f., cat. 80, pi. 51c-d.
129
Greco-Roman
Museum
3357: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 37, 59ff., 174, cat. F2, pis. 48, 1-2, 49, 1; Stanwick, Portraits, 147 (In
dex), cat. B7 (bibliog.), figs. 54f.
130
Ta nomismata III, pi. 48, 19-23; IV, cols. 302f.; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 58f.,
Svoronos,
pi. 46.
131
ANE
National
Museum
108: Jan Six, AthMitt 12 (1887), 212ff. (with earlier bibliog.),
Archaeological
pis. 7f.; Kyrieleis,
Bildnisse, 37, 59ff., 174, cat. Fl (bibliog.), pi. 47, 1-3; Stanwick, Portraits, 148

CHESHIRE

365

the family resemblance

of the king's long,
observed
flat
cheeks and square
lean face with high cheekbones,
long,
on
woman
to
the Cypriote coins (figs. 3
chin
the
represented
4), suggesting that Ptolemy VI took after his mother, Cleopatra
I, rather than after his Ptolemaic ancestors on his paternal side.

meier132

same lean physiognomy and heavy coiffure of ringlets that

is remarkably similar to the
appears on the Brooklyn head
as well.
Egyptianizing portraits of Ptolemy VI

The

on the Brooklyn head, re

heavy flesh beneath the chin
is
upon by Albersmeier,133
probably not to be inter
a physical trait but as a stylistic feature borrowed
as
preted
from contemporary Hellenistic
sculpture. The plastic modeling
The

marked

of heavy yet firm flesh, with contours that are never stream
lined and uplifting but always sagging, swelling or bulging, is an
on the
innovation featured on numerous heads of goddesses

Fig.

8.

''Artemis," Pergamon-Altar.

Berlin,

of Staatliche
Courtesy
Pergamon-Museum.
Museen
Berlin, Antikensammlung.

in particular the Artemis

from Pergamum,
or
more
the
facial
type of the Hekate.135
rectangular
(fig. 8)134
The oval-shaped
face of the Brooklyn queen may have been
substantially idealized in the taste of a Middle Hellenistic female
Great Altar of Zeus

head. As the Altar was apparently nearing completion for its in

in Pergamum
in
ternational viewing at the Great Nikephoria
was
the
of
the
reliefs
with
the
181,136
contemporary
sculpting
I in Egypt, 194/3-176. An identification of
reign of Cleopatra
the Brooklyn heads with that queen is thus supported
elements of Hellenistic
stylistic influence.
Two

heads

from a series of mold-made

through

terracottas

from

as por
Smyrna were published by Simone Mollard-Besques137
I of Egypt. One of the replicas had already
traits of Cleopatra
been described by G. M. A. Richter138 as a portrait, possibly rep

II. Their physical similarity to the Brooklyn

resenting Berenice
head (figs. 6-7) and a statuette of the same queen in theMetro
politan Museum
(figs. 10-11), to be discussed below, illustrates
the difficulty in differentiating

Fig.

9.

Terracotta

Head

from Memphis.

between
London,

an actual portrait and

Petrie Museum

of Egyptian

ArchaeologyUC 48248. ? PetrieMuseum ofEgyptian Archaeology,Univer

sityCollege London.

132
202f.
Frauenstatuen,
133
202.
Frauenstatuen,
134
Heinz Kahler, Der grofie Fries von Pergamon
(Berlin, 1948), pi. 27.
135
Kahler, Der grofie Fries, pi. 6; Der Pergamon Altar (Berlin-Mainz,
2004), cover; ill. on 43.
136
Kahler, Der grofie Fries, 139ff.; Elisabeth Rohde, Pergamon. Burgberg und Altar (Berlin, 1982),
the best explanation,
of the exterior frieze of the Zeus Altar around
180 remains
completion

LAutel de Pergame. Images et pouvoir en Grece d'Asie (Paris, 2005),

Francois Queyrel,
137
RA 1968/2 (= Festschrift J. Charbonneaux, part II), 241-50,
esp. figs. 1-4.
138
17.
"Greek Portraits III," Latomus 48 (1955),

123ff.

26ff., esp. 30. A dating of the

recent objections
despite
by

366 JARCE 45 (2009)

a generic ethnic type. The clay
heads show a woman with a long,
rectangular face, high cheekbones,
a solemn mien evoked primarily
by the horizontal, closed lips, and
a square chin. The face is framed

by a row of paratactically arranged

corkscrew curls which are longer

falling over the ears. Clay portrait

rulers are
figurines of Hellenistic

extremely rare and, even though

such an exception might be less
surprising among the high quality
terracottas

from

Smyrna,

the Ana

tolian provenance
of both head
not
speak for their
fragments does
as
of a
identity
representations

queen of Egypt.
A terracotta head

found

dur

campaign at
a very
Memphis
(fig. 9)139 has
similar facial type, but it displays
ing Petrie's

a more
10-11.

Figs.

Metropolitan
of Art.

Limestone
Museum

Statuette

from
of Art 89.2.660.

L" New
"Cleopatra
Courtesy
of theMetropolitan

Egypt,

of a crown or diadem

York, The
Museum

ominous

second

facial

expression

through deeper hollowed out or

bital arches and a lumpy, heavy
rendering of the flesh that sug

in the sec
gest its manufacture
the defense of its identification as the

reduces
ond century BC. The absence
a
of
Like
the
from
queen.
examples
Smyrna, the Memphite
clay head is said to have been
portrait
are
there
other
uncontroversial
ruler portraits
serial
Nor
mold-made,
any
implying
production.140
over
at Mit-Ra
terracotta
Petrie
the
of
excavation
the
number
of
heads
found
years
among
by
large

terracotta heads and the Cypriote

(Memphis). An optical similarity between the series-produced
coins rests probably not on corresponding portrait features, but rather on the combined overall aus
tere effect of a long, rectangular face with a solemn expression of eyes and mouth, framed starkly by
thick, stifflyand vertically falling corkscrew curls. Such a combination could have occurred in various

hine

centers at different time periods, misleading

scholars to place the Brooklyn head among
Roman Classicizing works of the first century BC. The Memphite
clay head, a forceful work inminia
to introduce to Egyptian artists the "Syrian" type?including
ture, might have been used as a model
a stern facial expression, to be used not only on the image of the queen, but now also
long ringlets,
cultural

139
London,

Petrie Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology
UC 48248: William M. F. Petrie, The Palace ofApries
College,
17, no. 102, pi. 31; Sally-Ann Ashton, Petrie's Ptolemaic and Roman Memphis
2003),
(ill.);
(London,
and Peter Lacovara,
eds., Excavating Egypt. Great Discoveries from thePetrie Museum
ofEgyp
Betsy Teasley Trope, Stephen Quirke
tian Archaeology (Atlanta, 2005), 35, cat. 30 (color ill.).
140
this aspect on the original, but it does not seem to show the freshness of an
The present author has not investigated
(Memphis II)

original

University

(London,

1909),

CHESHIRE

367

in a series, were probably ide

for a global Isis type. The Smyrnaic terracottas, which were mold-made
alized, perhaps ethnically specific heads.
A limestone statuette141 of a queen in Egyptian type with an uninscribed back pillar in the Metro
politan Museum
(figs. 10-11)142 has numerous features in common with the Brooklyn head. It was

style and type but in a soft stone appropriate for adapting Greek sculpting tech
an exceptional
niques. Both heads wear a triple uraeus on the horizontal headband,
insignia which
has been the subject of much scholarly debate (see infra). The hair is arranged in identical fashion in
twisted, tubular ringlets falling densely like a mat from the crown of the head onto the shoulders.
carved

in Egyptian

the forehead, emerging from beneath the plain Egyptian circlet, is a row of stylized snail-shell
to a similar statuette,
curls. It is tempting to speculate that the Brooklyn head originally belonged
costume
outer
in
the
with
ends
knotted
between
the breasts, possibly
garment
striding,
Egyptian

Across

even holding a cornucopia.

mic differences.

Both

a young woman
images clearly portray

but show slight physiogno

the similarities, particularly in the coiffure, Albersmeier143 placed the Metropolitan

Recognizing
statuette likewise in the early second century, allowing that it, too, might represent Cleopatra
I, albeit
are
in the "Arsinoe Philadelphus"
The
distended
with
the
eyes
type
cornucopia.
large,
typically Ptole
maic, although the trait could imply a partial assimilation toArsinoe II. She drew a comparison to the
octadrachms bearing the K-monogram,
second century issues of the Arsinoe Philadelphus
suspected
in official protocol of Egyptian docu
I. The queen's mention
since Svoronos144 to portray Cleopatra
ments honorifically as "King's Sister"145 was a declaration
that the new queen took her place in the
Ptolemaic dynasty as successor of the ruling brother-sister pair that preceded her. She was, moreover,
III ("the Great") of Syria and the sister
in actual fact of royal blood, the daughter of King Antiochus
intended as
IV.Her union with the young Ptolemy V, which was undoubtedly
of the future Antiochus
a
measure
as
an alliance between the two Greco-Macedonian
defensive
powers
against Rome, would

turn of phrase "King's Sister."146 In the Raphia

have justified?in
the eyes of the Egyptians?the
III is actually cited using the Egyptian wordpr- i ("pharaoh"), and
of 217 (line 11), Antiochus
his name is set within a cartouche followed by cnhwdl snb, a slogan of well wishes for the king. This
gesture of respect for the enemy king implicit in the Egyptian textmight have been determined by

Decree

the way inwhich the peace treaty was drawn up, as the betrothal of Antiochus's daughter to the son
and heir of Ptolemy IV was negotiated between the two parties, making them future relatives.147
That foreign princesses married into the family of other monarchs was a familiar custom in Egypt

as well as in other kingdoms of the ancient world long before the Ptolemaic Period. The addition
the extension of
Greek attribute?underlined
to the New York statuette of the single cornucopia?a
the relationship beyond Egypt's borders. Hellenistic
rulers, among each other, even occasionally
141
There

see Robert S. Bianchi

in Susan Walker
and Peter
is some uncertainty whether
the stone is limestone or marble;
n. 58.
Reassessed
22,
eds.,
(London,
2003),
Cleopatra
Higgs,
142
not known. Gift of Joseph W. Drexel,
1889. h.-61.8 cm,
Museum
of Art 89.2.660.
Provenance
New York, Metropolitan
see Winifred Needier,
in the Yale University Art Gallery," Berytus 9 (1948/49),
"Some Ptolemaic
137, 139f.> pi. 26, 5;
Sculptures
II or III");
Bernard V. Bothmer, Egyptian Sculpture of theLate Period (New York, 1960), 145f., no. 113, figs. 281-83
("Cleopatra
cat. Ml,
inWalker
and Higgs, eds., Cleopatra ofEgypt, 164, with color ill. and bib
Ashton
101,1;
Bildnisse,
118,
183,
pi.
Kyrieleis,
ser. 9, no. 6 (1995), 39, 415ff., 431ff. (already with the identifi
Capriotti Vittozzi, RendLinc
liog. ("Cleopatra VII"); Giuseppina
cation "Cleopatra
Frauenstatuen,
204f., cat. no. 105, pi. 31a; Stanwick, Portraits, 34, 37, 40, n. 1, 80, 87, 95, 125,
I"); Albersmeier,
cat. E14,
fig. 173 ("Cleopatra VII").
143
203f.
Frauenstatuen,
144
See infra.
145
See n. 100.
146
On the life of Cleopatra
York, 1994), 80-88.
I, see John Whitehorne,
(London-New
Cleopatras
147
"Feinde,"
Vittmann,

368

JARCE 45 (2009)

their royal peers from other kingdoms as "brother"148?an

international bond of Mace
elites, irrespective of their ties to their own subjects. The attribute, which was most closely
in its double version (dikeras) and was then passed on, usually
associated with Arsinoe Philadelphus
as a single horn, to certain later Ptolemaic
on copper coins from
Cyrene,
queens,149 is repeated
addressed

donian

I (figs. 3-4), which show a

already sometimes in the third century and also on coins of Cleopatra
diadem of sprigs of grain on her portrait on the obverse, and the cornucopia bound by a royal fillet
with the eagle on the reverse.
amount of scholarly literature concerning the interpretation of the triple
There is a considerable
uraeus

and whether it can be used as a means of identifying the queen.150 A definition of the attrib
ute is given by Diodorus
(1. 47, 5), who visited Egypt at the time of Ptolemy XII. He described a statue
of an Egyptian queen and mother of a prominent pharaoh Osymandias, as having "three diadems
around her head (treis basileias epi tes kephales)" to signify that she was "daughter, mother and wife of
a

king (thygaterkai gyne kai meter basileds)"151 This information may well have been given to the visit
ing Sicilian historian by a native tour guide, a scribe or a priest, reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions
on the back pillar of a statue such as the sculpted
fragment of a feather crown with a horned sun disc,

with a triple uraeus, which was discovered by Petrie at Coptos.152 Aside from a possible
adaptation of the attribute in Kush, in Egypt the triple uraeus is seen only on certain queens but
almost never on kings,153 and thus logically could have alluded to a royal woman's multiple roles as
daughter, sister or consort, and mother, such as are embodied by the uraeus, Hathor or other Daugh
adorned

ters of Ra.154 Three

uraei appear already on a statue of Queen Tiye of the Eighteenth

Dynasty.155
a
with
royal lady
triple uraeus described by Diodorus was undoubtedly Touiya, the mother of
Ramses II ("the Great"), the famous king who is repeatedly cited by that historian as Osymandias?a.
as the
Greek transliteration of his throne name (Wsr-mi'-R*).156 Touiya was known to the Romans
The

of one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs and herself as a celebrated King's Mother.157 Albers
interpretation of treis basileias as perhaps a mixture of different royal insignia totaling
three is overly cautious; the number of components of a crown would not have been noteworthy, only
to in Greek as a basileial59?w2is tripled. As Stanwick observed,160
the fact that the uraeus?referred
the tripling of a symbol could signify, in Egyptian orthography, simply plurality; hence, the three
uraei could be interpreted as ntr.wt, "goddesses." The statement of Diodorus
is supported by the

mother

meier's158

148
Wilhelm

Kunst und Gesellschaft an den Hofen Alexanders des Grofien und seiner
(Munich,
Volcker-Janssen,
1993),
Nachfolger
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 124, n. 849.
63; Cheshire,
149
Ptolemaic Oinochoai
and portraits infaience (Oxford, 1973), 31-34; Katrin Bemmann,
in klassischer
Fullhorner
Thompson,
und hellenistischer Zeit (Frankfurt-am-Main,
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 117ff.
1994), 82ff., 88ff.; Cheshire,
150
in Cleopatra of
Bothmer, Egyptian Sculpture, 145-57; Robert S. Bianchi, Cleopatra's Egypt (Brooklyn,
1988), 176; Ashton

48-52.
171; Stanwick, Portraits, 37, 41, 46, 76, 80; Albersmeier,
Frauenstatuen,
Egypt, 154-55,
151
New
Albersmeier,
Frauenstatuen,
48, citing Paul Stanwick, Egyptian Royal Sculptures of thePtolemaic Period (Dissertation,
York University,
1999), 105.
152
Petrie Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology
UC 14521: William M. F. Petrie, Koptos (London,
London,
University College,
in Cleopatra ofEgypt, 171, cat. no. 170, with excellent
1896), 2If., pi. 26, 3; Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture, 67 (ill.); Ashton
and bibliography.
photographs
153
in Cleopatra ofEgypt, 155, cites one example of the first century bc at Dendera.
Ashton
154
48ff. with a review of the various interpretations;
for the identity of the queen with Hathor/
Albersmeier,
Frauenstatuen,

"Zur Deutung
eines Szepters
etc., see Wendy Cheshire,
daughter of Ra/uraeus,
108ff.; with revisions in idem, The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 110, 123f., n. 843; Lana
1986), lOOff., 126ff.
Myth and History (Uppsala,
155
Bianchi, Cleopatra's Egypt, 176.
156
j^er KleinePauly
4, col. 379, s.v. "Osymandias"
(Wolfgang Helck).
157
Diodorus
Siculus
I7lf.
1, 47, 3-5; Cheshire,
"Aphrodite Cleopatra,"
158
48.
Frauenstatuen,
159
OGIS I, no. 56,11. 56, 62-3.
Decree:
Canopus
160
portraitSi 37.

der Arsinoe

Troy, Patterns

II. Philadelphos,"
of Queenship

ZPE 48 (1982),
in Ancient Egyptian

CHESHIRE

369

titulature inscribed on the Coptos fragment: "Noble

queen's
woman, great of praises, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt,
of the King, Sister of the King, Great
satisfied . . .Daughter
Wife of the King, who placates the heart of Horus." The epi
thet "who placates
to the queen

ence

a refer
(shtp-ib-Hr) is
the precise
of Hathor;
of Arsinoe
II, who was also

the heart of Horus"

as the embodiment

in a cartouche
epithet appears
to that goddess as sister of Horus,
otherwise assimilated
the
to
Because
of
the
tendency
syncretism among the
king.161
three
cobras
could
the
deities,
represent virtually any
Egyptian
three "daughters of Ra" who had a theological connection with

Fig.

12.

Copper
I." London,

patra

Coin,

Cyrenaica,
British Museum

"Cleo
1866

1201-3880. ? The Trustees of theBritish

Museum.

royal sculptural

style. The

the institution of queenship as well. Ashton162 rightfully inter

preted the triple uraeus as a reference to a queen with mul
from our
tiple family ties to the king, but presumed?differing
own arguments?that

the three known Ptolemaic

portrayed Cleopatra VII.

In contrast to the Hellenizing

examples

all

head in Brooklyn, the Egyp

statuette created a rather sche
tian artist of the Metropolitan
matic portrait within the parameters of contemporary native
small mouth with tightly pursed lips is a similar physical feature to the

Brooklyn portrait, although there the mouth is fleshier, similar to the Cypriote coin images (fig. 3).
The thin cutting of the lips and nose-bridge, as well as the linear incisions for the eyelids, is symptom
atic of the less graceful workmanship
statuette. The pert, lively facial expression
of theMetropolitan

of the statuette is a frequent tendency on provincial works, including on royal sculpture from native
workshops from the second century. The nose appears to show a slight hook, but minor variations in
the length or curve of the nose are found as well among the various coin issues due to the extremely
small size of the copper coins (which are irregularly formed but paper-thin and about the breadth of
a U.S. dime). One miniscule
slip of the hand of the die-cutter would have led to the nose on these me
diocre silhouettes being twice as long, or aquiline instead of straight.
a
During the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes,
significant change appears also to take place on a
familiar type of Cyrenaic copper coinage with a portrait head of Ptolemy I Soter on the obverse and
on the reverse. From the
of Libya, encircled by the legend BASILEOS
PTOLEMAIOU
early
second century bc on, when a more pathetic visage of Ptolemy Soter is introduced, the reverse now

a head

a bust of the eponymous

goddess with the head of a much younger woman, and on some
the
facial features that appear to represent the contemporary queen
shows
individualized
issues,
girl
of Egypt. One new feature in the public image of Cleopatra
I is that she, like her husband, through

bears

their child marriage

Museum
politan

assumed

the throne when barely reaching adolescence. An assarion in the British

shows
(fig. 12)163
Libya with youthful, pert facial features that closely resemble the Metro
statuette?the
wide open, brightly gazing eye, a low, straight forehead, the short
"Cleopatra"

161
"Zur Deutung
II. Philadelphos,"
109.
eines Szepters der Arsinoe
Gauthier, Livre des Rois, 241f.; Cheshire,
162
See n. 149.
163
British Museum
BMC Cyrenaica
1866-1201-3880:
Poole, BMC Ptolemies, lvii f., 6f., no. 83, pi. xviii, 4; E. S. G. Robinson,
(London,
1927), cxlvi?clix, pi. 31, 3-8, esp. no. 6. For earlier issues of the Soter/Libya
type, which show a harshly "barbaric"
head of Libya, see Robinson,
Ta nomismata TV, 128ff., who suggests a
pis. 30, 12f. and 31, 1, as well as comments by Svoronos,
to a portrait of Berenice, wife of
identification of that Libya head as an assimilation
plausible, but still hypothetical,
King Magas
of Cyrene and daughter
of the Persian princess Apama,
rather than, as suggested by Robinson
and others, as Berenice
(II),

who married
West

I will have been the second descendant

Ptolemy III. In this sense, Cleopatra
and marry a king of Cyrenaica, which was meanwhile
annexed by Egypt.

of the last Persian

royal family to go

370

JARCE 45 (2009)

the thin-lipped mouth and a firmly protruding chin, which is offset by a deep indentation be
the lower lip. A stiffbut bright smile is evoked on the sculptural portrait as on the glyptic im
age by the lips being pressed tightly together and curled up at the corners. The profile contour of the
nose on both portrait types is straight in its upper half and has a slight downward hook near the tip;
nose,

neath

of a
tip ends abruptly a bit higher than the level of the nostrils, giving the appearance
curve
on
in
it
is
of
when
the
Even
the
coin
the
the
nose,
fact,
turned-up
opposite.
jawbone
portrait
statuette. The long corkscrew curls on the Cyrenaic
the profile of the Metropolitan
closely matches
coin images, typical not only for Oriental fashion but also for the mythical figure Libya and hence
the pointed

term "Libyan locks,"164 are hardly to be differentiated from the Cypriote

giving rise to themisleading
or
stone portraits in Brooklyn and theMetropolitan.
I
of
In front of the head
the
portraits
Cleopatra
of "Zifrya/Cleopatra I" on some of the coins, such as figure 12, is a tiny cornucopia?an
attribute that

on
refers to the vast
occasionally
Cyrenaic coinage since the third century and undoubtedly
was
of
much
of
from
the
for
The
which
destined
also
export.
production
grain
region,
cornucopia
occurs on the limestone statuette inNew York,
the
connection
within
the
Ptolemaic
although
dynasty
is obvious here. The style of the coin image is unsophisticated
and rather simplified with clearly out
appears

on flat, empty flesh surfaces. The

features lacking inner modeling,
lying
owes
to
facial
its
glyptic portrait
cheery
expression
provincial Egyptian influence, just as does the
of
I"
in
the
limestone
the
sculpting style
"Cleopatra
Metropolitan Museum. The style of the Cyrenaic
assarion recalls that of the Arsinoe Philadelphus
coins,165 although it is cruder, while the Greek
lined, isolated

individual

inspired portraits of the same queen evoke the fierce authority of Persian art.
The inscription of the queen's name within a cartouche on the right shoulder of the Metropolitan
statuette, although by no means without precedent on Egyptian sculpture,166 has been the object of
much scholarly speculation. The most remarkable aspect of the cartouche is not its placement on the

arm like a tattoo167 but its terse form. The

queen's proper name (a Greek one, spelled alphabetically
in Egyptian characters Qliwlpldrl), written neither with the traditional prefix of a title (queen, wife of
. . .",
king, etc.) nor in combination with an epithet of divine association
stp n?
(mryn- , "beloved by,
.
.
.
"chosen by
,"etc.) with the name of an Egyptian god.168 The overall effect of the hieroglyphs has
an authentic appearance,
despite the orthographic blemishes that were recently pointed out by R. S.
the addition of the cartouche as a modern
more likely
who
discounted
Bianchi,
forgery.169 It is far
that the blunt cliche of naming a ruler by his proper name, spelled alphabetically within a cartouche,

164
O. Elia, Rivista del Real Istituto di Archeologia e Storia delVArte 8 (1941), 89ff.; Albersmeier,
7lf. with bibliog
Frauenstatuen,
in L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys, and R Meyboom,
eds., Nile into Tiber. Egypt in theRoman World (Leiden
raphy; Robert S. Bianchi,
Boston,
2007), 482-87.
165
See n. 235.
166
To name only a few, a granite statue of Ramses VI in Marseille,
Musee
mediterraneenne
209: Christine
d'archeologie
Favard-Meeks
and Dimitri Meeks, Musees deMarseille.
Cahier du Musee dArcheologie mediterraneenne. La Collection
Egyptien, Guide
on the sleeve of his
du Visiteur (Marseille,
torso of an official, also
1989), 19, bears a cartouche
garment. A limestone
engraved
in Marseille
with
color
of Ramses
bears
II inscribed on his upper arms. In London,
cartouches
Petrie
Cahier,
15,
(Meeks,
ill.),
Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology
et al., eds.,
UC
Two colossal, diorite
14632: Trope
Excavating Egypt, 29, with bibliogaphy.

III in the Metropolitan

seated statues of Amenophis
on both upper
of Art, New York, bear the king's cartouches
Museum
arms: William
C. Hayes, The Scepter ofEgypt (Greenwich, Conn.,
1959), 234f., figs. 139f.
167The
late fourth century Papyrus Bremner-Rhind
details that two young women,
in preparation
to enact the roles of Isis
in the Choiak
and Nephthys
festival, should each have the name of the goddess written on their arm; Robyn Gillam, Perfor
mance and Drama
in Ancient Egypt (London,
103f. Further on tattoos in ancient Egypt: Albersmeier,
Frauenstatuen,
59,
2005),
with n. 366.
168
That the inscription is a modern
Frauenstatuen,
114, and Stanwick, Portraits,
forgery has been suspected by Albersmeier,
in greater detail by Bianchi
in Cleopatra Reassessed,
inWilly Clarysse, Antoon
95, and argued
15ff.; also A. Rammant-Peeters
Schoors, and Harco Willems,
eds., Egyptian Religion,
vol. 2. OLA
85 (Louvain,
1998), 1453.
169 In
I7f.
Cleopatra Reassessed,

The Last Thousand

Years. Studies Dedicated

to theMemory

offan Quaegebeur,

CHESHIRE
was added

371

after the completion of the statue, but the reason is difficult to determine
in
view of the statue's present, disengaged
context. Following H. G. Fisher's observations on Pharaonic
sometime

Period monuments,
the orientation of the hieroglyphs in the cartouche towards the left, that is, away
from the body of the queen, could firsthave been determined upon the placement of the statuette in
a
temple, where itwas then juxtaposed with a statuette of the king or beside an image of the local
times as synnaos theos), the inscriptions on both monuments
thus arranged
temple god (in Ptolemaic
to face inward towards each other.170 The truncated form of the
then
also probably
would
inscription
have been the result of an on-the-spot addition after the statue was in place, in which case some
in the execution

of the signs (reed leaf, birds) might easily be excused.171

Bianchi compared
the inscription to the simplistic use of a cartouche containing the words Pr-9
a
as
for the ever-changing name of the ruler of Egypt in hieroglyphic temple
substitute
("Pharaoh")
of
Roman
Erich Winter173 called attention to a scene on the architrave over the
times.172
inscriptions

awkwardness

entrance gate to the Ergamenes chapel at Dakke that was recarved under Tiberius. Behind the phar
aoh figure, representing the Roman Emperor, stands a figure of his consort in the familiar manner of
a Ptolemaic

queen. Instead of the name of the Empress?which might well have been unknown to the
of Egypt's southern frontier region?the column of hieroglyphs in front of the woman's
reads phonetically Cleopatra without a cartouche. Undoubtedly,
the mystique of one notorious

stonemason
head

or several other Ptolemaic

a Demotic
statue

of

queens of that name acquired a remarkable longevity in the Roman world;

of
fourth century AD at the Isis Temple on Philae refers to the gilding of a
the
graffito

"Cleopatra."174

on Ptolemaic
Egyptian royal sculpture, Paul Stan wick175 has collected a good
of sculptures of kings of similar style, for the most part wearing the nemes headcloth, which
he dates certainly correctly to the "first half of the second century B.C." Although Stan wick does not
include the Metropolitan
queen statuette within the pieces of this time period,176 the material he
In his recent book

number

presents enables a good characterization of native art of the reigns of Ptolemies V and VI. Among
them, a limestone head of a pharaoh in a nemes from Canopus177 offers a particularly close stylistic
comparison to theNew York Cleopatra. Both heads have a very direct, friendly expression, are sculpted
in large, simplified, flat-lying features with a complete lack of sophistication
(one is reminded of the
extreme youth of both kings, as well as their spouses, Cleopatras
I and II, at the time of their ascent
to the throne). The shape of the face of these portraits, both with a strong Egyptian stamp, is similar:
the side planes of the head extend vertically down the temples to the cheekbones, beneath which the

170
Cf. Henry G. Fischer, The Orientation ofHieroglyphs. Egyptian Studies 2 (New York, 1977), 33, n. 86.
171The
of the lasso (wt) with a cobra in the spelling of "Cle-o-pa-t-r-a" is not, despite Bianchi's
(see
objections
replacement
n. 117),
as a
to discredit
in a small space and the sculptor
is crammed
the cartouche
forgery. The botched hieroglyph
grounds
its replacement
the loop of the tiny lasso in the friable stone. Instead,
by an easily
might not have been able to execute
as an
of the word
linear etched
inscribed,
i(r.t, cr(.t, "uraeus"
serpent might have satisfied the stonemason
approximation

transliteration of the vowels in the Greek name in the car

(Greek, oupaioc;); cf.Wb. I, 42; Erichsen, Glossar, 65. The alphabetical
the serpent could be considered
touche is, as often the case in Ptolemaic writings of the queen's
name, excessively elaborate;
over
an
a cryptogram or an
stone.
chipped
acrophonic
improvisation
writing,
172Bianchi
in Cleopatra Reassessed,
15, with nn. 34-35.
173
ZAS 130 (2003), 197-212,
Die Datierung
des Kalabscha-Tores,"
als Soter, Euergetes
und Epiphanes:
"Octavian/Augustus
esp. 209, pi. 50.
174
F. LI. Griffith, The Demotic Graffiti of theDodekaschoenus
(Cairo, 1937) I, 104, Ph. 370,11. 7f. See also Cheshire,
"Aphrodite
III, who received
151-91, for other Egyptian Cleopatrae before the illustrious seventh, especially Cleopatra
signifi
Cleopatra,"
cant cult forms that might have evolved
into the later Roman
divine figure.
175
27 (with earlier bibliography),
Portraits, 20, 21, 110f., cat. nos. B19-B
figs. 65-77.
176
Instead he assigns it to Cleopatra
VII, as do the authors of the recent exhibition catalogue, Cleopatra ofEgypt (see n. 90).
177
1925-1931
Greco-Roman
Museum
28103: E. Breccia, he Musee Greco-Romain
Alexandria,
1932), 17f., no. 10,
(Bergamo,
n.
cat.
B22
21, 86, 110,
(bibliography),
fig.
pi. 9, 32; Stanwick, Portraits, 20, 21, 70, 83,

372 JARCE 45 (2009)

13-14.
Figs.
Larrieu.

Marble

Bust from Egypt,

"Cleopatra

I.

"

Paris, Musee

du Louvre

Ma

3546.

Louvre,

DistRMNI

Christian

cheek planes slant inward and become rapidly slimmer towards the large, rather
pointed chin. A hori
on the pharaoh's head in Alexandria
zontal axis, low set on the forehead, is emphasized
by the
on
a
row
drawn
band
of
the
New
I"
the
York
horizontal
of
nemes,
straightly
"Cleopatra
by
tiny snail
shell curls arranged across her brow. Both heads show the rendering of the eyebrows each by one
sharp edge, cut along a simple, shallow curve, the narrow bridge of the nose and the identical, rou
tine and symmetrical cut of the upper and lower eyelids framing almond-shaped
eyes. It is probable
that the New York

statuette and the Alexandria

head represent the young couple, Cleopatra
I and
a
V
their
in
As
of
the
Alex
Ptolemy
Epiphanes
respectively, relatively early
reign.
portrait
Ptolemy V,
andria head can be compared with respect to the head shape, the large eyes and slimmer lower part
of the face beneath the cheekbones,
to a marble head in the Louvre178 and a head in
Budapest,179
both of which Kyrieleis180 persuasively attributed to Ptolemy V. Another pharaonic-style
portrait of a
nemes
a
same
to
and
these
and
traits
its identifica
pharaoh wearing
bearing
stylistic
physical
pointing
tion as Ptolemy V is a granite head retrieved in recent years from the Alexandria
harbor.181
The baroque modeling
of heavy flesh and mannish, dark facial expression
that characterizes
the

on the Pergamum Altar

(fig. 8) and influenced the Egyptian sculptor's style
can
be
(figs. 6-7)
recognized on a marble bust in the Louvre (figs. 13-14),
as a portrait of Cleopatra
from Egypt,182 which also merits consideration
I. The

heads of many goddesses

on the head in Brooklyn
said

to come

178
du Louvre Ma 3532: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 56f., 133f., 173, cat. E10
Paris, Musee
(bibliography),
pis. 44,
Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture, 54 (with ill.).
179
Muzeum
842: Anton Hekler, Die Sammlung antiker Skulpturen (Vienna,
1929), no. 161
Szepmuveszeti
nisse, 55f., 135, 173, cat. E9 (bibliography),
pi. 44, 1-2.
180
Bildnisse, 55f., 135, 173, cat. E9 (bibliography),
pi. 44, 1-2.
181
Alexandria
1015: Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture, 66, no. 2. 6, with ill. and bibliography
("mid-first
182
du Louvre Ma 3546: Richter, Portraits, 267, figs. 1850-52;
Paris, Musee
120ff.,
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
pi. 104, 1-2 ("Cleopatra,
early 2nd century"); Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits, 94, 166f., no. 56 ("Cleopatra

3-4;

45,

1; Ashton,

(ill.); Kyrieleis,

Bild

century bc").
128, 185, cat. M12,
I, II or III"); O. M.

"Om ptolemaeiske
104 ("Cleopatra
og gudinder," Meddelelser fra Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek 51 (1995),
I?");
dronninger
Les sculptures grecques II: La periode hellenistique Ille?Ie
siecles av.J.-C. (Paris, 1988), 87f., no. 89 ("Cleopatra
Hamiaux,
II or III?"); Ashton
in
cat. no. 25, with 2 color ill.
II or III"); Stanwick, Portraits, 75f., 77, 87,
Cleopatra ofEgypt, 59,
("Cleopatra
figs. 263f. ("Cleopatra

Nielsen,
Marianne

CHESHIRE

373

lower edge of the nude bust was trimmed to be fitted into a statue. The thin, flat ruler's
and the corkscrew curl coiffure have led to a widespread
assumption that the head portrays a
Ptolemaic queen, who would have worn in addition an Isiac crown or another attribute inserted into
rounded

diadem
a hole

whether

in the top of the head.183 Several scholars in more recent years, however, have questioned
it represents a female at all. E. La Rocca184 contended
that it represents a man, attired as a

its attribution to a Nabataean

priest of Dionysus, and Stephan Schmidt185 more recently proposed
are
on
coins with this identical coiffure. Schmidt's argument for an
portrayed
king, several of whom
attribution to a Nabataean
king hinges entirely on the dating of the extant; since the nomad people
were not sufficiently Hellenized,
nor did they build permanent
settlements, until about
a
one
statue
of
in
and
of
their
leaders
Hellenistic
could
100,
style
portrait
hardly be expected before

of Arabia
that

time.186

180, which can

the heavy flesh
by "Venus rings" and
of the support of the

a
Kyrieleis187 put forward stylistic arguments for dating of the Louvre head around
be better defended. Typically for Pergamene heads from the time of the Great Altar,

of the face and the thick neck, even more than the Brooklyn head articulated
an Adam's apple, has a substance of its own and swells or buckles independent
bone structure. The sculptor was evidently more interested in creating a dramatic texture of the sur
face than in symmetry or stable forms. The energetic twist of the neck and upward turn of the head,

gaze of the eyes with plastically sculpted hollows under the brows to either
to evoke a shadowing effect were typical for the late Baroque phase of the
Middle Hellenistic
Period. Kyrieleis188 recognized Egyptian influence in the sculpting style of the
to
Louvre head; the surfaces of the marble are calmer and the mouth almost closed, appearing
on
case
the
is
the
with the passionate divine figures
"breathe" less heavily, than
Pergamene reliefs.189
and the dark, passionate
side of the nose bridge

the stylistic proximity of the Louvre

Nonetheless,
firsthalf of the second century is remarkable?and

school of the
bust to the sophisticated Pergamene
a
to
be
from
expected
provincial school in
hardly

to an Alexandrian
Desert.190 Kyrieleis' comparison of the Louvre "Cleopatra"
portrait of
an
to
the boy king's mother, Cleopatra
I, or to his
Ptolemy VI191 is
implicit attribution of the head
II. The attribution to a Ptolemaic queen provides an easier explanation for the
sister-wife, Cleopatra
the Arabian

carved into the top of the Louvre head, into which one of various Isiac crowns or attributes
sun
disc, feather crown, lotus bud, uraeus ring as base for an additional Egyptian crown, ears
(horned
of grain) could have been inserted, while Schmidt's suggestion of an attribute such as corn ears of the
is rarely represented.
Nabataean
deity Dusares192
recession

183
Hamiaux,
Sculptures grecques, 87.
184
L'eta d'oro di Cleopatra. Indagine sulla Tazza Farnese (Rome,
185
Ein nabataisches
Herrscherportrat
"Konig, nicht Konigin.
186
97ff.
Schmidt, "Konig, nicht Konigin,"
187
Bildnisse, 120f.
188
Bildnisse, 120.
189
Schmidt,
97, also acknowledged
"Konig, nicht Konigin,"

1984), 26.
in Paris," AA

(2001),

9Iff.

on the Louvre
the influence of Alexandrian
provincial
style
but, dating the head to the end of the second or the first century, attributes this influence to the geographical
proximity
to Egypt.
of Arabia
190
of the sculpture of the latter part of the early second century BC and
the baroque modeling
To differentiate between
one century later, the
lifeless or weakened
towards rendering heavy, sagging flesh with a more
the tendency
expression
torso of "Inopos/Alexander
the Great"
the Delian
head may be contrasted with another work at the Louvre,
"Cleopatra"
cat. 71 (ill. and
(Louvre Ma 855: Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits, 172, no. 89, pi. 54, figs. 6f.; Hamiaux,
Sculptures grecques, 67ff.,
is the rendering of the eyes. The
was undoubtedly
100 BC. One key difference
around
sculpted in the decades
bibliog.), which

head

of the orbital cavities of

evoked by deeper undercutting
of the eyebrows as sharp edges and the shadowing
crisp demarcation
of the lumpy brow
of the eyes, while the modeling
the "Cleopatra"
greater pathos or even fury in the expression
produce
like a monotonous
the swollen flesh around the eyes, and the thick lids of the "Alexander/Inopos"
musculature,
appears
juxta
position of identically textured
191
Greco-Roman
Alexandria,
192
nicht
Konigin,"
"Konig,

elements,
Museum

into each other with no higher points of interest.

melding
24092: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 59ff., 120f., 127, 174, cat. F3 (with bibliog.),

pis. 49-51.

374 JARCE 45 (2009)

"Cleopatra" are difficult to recog
to
and
modern
due
restoration of most of the
nize, partially
damage
nose and a large portion chipped out of the upper
lip.193Moreover,
taste for ex
the sculptor made use of theMiddle Hellenistic baroque
The

facial features of the Louvre

aggerated, sensual forms with such artistic liberty that he neglected

the accurate physical portrait of the queen. A physical resemblance
of the portrait to the Cypriote coins with a bust of "Cleopatra I" (fig.
3) can possibly be recognized, however: a low forehead, jutting out
over the brow, what appears from the extant upper part of the nose
is straight, a long, flat cheek and a meaty, protruding chin. The al

most masculine
Fig. 15. Hyacinth

Portrait
molean

Intaglio

with

I. Oxford, Ash
of Cleopatra
Museum
1892.1572.
Cour

tesy of the Ashmolean

Museum.

strength of the portrait, the grimly set lips of the

and the fierce glance of the eyes on the marble portrait
are comparable
to the furrowed brow and sternly setmouth on some
small mouth

of the Cypriote coin images (figs. 3-4) and, in sentiment, to the fierce
on early second century K-mono
image of Arsinoe Philadelphus
Decisive
for the attribution of the Louvre
grammed octadrachms.

I are, on the basis of its art historical placement about

bust to Cleopatra
from the round-faced countenance
of Cleopatra
II, who had prominent
as
I
and large eyes,
have recently discussed elsewhere.194

180, its physical differences

a wide mouth
cheekbones,

A hyacinth intaglio in the Ashmolean Museum

(fig. 15)195 closely follows the type of the Cypriote
coins (fig. 3) showing a woman wearing a corkscrew coiffure with loose sprigs of grain bound
into
one
over
ear
corn
her diadem,
sun
a
full
of
In
her
forehead.
disc
flanked
addition,
including
by a
or
as
an
as
a queen is sup
Isis
pair of cow's horns identifies her
Egyptian queen; the identification

common feature of the

ported by the long streamer falling down behind the head from the wreath?a
a
Hellenistic
The
it
diadem.196
dominant
is
that
ruler
eye suggests
royal
large,
portrait, intended to
be intimidating.

If the facial features on the glyptic image are to be interpreted as a portrait, then it is easy to find
in it similarities to the images now identifiable as Cleopatra
I. That the image is a Ptolemaic queen is

supported by the parallel of an intaglio of the same portrait type and attributes in Alexandria,197
which I have argued elsewhere is a representation of Cleopatra Berenice
III.198 The woman on the
cameo
a
is
Oxford
low forehead, slanting in towards the hairline, the nose is
clearly young. She has
and
is
the
chin
straight
sharply pointed,
prominent?features
typical of all the coin portraits of Cleo
I. The

of the queen, whose gently rounded cheeks and chin, and pert,
youthful appearance
not
have
little
smile
yet acquired the lean, bony frame and the harsh facial expression of
tight-lipped
the mature Cleopatra
I. In this aspect, the cameo portrait is comparable
to the youthful images on

patra

the Cyrenaic coin portrait (fig. 3) and the New York statuette (figs. 10-11) discussed
above. The
are
a
rolled
curls
in
onto
corkscrew
rendered
down
her shoul
manner,
hard, ropelike
tightly
falling
ders from beneath the diadem; above it, the hair lies flat against the head, and a shorter, ropelike
ringlet in the front falls over the ear; this rendering of the hair closely resembles that on the statuette
193
to the bust, see Hamiaux,
por a description
of the damages
Sculptures Grecques, 87f.
194
The Ptolemies inMemphis
"Excursus: The Portraits of Cleopatra
II."
Cheshire,
(forthcoming),
195
Museum
h.-3 cm, see La Gloire d'Alexandrie
1892.1572.
Oxford, Ashmolean
161, no.
(Paris, 1998),
Francoise
Boussac).
196
Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits, 85.
197
Museum
Greco-Roman
Boussac
28855: Marie-Francoise
and Paola Starakis-Roscam,
"Une Collection
camees du Musee
BCH
107 (1983), 468ff., no. 32, fig. 31.
d'Alexandrie,"
198
Berenice
Cheshire, Ptolemies, Chapter,
"Cleopatra

102

(ill.)

d'intailles

(Marie

et de

CHESHIRE

375

in the Metropolitan
and the head in Brooklyn (figs. 6-7). The mouth is small but the lips are fleshy,
the upper lip protruding a bit beyond the lower one, in an earnest, almost frowning expression?a
look apparently found on most of this queen's portraits?an
attitude more typical for
determined

royal portraits than for the Ptolemies, hinting at the queen's own lineage.
style of the gem carving fits well within the early second century.199 Coins of the young
Ptolemy V (fig. I)200 show similar hardened forms, stone-like skin surfaces, angular contours of the
to the intaglio are the sharp rendering of the pointed nose, the addi
profile. Particularly comparable
Seleucid
The

tive lips, and the offset, protruding chin, each feature lying isolated on top of the inanimate shell of
the face with a lack of plastic integration within the flesh. The large, rigid eye is very comparable on
the gem portrait of the queen and the king's coins. An identification of the Oxford intaglio as Cleo

I is thus well supported. The addition of thin blades of grain to her diadem, represented not
on
the cameo but also on some of the Cypriote coin portraits (figs. 3-4), is paralleled on coin
only
a diadem decorated with corn (fig. I).201
portraits of the young Ptolemy V, on which he wears
a
Certainly the valuable gold and silver emissions bearing the boy king's portrait, in major part
outside the sphere of circulation of
destined for the Ptolemies' Greek subjects and mercenaries

patra

copper money,202 but also a large portion of the low value copper coins from a Cypriote
mint, destined for domestic circulation, will have been minted to cover the expenses of the military.
from dispar
The troops still consisted in the early second century bc to a large extent of mercenaries
Ptolemaic

ate parts of the Greek world. In the age of democracy, shipments of food supplies to various parts of
the Mediterranean
world in times of famine or extreme hardship had been undertaken among the

Greek poleis but more often by well-to-do private citizens. This emergency relief took the form of
loans, in ideal cases at minimal interest, or of outright grants. From the late fourth century bc on, in
on
the peasant folk became
the expanded world of the Hellenistic monarchies,
increasingly reliant
the euergetism of well-to-do private citizens.203 The recipients of the charitable actions often rewarded
their benefactors with public gestures in the form of portrait statues and decrees set up in the Agora,
or with the bestowal of honorific titles for their assistance.204
golden wreaths or diadems,
In Egypt, a farmore centralized government was already well developed
long before the Ptolemaic
as
an
Period, and the intervention of the king,
agent of the gods with the enormous grain reserves

of the State at his disposal, in times of crisis was a natural expectation of the populace.205 The agri
cultural wealth of Egypt was known to the Greeks since earliest historical times, and it is likely that
more often than is documented,
grain was exported to theWest before the Ptolemaic Period far
although

pharaoh

to Diodorus,207
on the part of private
the
In 396, according
entrepreneurs.206
a
an
I
alliance
with
fulfilled
large shipment
Sparta by sending King Agesilaos
Nepherites
possibly

199
"Collection
Boussac,
d'intailles," 468ff., suggested a dating of 180 BC.
200
"Portratmiinzen,"
passim.
Kyrieleis,
201
213ff., figs. Iff.; idem, Bildnisse, 52, pi. 40, 1-3.
"Portratmiinzen,"
Kyrieleis,
202
222. The Raphia Decree
"Portratmiinzen,"
Poole, BMC Ptolemies, lxx; Kyrieleis,

of 217 states (lines 27-30)

that Ptolemy
Beitr.z.Klass.Philol.23
IV paid his troops 300,000 gold pieces for their victory; Heinz-Josef
Thissen, Studien zum Raphia-Dekret.
am Glan,
1966), 20f., 64f.
(Meisenheim
203 In
came to the aid of those in need in
that private individuals of means
ancient Egypt as well, itwas a known practice
times of famine, Jacques Vandier, La Famine dans VEgypte ancienne (Cairo, 1936), 26f., 38, 130f.
204 Peter
toRisk and Crisis (Cambridge,
1988), 30, 82
Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in theGraeco-Roman World. Responses
Dirscherl, MBAH19
66, 163f., 261-67, 272; Hans-Christian
(2000), 26, n. 121; Peter Van Minnen,
"Euergetism in Graeco-Roman

36 (Leuven, 2000),
in Leon Mooren,
ed., Politics, Administration and Society in theHellenistic and Roman World, StudHell
Egypt,"
437-69.
205
Vandier, La Famine, 23-25, 54, 57; Paul Barguet, Le stele de lafamine a Sehel (Cairo, 1943).
206M. M.
Austin, Greece and Egypt in theArchaic Age (Cambridge,
1970), 35, 69-70, nn. 2-3; Friedrich Kienitz, Die politische
Geschichte Agyptens vom 7. bis zum 4. Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende (Berlin, 1953), 73.
207 1
3.79,

JARCE 45 (2009)

376

of grain and supplies for his troops to fight the Persians.208 Conversely, in a period of hardship in
bought grain from Sicily.209 In the third century BC King
Egypt in 323/2, the satrap Cleomenes
Hieron of Syracuse sent a shipload of grain to Egypt in a time of famine.210 Grain imports by Ptolemy
in the Canopus Decree.211 When
the inhabitants of Rome
and Syria are mentioned
to
suffered a famine after their countryside had been ravaged in the Hannibalic Wars, they appealed
an
emergency shipment of corn.212
Ptolemy IV for
III from Crete

As Greek mercenaries were recruited from abroad to quell the Egyptian nationalist uprising in the
south of Egypt,213 the message of the coins was surely pragmatic and international. The broad inter
pretation of the corn symbolism alone, as mentioned
by Kyrieleis,214 alluding to the prosperity and
sustenance guaranteed
in the person of the king, was undoubtedly
the populace
drew
the message
of native revolts caused severe destruction in many parts of the Egyptian
while
countryside,
people who were uprooted from their land either to escape the fighting or to join
the military deserted their farms, which fell into disrepair and draught, so that no crops were har
vested. A Dublin papyrus215 relates about the Lycopolite nome that, at the time of the rebellion of
from them. Two decades

Chaonnophris, most of the population died and the land went arid.216
The Greeks might easily have connected
the hope that these images offered in the person of the
king with the cult of Triptolemus, Demeter or another chthonic deity.217 Clement of Alexandria218
relates one historical tradition that the Alexandrian
cult image of Serapis (or, in the words of Clem
ent, "Pluto") was a gift from the people of Sinope inAsia Minor in gratitude to Ptolemy Philadelphus
for having sent them grain in a time of famine. This rumor may have had some basis in fact, since
the canonic
times a modim?a
basket of
image of Serapis wore on his head a kalathos, in Roman
the volume of the standard measure
I would have been tacitly assimilated,
of grain.219 Cleopatra
through the addition

of the blades

of grain in her diadem,

to Demeter.

Even

though the imagery of

208

Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte, 79-80.

209
Garnsey, Famine, 152-57, 161f.
210
V 209b; Vandier, La famine, 33f.
Athenaeus
211
Sethe, Urk. II, 130f., hierogl. 1. 9, Greek 11. 13-19; Vandier, La famine, 126-28; Heinz Heinen,
"Hunger, Not und Macht,"
AncSoc 36 (2006), 13-44, esp. 17-19.
212
I, 155; II, 269, n. 186, with further references.
Polybius, 9.11; cf. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria
213
Hu6, Agypten, 476-78.
214
244.
"Portratmunzen,"
215
Pestman,
103, 12Iff. (ww).
"Haronnophris,"
216The
ancient Egyptian grain reserves, replenished
times throughout
annually through taxation in kind, were, in normal
to sustain the population
in times of hardship.
It was only during periods of civil unrest, a foreign
history, generally equipped
invasion or an unstable
system broke down; Vandier, La famine, 24-27, 35-38, 48-50.
regime that this well-organized
217
"A drought
in the late eighth century B.C.," Hesperia
48 (1979), 397-411,
saw
John McK. Camp,
esp. 398, 401-3, 407-8,

the relief from severe drought in Athens as the reason for the foundation
of the cult of Zeus Ombrios (the Bringer of Rain) on
additional
the aetiological myth of the foundation
of the cult of
among numerous
Hymettos. He compared,
examples,
Artemis at Brauron, which was allegedly
to end a plague or famine she herself had inflicted
intended to persuade
the goddess
on the
not to specific
the cults of agricultural deities to be addressed
{Famine, 112) believed
populace.
Disagreeing,
Garnsey
crises but to the normal risks and vicissitudes
on the behavior
of farming, which was always dependent
of the weather.
218Protr.
4.48: Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria
I, 247; II, 398, n. 449.
219Der
Kleine Pauly 3 (Munich,
in the Bibliotheque
1975), col. 1379, s.v. "Modius
(4)" (E. Bund). Thus on a large cameo
in the role of Triptolemus,
rides in the god's serpent-drawn
Nationale,
Paris, the Emperor Claudius,
chariot, while at his side
in the guise of Ceres, reaches out to the
the Empress Messalina,
with a volumen in one hand, and sprigs of grain in the
populace

Mount

Camees et intailles II. Les Portraits romains du Cabinet des medailles (Paris, 2003), 98f., cat. 105 (with ref
other; M.-L. Vollenweider,
erences to earlier literature),
und die Ptolemaer," JbKGHamb
6/7 (1988), 32f., 40, n. 132,
pi. 14. H.-P. Laubscher,
"Triptolemos
an effort to relocate
observed
that not only did Claudius made
to Rome
the center of the Eleusinian
(Suet., Claud.
Mysteries
of his reign necessitated
initiated on the part of the
25, 5), but a severe famine at the beginning
large scale political operations
cf. also Rickham, Corn Supply, 73ff., 193,
Emperor;

CHESHIRE

377

KLEOPATRAS
coins was to a large extent pragmatic and political, an additional plea
to the gods for assistance might also bring results.
III Philopator, had appeared before the troops to encourage
Cleopatra Fs predecessor, Arsinoe
to success against the troops of Antiochus
them before the Battle of Raphia
III, and an applique
a
lance might represent her in this role.220 The
figure from a faience oinochoe of a woman holding
the BASILISSES

rather different one and a half generations

the
later, when the "Syrian" Cleopatra,
a
of
that
Antiochus
the
forces
whom
had
herself
assumed
very
daughter
Egyptian
helped defeat,
a
as
role?if
the
Ptolemaic military.
leadership
only, possibly,
figurehead?of
When Ptolemy V died in 180 bc, and the rule of the land fell upon his widow in a guardianship
role for the young Ptolemy VI,221 it became necessary for Cleopatra
I, as the only adult of the reign
a country embroiled in civil war, to establish
at
the
head
of
ing pair
prestige in the eyes of the troops.
situation was

assumption of the right to mint her own coinage, her portrait head adorned with a crown of
could be brought from abroad, if necessary
wheat, was an assurance that sustenance for the populace
a large number of Greek mercenaries?would
in times of conflict, and that themilitary?including
be

Her

asset which the Ptolemies were always able to distribute as

dependable
payment was land?a commodity that was scarce in Greece.
Second-century papyri from Tebtynis
attest that four thousand soldiers who fought on behalf of the crown against the rebels in the
rewarded

for its service. One

were rewarded with parcels of land (ge klerouchike) in the

ears of grain (most
Fayum.222 The
in
her
of
the role of Deme
diadem
Cleopatra's
symbolized
earthly assumption
probably barley-corn)
ter, the fertility goddess who provided grain for her divine son, the ploughman Triptolemus, who in
turn distributed it to the human
populace.223 On Roman coinage, the assimilation of the portrait of

Thebaid

certain empresses to Ceres through the addition

to the urban populace of Rome.224

of ears of grain symbolized

the Imperial

corn dole

for Macedonian
queens to assume a temporary leadership role in the govern
as
it
their
of
land,
occasionally occurred that they took political matters of the country into
ing
just
their own hands and arranged the necessary assassination of opponents!225 There was indeed histori
Itwas not unknown

the king and his troops were at

staples imported from abroad.226 The
in an inscription
sister of Alexander
the Great, Cleopatra, and his mother, Olympias, are mentioned
of 333/2 as having received grain from Cyrene,227 obviously in a time of crisis when that basic com
as regent inMacedonia,
is recorded as
modity was not available at home. The same Cleopatra, acting
that same year.228 Yet the sole rule of a
having sent a shipment of grain to Corinth in approximately
a situation when the
an
was abroad
to
been
had
solution
Macedonian
emergency
queen
always
king
or
and
the
(Alexander IV)
(Alexander
Great), underage
incapable (Philip Arrhidaeus),
officially she
an
name
a
extent
the
of
Ptolemaic
in
To
certain
acted
the
of
the
queens
Egypt were
always
king.229
exception to this tradition.230
cal precedent for a Macedonian
war, to provide for the populace

220

queen, minding the homeland

in times of famine by having

while

Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience. Aspects of theRuler Cult (Oxford, 1972),
Dorothy Burr Thompson,
221 See n.
105.
222
Veisse, Les revoltes, 158, with n. 14.
223
25, 28f., 32f., 38, n. 79 (with further bibliography).
Laubscher,
"Triptolemos,"
224 Sarah
Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves2 (New York, 1995), 184, 202-4, 216.
225 E. D.
inMacedonia
(Norman, Okla., 2000), 290f., n. 5, 291f., n. 22.
Carney, Women and Monarchy
226
Carney, Women and Monarchy, 89f.
227 SEG
IX, 2; Carney, Women and Monarchy, 86, 89f.
228
Lycurg., Leoc.26; Carney, Women and Monarchy, 86, 89f.
229
in Ancient Macedonia,"
AncSoc
of Power: Royal Women
and Representatives
"Transmitters
Dolores Miron,
35-52, esp. 39-42, 52.
230
51.
"Transmitters and Representatives,"
Miron,

26.

30

(2000),

JARCE 45 (2009)

378

on the special issues

In Egypt, a change in the representation of the deified Arsinoe Philadelphus
of her high-value coins occurred around the beginning of the second century, including variations
in the physiognomy of the head of the queen as well as a new, fierce facial expression. Svoronos231
a K-monogram belonged at the head of a new type, and the earliest
suggested that the issues bearing

the tenth anniversary (reading K for kappa, the Greek writing for "ten") of
I. Kahrstedt232 believed, like Svoronos, that the new head
the marriage of Ptolemy V to Cleopatra
on
the
Arsinoe-coins
these
type of the Thea
contemporary queen in the iconographic
type
portrayed

of these commemorated

a
Philadelphos,
working hypothesis expounded upon by Brunelle.233 Kyrieleis234 allowed that the por
on
trait
these later Arsinoe coins showed a steeper forehead with a sharp break at the top of the nose
it for
bridge235 and the fuller lips of the small mouth located closer up beneath the nose, but held
that the crasser features were

"auf eine allmahliche Deformierung des traditionellen Arsinoe-Bildes

than
the
deviations in the physiognomy of the long deceased queen is
striking
on the
the sudden change in the rendering of the facial expression of the Brother-Loving Goddess
the eyebrow arched high, as if in indignation, the bulging cornea
issues. With
K-monogrammed
or per
to
than staring placidly, the lips, pressed in determination
rather
appearing
glare ferociously
a clear break with the calm and timeless coin portrait of the third
marks
haps sneering?this
image
possible

zuriickzufuhren!' More

century goddess236 and hints that a significant change had taken place. Although Svoronos catego
in the later second and first centuries
rized some of the K-monogrammed
Arsinoe octadrachms
based on stylistic judgments, most examples237 come close to reproducing the same long, lean facial
type, a thin aquiline nose, a small mouth with firmly set lips, and an offset, somewhat protruding
issues with little essential variation. The Cypriote bronze
chin as do the other K-monogrammed
a
coins struck in the name of Cleopatra
gold ring in the British
(figs. 3 4)238 and the bezel of
Museum
but
of a
I,
(fig. 5)239 fairly certainly portray Cleopatra
consistently give the appearance
woman.
It
is
Arsinoe
issues
that
therefore
the
younger
possible
Philadelphus
K-monogrammed
a new face for the
Brother-Loving Goddess with a fierce expression and features
to
assimilated
of
those
I, but the problem stillmerits further study.
Cleopatra
strongly
The new interpretation might be explained by the entry of a Syrian princess into the Ptolemaic

merely

introduced

even fearsome, a
coin portraits are more
royal family. Seleucid
intensely expressive, occasionally
that Kyrieleis240 explained as an attempt to intimidate the culturally widely diverse fac
phenomenon
I
tions of a vast empire. The new portrait type can not, however, have made reference to Cleopatra
at the time when she married Ptolemy V, since she was only about ten years old and figured in politics

marginally, even as a symbol. The coins from Cyrenaica

(fig. 12) portray the "foreign" Ptolemaic
a
that shows
around the time of her marriage,
queen in youthful type, presumably approximately
231
Svoronos,
"Greek Portraits

II, no. 1374; III, pi. 47, 1-3; 51, 17-24;

IV, cols. 252ff.; Forrer, Portraits, 23ff. (2 ill.); Richter,
of portrait features); Brunelle, Bildnisse, 60-62; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
III," 265 (with hesitant recognition
113ff.,
in Dietrich Wildung
and Giinter Grimm, eds., Gotter?Pharaonen
(Mainz, 1978), cat. 82.

Ta nomismata

100,1; Grimm
232
U. Kahrstedt,
"Frauen auf antiken Munzen,"XL/0
10 (1910), 274f.
233
Bildnisse, 61-63. The current state of research on these coins is still unsettled.
234
Bildnisse,llS.
235
on most of her third century coins.
curvilinear profile of Arsinoe's
I.e., in contrast to the smooth and unbroken
portrait
236
The rigid and formal style of the Arsinoe
coins was characterized
by Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 80, as "ceremonial," but the remote
to native
of the deceased
otherworldliness
assimilation
image might also be considered
queen's
Egyptian art; cf. Cheshire, The

pi.

Bronzes
237
no.

ofPtolemy II, 94.

even
example,

an issue
placed
1841; III, pi. 61, 26; IV, col. 352.
238
See n. 110.
239
See n. 118.
240
Bildnisse, 161f.; cf.Wendy Cheshire,

by Svoronos

"Aphrodite

as late as the
reign of Ptolemy

Cleopatra,"/Ai?C?

43

(2007),

XII:

160.

Svoronos,

Ta nomismata

II, 303,

CHESHIRE

379

the ferocity nor the mature physiognomy of the Cypriote coins of the adult queen as guard
ian for Ptolemy VI.
It is fairly certain that the Arsinoe gold octadrachms with the K-monogram
and the ferocious glare
were minted for a special purpose. The
goddess Arsinoe Philadelphus
figured after her death as the
neither

divine protector and supporter of her husband, Ptolemy II, in his military enterprises while he was
as Cleopatra
still on the throne in Egypt some twenty years
I was to run the military
longer,241 just
affairs in a guardianship
role for the boy king, Ptolemy Philometor. The venomous glare in the facial

on the
expression of "Arsinoe Philadelphus/Cleopatra"
gold coins has a more intimidating effect
than the accustomed placid mien of the Brother-Loving Goddess and would have been more effective
for the glyptic image of a sole ruling queen, but other factors might also lay behind the new inter
pretation of the queen's image. In Egyptian theology, the queen was assimilated to the daughter of

It
Ra, Hathor, and hence the uraeus serpent?a function assumed already by Arsinoe Philadelphus.242
was in the form of the venomous cobra on the brow of the
that
the
pharaoh
queen/uraeus
destroyed
all foes and hence would

K-monogrammed
of her kingdom.

Arsinoe

have

functioned

Philadelphus

as "Mistress of the
Navy." The ferocious glance of the
to imitate the fiery uraeus serpent in defense

issues appears

coins may have assumed, to a certain extent, the portrait features of the contempo
case of Cleopatra
in
I just as had been done for Berenice II243 and Arsinoe III,244 but
the
rary queen
their appearance
is of a mature woman. As Cleopatra
I lived to be about forty years old, the coin
towards the end of her life, as she ruled
portrait could only have been assimilated to her appearance
The Arsinoe

as guardian

for her son, the underage Ptolemy VI Philometor, from 180-174. It ismost likely that the
K-monogram did not signify "year ten" but instead would be theminting mark for K(leopatra) who, as
one of the few Ptolemaic queens to do so,
the right to issue her own coinage as leader of
possessed
in hieroglyphs within a
the State in this period.245 The praenomen of the queen, spelled phonetically
on the upper arm of an
statuette
a
in
New
with
York (figs. 10-11) was
Egyptian
cornucopia
on the festive coin issues in the
also seen to contain exceptional features. Moreover,
the monograms
tumultuous early years of the reign of Ptolemy V have also been thought to refer to the moneyers
cartouche

within the circle of courtiers who assumed

hood

a role of military

or

guardianship for the child

The
Sd(sibios)?AR(istomenes).246
interpretation of the
own mint is thus well founded.
leadership

rule?SKOPA(S),
PO(lykrates), Nl(kon),
monogram K(-leopatra) for the ruling queen's
An imposing gold octadrachm
in the British Museum

a veiled woman with a

bearing the bust of
on
on
and
the
and
the
in
obverse
somewhat
smaller
reverse,
scale, a lean-faced boy
scepter
stephane
a
labeled
"of
and
"of
Queen
wearing
royal diadem,
Cleopatra"
King Ptolemy" respectively,247 was
I as guardian for the underage Ptolemy VI.
attributed by Helmut Kyrieleis248 to the rule of Cleopatra
A clear overall pattern can be obtained from a review of the larger mass of portraits attributable to
241

The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 110, 114-16,

132f.
Cheshire,
242 See n. 153. There
was, at least in the case of Arsinoe
maritime

power;

Hans

Hauben,

"Arsinoe

esp. HOff.
243
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 96 pi. 82, 3.
244
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 103, pi. 88, 3.
245
Ta nomismata
See p. 358. Svoronos,

II et la politique

a real basis for her influence on the Ptolemies'

II, apparently
exterieure
de l'Egypte," in Egypt and theHellenistic World, 98-127,

that a letter in front of

this possibility but rejected it, believing
IV, 253f., considered
the head must be a numeral
for the year.
246
See p. 358.
247
von
British Museum
CM 1978-10-21-1: Helmut
London,
Kyrieleis, Ein Bildnis des Konigs Antiochos IV.
Syrien, Berliner
127 (Berlin, 1980), 17-20, figs. 8f.; Smith, Hellenistic Royal Sculpture, 93, 94, pi. 75, 15f.; Andrew
Winckelmanns-Programm
inWalker
and Sally-Ann Ashton
and Higgs, eds., Cleopatra ofEgypt, 84, no. 77.
Meadows
248
See n. 150.

JARCE 45 (2009)

380

those rulers, but the London gold coin is, to date, typologically unique and presents numerous excep
I have been thus far identifiable on the basis of the
tional features. The other portraits of Cleopatra
coiffure of corkscrew curls, a long, lean or bony face and a stern expression or, in her early years as a
of Egypt, a pert facial expression with wide-open eyes, a short, pointed nose,
child bride and Queen
a
a short forehead and somewhat fuller cheeks charac
tight smile with lips upturned at the corners,

to use the London octadrachm as a base for

teristic of youth. In view of this evidence, it is dangerous
or in her official
true
for
of
either
the
I,
appearance
portrait study
Cleopatra
queen's
portraiture249
in
it
the
from
the
when,
fact,
presents quite
opposite picture
larger corpus of evidence. Her other
in combination
wise typically fierce or stern facial expression could have been thought appropriate

with the Orientalizing

corkscrew coiffure of the Syrian newcomer, while the docile facial expression
of the London octadrachm was better suited to the purely Hellenistic
type with veil, scepter, stephane
and a melon coiffure, of which the ends of the tresses of hair, bound in a knot on the back of the
head, can be seen beneath the veil. Differing from the "Arsinoe Philadelphus"
type is the absence

ear like an
occur on the second
curving around the
earring.250 The horn does
"Arsinoe
the
issues
with
and
the
fierce
century
Philadelphus"
special
K-monogram
portrait version.
On the London octadrachm,
it is instead the smaller image of the boy "Ptolemy" on the reverse who
is represented with stern, bony, overly mature features similar to the coin portraits of his father as an
of the small horn

king (fig. 1). As shall be observed on a portrait of that king in Alexandria

(figs. 23-24),
at the time of his coming-of-age and marriage
to his sister, Cleopatra
made
II, the young
probably
Philometor probably had a proportionally broader face with somewhat fuller cheeks and a smaller
underage

chin than is shown on the lean, bony portrait heads of his adult life. The London octadrachm
thus
a
a
of
role
reversal
and
determined
represents
regent queen
boy king, possibly
specific message of
by
some
Thus
coin
this
still
unresolved
poses
propaganda.
unique
questions.

sources clearly attests to the importance of the supply of food to

A plethora of papyrological
to hostile territory in Upper Egypt to subdue the rebels. A papyrus containing a
the army deployed
Greek letter of September
188 to one Spemminis
in Lycopolis writes of a shipment of grain for the
soldiers.251 The archive of the sitologos of the southern border garrison of Syene252 records shipments
of wheat

from other Upper Egyptian towns (Thebes, Dendera,

the Pathyrite nome, etc.) to
a
to
summer of 187,
in
the
within
the
three-month
soldiers;
span
directly
delivery of
was
of
The
artabae
of
wheat
other
recorded.253
and
food
11,000
transport
grain
supplies to the
or
was
a
abroad
in
hostile
vital
the
of
In
troubled
times, itwas vital that
troops
military.
territory
duty
the Ptolemies maintained
control of the Nile and other waterways so that their ships carrying food
received

be distributed

was perhaps
and reinforcement troops could pass
the success of
supplies, weapons
through.254 It
I
for
her
in
for
sustenance
collaborations
the
and
reward of the
Cleopatra
pan-Hellenic
providing
to
and
the
the
her
rebels
that
led
cultic hon
troops combating
pro-Ptolemaic populace
posthumous
ors with an eponymous priesthood
in the Macedonian
administrative
base
regime's Upper Egyptian
in Ptolemais. From 176 to 165/4, an eponymous priest (Gr. hiereus,
of
w(b)
Eg.
"King Ptolemy and
his
mother"
is
alive
the
of
the
recorded,255
memory
Cleopatra,
keeping
"Syrian" queen in Egypt even
249

Such as Whitehorne,
Cleopatras, 83-84.
250On
this attribute, see Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
literature.
251
I 24: Pestman,
Rgr.Med.
"Haronnophris,"
252 SB
in Proceedings
VI, 9367: H. Hauben

79; Cheshire,
118, n. nn.
of the XVIIIth

Pestman,
119, n. pp.
"Haronnophris,"
253
yeisse, ]^es revoltes, 156.
254
Veisse, Les revoltes, 156, n. 4; Hufl, Agypten, 51 Of.
255
Pestman, Chronologie,

The Bronzes

International

ofPtolemy II,

Congress

111-12,

117, with

of Papyrology

references

(Athens,

1988),

to earlier

II, 243ff.;

381

CHESHIRE

16-18.
Sandstone
Figs.
Museum.
the Rosicrucian

Head

of

a Pharaoh.

San Jose, Rosicrucian

Egyptian

Museum

RC

1755.

Photographs

courtesy

of

in 165/4 bc, the offices are separated; Ptolemy VI then

after her death.256 Apparently beginning
Pharaoh
received, as the living, Mother-Loving
(Philometor), an eponymous priest,257 and the cult of
a
was
the mother, the goddess
the deceased
administered
queen
by
priestess (w(b.i) of "Cleopatra,

Manifest

(Epiphanes)."258
A bluntly carved sandstone head of a pharaoh
to the statuette of Cleopatra
I in theMetropolitan

in San Jose (figs. 16-18)259 is stylistically comparable

Museum
(figs. 10-11) and can thus be conveniently
the head is a conventional representation of an Egyptian

this same context. Formally,

pharaoh wearing the nemes headcloth, adorned
face area of the uraeus has been demarcated
studied within

with an erect cobra over the brow. The

in high relief but remains

general sur
in itself an unarticulated

block?a preliminary step in carving the royal head as is seen commonly on unfinished "sculptors'
models."260 Also the left ear (fig. 18) is in a state of incompletion. The bottom limit of the sketched
uraeus stops short of touching the brow of the king, while its thick tail continues back to the top of

nemes against the forehead

indistinctly cut horizontal depression along the edge of the
appears to indicate the flat band that borders the head cloth, to which the uraeus is affixed above.
The nemes has a smooth surface without plastic indication of lateral stripes. It is rounded at the top
and lies closely against the contour of the head until a point vertically aligned with the temples; from
the head. An

256 The

a priesthood
mother was probably
the living ruler and his deceased
initially the
ambiguity of
serving, collectively,
as
in Demotic
to the notaries, as in RBoston 38.2063b,
written in 176, the title of the office is garbled
of some confusion
and Cleopatra,
the Manifest Gods" w(b (n)
the Mother-Loving,
"the priest of King Ptolemy, the Manifest God
(i.e., Epiphanes),
136
Pr-(? Ptlwmys pt ntr (nty) pr pt mr mw.t=w irm Glwpytrl nl ntr.w (nty) pr; Pestman, Chronologie, note c); Minas, Ahnenreihen,
of his sister-wife, Arsinoe
in the cult of Ptolemy II who, after the death and immediate deification
38. There was a precedent
cause

to the Theoi Adelphoi collectively; Cheshire,

to receive dedications
The Bronzes of Ptolemy II, 130ff.
addressed
II, continued
in her capacity as divine protectress of her brother, the living Pharaoh,
cult of Arsinoe
the posthumous
Philadelphus,
Already
The Bronzes ofPtolemy II, 109-11,
132-33.
of agricultural produce;
included a perpetual
Cheshire,
117-23,
guarantee
257
Pestman, Chronologie, 143 (p), 148.
258
Pestman, Chronologie, 143 (k).
259
not known.
from Parke-Bernet
New York. Provenance
Rosicrucian
RC
1755. Acquired
Galleries,
Egyptian Museum
A
Lisa Schwappach-Shirriff,
Treasures of the Rosicrucian
Dimensions:
20.9 x 18.7 x 19.5 cm. Bibliography:
Egyptian Museum.
(San Jose, 2004), 104 (with color ill.). I am indebted to David Pinault, former Curator at
me with
this unusual
and allowing me to publish
piece. As
providing
photographs
generously
close parallels,
of its being a
and virtually without
the suspicion
without provenance
acquired
to place
this piece within provincial
Egyptian
sculpture of the early
following argumentation

Catalogue

as a supporting opinion
for its authenticity.
simultaneously
260
Models
The
Tomoum,
Sculptors'
of theLate and Ptolemaic
Nadja

Periods

(Cairo,

2005),

pis. 2-6,

for
Museum,
the case with pieces
forgery naturally arises. The
second century should serve
the Rosicrucian
is often

13-14.

JARCE 45 (2009)

382

there, where it is folded over in the back, it pokes out sharply to the sides. The back of the head is
irregular and rough hewn.
The head is a squat, round shape, the low forehead appearing as if compressed beneath the nemes.
The sculpting style of the sandstone is simplified and limited to the placement of big, schematized
features isolated on large, hard surfaces. The cheeks are round and full, even bloated. Large pieces

to have
its original form, but it appears
the chin obscure
chipped off the front and underneath
near
so
a
as
the cheeks,
that the entire face is
followed the same rounded contour
globular form. The
a
are
across
In
of
breadth
the
face.
and
almost
the
entire
eyes
profile view, they appear
large
spread
wide open with only slightly convexly curved corneas, their surfaces slanting inward toward the lower

the artificial appear

shaping of the eyes is rigidly geometric and symmetrical, producing
ance of a mask. The hard and evenly cut upper eyelids overlap the tear ducts but meet the lower lids
to form sharply pointed outer and inner corners. The nose is completely broken off, probably inten
are the
tionally, since ithas been very thoroughly removed. The most distinctive features of the face
lids. The

thick lips, which are turned up at the corners in a slight smile. The surface of themouth was polished
The
smooth without an incised or plastically raised contour, giving the lips their fleshy appearance.
ears?in particular the left ear?are schematically rendered in a half figure-eight shape, with sketched

but hardly precise detailing of the inner ear, probably after a crude model. The exuberant, round
face, plump cheeks, and fleshy lips of the San Jose sculpture appear to point to ethnically African
features, such as were represented in those times in the art south of the border inMeroe261 but were

well represented to the Egyptians already in Kushite royal sculpture of the 25th Dynasty.262
A group of monuments
I" (figs. 10-11), and
cited above as similar to the New York "Cleopatra
which Stanwick263 has placed convincingly within the first half of the second century BC, were worked

in a style that could also be compared well to the San Jose portrait. Particularly similar on the Metro
politan and the San Jose heads is the shaping of the brow region. The lower edge of the nemes of the
king lies low and snugly across the forehead, tapering down slightly towards the temples to follow a
steady course equidistant from the line of the brows. The smooth plane of the forehead is clearly

above by the incised outline of the nemes running parallel to the gently indented edge of
statuette is similarly a narrow, smooth plane,
eyebrows. The forehead of the "Cleopatra"
the row of snail shell curls lying closely against the head and curving a bit lower over the temples to

demarcated

the hairless

continue to run parallel to the downward curvature of the outer edges of the eyebrows. The orbital
cavities on both heads are very slightly hollowed out, so that the eyes are shallowly embedded. The
eyebrows are indicated by sculpted edges in flattened arches, which bend down slightly at the outer
corners. As the narrow distance between the
eyebrows and the lower edge of the nemes (on the king)
or forehead curls (on the
is almost equal to the height of the orbital cavities on both heads,
queen)

the eye and forehead region achieves a certain balance of its own. The eyes are in neither case the
blank, distended eyes characteristic of many portraits of Ptolemies; they are closer to almond-shaped,
large in the center and coming to pointed inner and outer corners in even, stereotypical Egyptian
fashion without Hellenistic
influence. The upper lids are delimited by a double incised outline, the
lower lids by a shallow second outline. Both pieces are modest
under the rubric of royal sculpture. The individual

considered

261

provincial creations but must still be

features on both portraits are simpli

Kasimierz
The Art of Ancient Egypt (New York, 1969),
Michalowski,
figs. 620, 625; Laszlo Torok, The Kingdom
ofKush.
= HdO
Handbook
of the Napatan-Meroitic
Civilization
31 (Leiden,
1997), 425.
262
Edna R. Russmann,
The Representation
in theXXVth Dynasty (Brussels,
1974), 9, 13-24, figs. 1, 5ff.; Robert
of theKing
in Egyptian Art from the New Kingdom
"Archaism
to the Late Period,"
in J. Tait, ed., Never Had
the Like Occurred:
Morkot,
Egypt's View of itsPast
263
See n.

(London,

2003),

84; Torok,

Kingdom

ofKush,

428f.

CHESHIRE

383

fied. An openly smiling facial expression on both heads is evoked not

only by the upturned corners
of the lips but also the expansive horizontal sweep of the upper and lower
eyelids and the direct gaze
of the large, wide open eyes. The eyes of the San Jose
are
tilted
up slightly at the outer cor
pharaoh
ners, enhancing the open, happy expression of the usurper. The lower eyelids on the Metropolitan
I curve upward tomeet the outer corners of the upper lids
Cleopatra
midway, but the strong upward
bend

of the lower lids from their centers

towards the outer and inner corners creates a buoyant,

effect
that
lacks
the
of
the sobriety of first?century royal art. Of Stan
third?or
"smiling"
elegance
wick's group, a particularly comparable portrait head of a pharaoh from
in Alexandria264
Canopus
must represent Ptolemy V or VI. The San Jose head differs from these
pieces mainly through the
emphasis of an African physiognomy. The prominent, globular form of the face and the fleshy lips of
the San Jose pharaoh present a starkly different appearance
from the loose shaping of the elongated
on the latter, the contours of the brow
face of the New York Cleopatra;
dip in slightly at eye level,
then expand gently to indicate the cheekbones and then taper
gradually towards the chin to suggest
a weaker, or
ethnically European, physiognomy.265
A limestone torso of a female in Egyptian type in the Petrie Museum266 wears, over an echeloned

wig of corkscrew curls, a uraeus

tifying her as royal. In addition,

serpent attached to a horizontal band (ssd) above her forehead, iden

the ring of uraeus serpents on top of her head served as a base for

of a tall crown. The portrait head of this queen is stylistically closely comparable
to
its
routine
in
execution
of
the
and
the
brows;
eyes
pharaoh267
large, almond-shaped
eyes are framed by even, double incisions marking the cosmetic strip on the upper lids. On the Lon
don torso, this strip overlaps and extends far beyond the outer corners of the eyes. The lower lids on
the attachment
the Alexandria

this work are indicated

a
on the
only by
single incision, but the shaping of the eyes is comparable
are
whose
bordered
beneath
outlined
dull
and
lids, equally
eyes
pharaoh,
by doubly
immobile. The eyebrows on both are gently articulated ridges without indication of
eyebrow hair,
flattened horizontally over the orbital cavities, which are only slightly hollowed on both sides of the
nose. The puffy
quality created in the entire lower region of both faces due to the rounded-off con
tours is very similar, even though the queen has a broad, plump face and the
king a lean one. The
differentiation between Pharaonic-style portraits of Ptolemies V and VI is not clear, and Stanwick has

Alexandria

leftmany attributions
dated to approximately

in this time frame open. On stylistic grounds, the London

torso should be
the same period. The London portrait, with itsmerry, round face, large eyes
and plump cheeks, clearly represents a different individual than the stern, lean-faced queen whose
attribution to Cleopatra
I has been defended above. In the entire firsthalf of the second century, this
II.268 In a separate study I have recently attributed the London
queen can only have been Cleopatra
torso, along with a statue fragment of a physically similar, round-faced young queen inMariemont,269
264 See n.
176.
265
the ethnic distinctions
and Asians,
between Europeans
Regarciing
read the Hellenistic
treatise by an anonymous
author of the Hippocratic
W. Backhaus,
"Der Hellenen-Barbaren-Gegensatz
und die hippokratische
170-85.

It is unfortunate

that the sections

of the ancient

text devoted

no

in the view of the ancient Greeks,

it is informative to
school, About Airs, Waters and Places; see, for example,
Schrift peri aeron hydaton topon,"Historia
25 (1976),
to ethnography
of Egyptians, Libyans and Africans are

longer preserved.
266
Petrie Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology
UC
16674: Anthea
London,
University
College,
Page, Egyptian Sculpture,
Archaic to Saite, from thePetrie Collection (Warminster,
Frauenstatuen,
337f., cat. no. 89
1976), 90f., cat. no. 100; Albersmeier,
(first century bc), pi. 54b-d; Excavating Egypt (see n. 138), 36, cat. no. 31.
267
See n. 176.
268 portraits of
as is discussed
that queen's daughter, Cleopatra
III, differ clearly from those of the mother,
by the present
author in Ptolemies (forthcoming).
269Musee
B. 505 (=E. 49): Baudouin
Van de Walle, CdE 24 (1952), 29ff., pis. 6f. ("Cleopatra VII?"); Kyri
royal de Mariemont
eleis, Bildnisse,
119f., 185 cat. Mil;
Frauenstatuen,
Albersmeier,
17, 53, 55, n. 337, 241ff., 339f., cat. 91 (with bibliog.), pi. 53c
("Cleopatra

VI Tryphaena");

Sally-Ann Ashton,

The Last Queens

ofEgypt (London,

2003),

120ff., fig. 20 ("Cleopatra

VII").

384

JARCE 45 (2009)

to Cleopatra
II in the early years of her reign, some time between 174 and the early 160s.270 The
a
as well, and it is
statuette
Petrie
provides
good stylistic link to the San Jose pharaoh
(figs. 16-18),
possible to date the portrait of the queen stylistically early in her reign with Ptolemy VI. The Marie
mont fragment, which is a finer work, the Petrie torso and the San Jose head are characterized by a
similar simple, unpretentious
sculpting style in large surfaces, big, heavy facial features?the almond
shaped eyes, framed by routinely carved, somewhat thick lids, a simple, rounded form of the full
cheeks and chin and barely curved ridges marking the eyebrows, which establish a stabilizing horizon
in San Jose had been an
tal across the forehead. The robustly bulging flesh of the "fat pharaoh"

art up to this point but can be compared with the bulging cheeks on the
Richardson Head, a portrait of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II in his youth,271 made presumably between
II.
170-164 at the time of his joint reign with his two older siblings, Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra
unusual

feature in Ptolemaic

Within the time frame of the early second century bc, there were no ruling Ptolemies who looked
even remotely similar to the San Jose portrait. It is, however, possible to suggest an attribution of the
ethnically distinctive pharaoh to one of the two leaders of the rebellion in the Thebaid, who usurped
the throne over

large parts of Upper Egypt towards the end of the reign of Ptolemy IV and well
into the reign of his son, Ptolemy V.272 Other than their names and the duration of their rule, noth
at least the names they assumed
ing is known personally about the two pretenders. Their names?or

as kings

in Egypt and had written in hieroglyphs within cartouches273?are

Egyptian, as are their
one
were
From
the
rebels
led
for
205?199,
epithets.
by
Hor-wennefer, (Egyptian
"Horus-Onnophris,"
the latter component being a name of Osiris). A Demotic
inscription of late 205 bc dated officially to
his reign274 attests that he was recognized as pharaoh?at
least in Thebes?by
that time. His successor
bore a similar name, Ankh-wennefer ("Onnophris"or
"Osiris
(from 199-191)
into Greek Chaonnophris,275
and he bore the identical epithets. Chaonnophris

lives"), transliterated
counted the years of

his reign collectively from the beginning of the rule of Horonnophris,

thus beginning with "year
seven."276 If following Pharaonic Egyptian custom, thismethod of numbering the years would imply
that he had first been a co-regent, perhaps with lesser status, with Horonnophris
the first seven years.
There is no known coregency, and it is possible that the pretenders used a unique method of dating

according to the combined years of their counter-regime. An attribution of the San Jose head to the
later of the two rebels, Chaonnophris,
agrees best with the closest stylistic comparisons, portraits of
and
II
V
in her early years. Due to the wide chronological margin of
I,
Cleopatra
Ptolemy
Cleopatra
error in dating Egyptian art according to style, however, the possibility that the head
might represent
cannot be excluded.
his predecessor, Haronnophris,
It is hardly to be expected that the young princess, the future queen Cleopatra
II, and the insur
ever met; he was
and
in
the
executed
186,277
gent leader Chaonnophris
year when her
captured
270 The

torso was
identification of the Mariemont
tentatively by Bothmer, Egyptian Sculpture, 132f., and Claire
suggested
Choix d'Oeuvres 50: Egypte (Morlanwelz,
in detail, along with
Derriks, Mariemont.
1990), cat. no. 40, and discussed
portraits of
the mature Cleopatra
II, by Cheshire, Ptolemies, "Excursus."
271New
R. R. R. Smith, "Ptolemaic
Collection:
Portraits: Alexandrian
York, William
Kelly Simpson
Types, Egyptian Ver
and Alexandrianism
sions," inMarion True, ed., Alexandria
(Malibu, 1996), 207f., fig. 5; Stanwick, Portraits, 58, 59, 62, 63, n. 26,
72f., 77, figs. 258f.
272
Detailed
discussions

on this
in Ptolemaic
episode
history are given by Pestman,
passim; HuB, Agypten,
"Haronnophris,"
literature cited in 445, n. 17; Veisse, Les revoltes, 11-26, 83-98,
155-85.
445ff., 506ff., with extensive
273
Gauthier, Livre des Rois, 426-28.
274
Sethe, "Die historische Bedeutung,"
41; Pestman,
104-5; Veisse, Les revoltes, 23-26
"Haronnophris,"
(disputing Pestman's
results and assuming a date of the expulsion
of the Ptolemaic
regime already in 206).
275
126f.
Pestman,
"Haronnophris,"
276
Pestman,
128ff.; Veisse, Les revoltes, 22.
"Haronnophris,"
277
HuB, Agypten,

CHESHIRE
brother and future husband
tender in Thebes

385

was born. Yet

the sculptor who created the San Jose head of the pre
about
contemporary royal art of the Ptolemies to portray him
enough
find acceptance among the same native populace, while at the same time
empha

understood

in a way that would

sizing the ethnic physiognomy to appeal to their anti-Greek sentiments.

The San Jose head appears to have been left in a state of incompletion. The choice of
sculptural
material?a
coarse-grained sandstone thatwould have hindered the carving of finely nuanced details
is a possible
indication that the piece was made well to the south, in the Thebaid
or even
beyond
Egypt's borders. Sandstone was
Coupled with the ethnic African

commonly used for sculpture as well as architecture in Meroe.278

features of the head and the blocklike execution of the uraeus, the
San Jose head was presumably sculpted by an Upper Egyptian artist.
The implication of "resurgence from the dead" that is embodied within both similar?but otherwise
names of the rebel leaders can
unparalleled?proper
possibly be interpreted as a sign of the Egyptian
nationalist

renaissance that the rebel leaders wanted to

convey.279 One might therefore suspect that
names
were
not
were
these
chosen specifically with the rebellion inmind. The ease
given at birth but
with which the two leaders assumed these half-authentic sounding, theophoric names seems almost
in the
sources refer to the rebels
presumption,280 but the Greek and Demotic
consistently
The
titulature
the
leaders
of them identically?is of the most
bore?and
both
royal
"Egyptian."281

heretical
as

obvious

sort, "forever-living, Beloved of Amun, King of Gods, the great god" (cnh dt mr ylmn-nsw-ntr.w
ntr
9), aligning the pretenders with the Theban clergy in contrast to Ptolemy V, whose epithet mry
pi
"beloved
of Ptah," underscored his affiliation with the priesthood of
Pth,
Memphis.282
It is generally assumed on the basis of their names, their conventional
Egyptian royal titles and their
success

in mobilizing
the Egyptian priesthood and populace
that Haronnophris
and Chaonnophris
themselves native Egyptians,283 although a similarity has also been observed between their names
and those of their Ethiopian
II, and
royal contemporaries, Arnekhamani, Arqamani
(Ergamenes)
Their
Adikhalamani.284
titulatures, "Beloved of Amun" (mry 'Imri) and "Beloved of Isis" (mry '1st),were
were

identical not only with those of the ruling Ptolemy inAlexandria but also with those of the contem
porary rulers inMeroe.285 Just as "Beloved of Amun" asserted their friendly relations with the priests

at Thebes,
the title "Beloved of Isis" underscored
the close religious attachment that the
and Lower Nubia felt towards the great Isis Temple of Philae.286
people of the Dodekaschoenus
The revolt had the character of a native or nationalist movement rather than of a foreign invasion; the
of Amun

"bands of Nubians"
278
Alfred Lucas
279 Edouard Will

mentioned

and J. R. Harris,
and Cl. Orrieux,

in the second Philensis Decree

(written in hieroglyphs

Ancient Egyptian Materials

and Industries, 4th ed. (London,
1962), 56f.
Essai sur lejudaisme judeen a Vepoque hellenistique
Ioudaismos-Hellenismos.

Vandorpe,
City, 232; Vei'sse, Les revokes, 98-99.
280
some of the Theban
Vei'sse, Les revokes, 95-99. While
statement of the Ptolemaic
court on the Rosetta Stone labeled

tswntNhs.w,

(Nancy,

1986),

in

23;

their seizure of the throne, the official

population
accepted
the rebels as asebeis ("impious"),
is called the
and Chaonnophris
n n? ntr.w); cf. Sethe, Urk. II, 221, 8f.; Pestman,
101, 103, 120f., no. 7; Vei'sse, Les
"enemy of the gods" (pt sb?
"Haronnophris,"
revokes, 221, with further discussion;
Vittmann,
"Feinde," 207-16.
Vittmann,
210, has shown that the (northern, probably
text for the Rosetta Decree
to allowing the name of
felt an aversion
Memphite)
Egyptian scribe who drew up the hieroglyphic

to contain the symbolic value of the

cnh ("life") and nfr ("goodness")
and thus devised
the unetymo
ideograms
is reminded of the graffito at Abydus written phonetically
in Greek
letters
logical writing Hr-wn-nf for the usurper's name. One
see n. 294.
Hurganophor;
281
Veisse, Les revokes, 12If.
282
Lanciers,
I," 84; Holbl, History, 155.
"Tempelbauten,
283
Lanciers,
I," 83f.; Pestman,
125ff.; Vandorpe,
"Tempelbauten,
"Haronnophris,"
City, 232.
284
Veisse, Les revokes, 85.
285
aus der Zeit des
wilhelm
"Zwei Kaufvertrage
I und II)," RecTrav 35
Spiegelberg,
(Papyrus Carnarvon
Konigs Harmakhis
(1913), 150-61, esp. 151; Veisse, Les revokes, 86-87.
286
Torok, Kingdom ofRush,
Chaonnophris

386

JARCE 45 (2009)

mscn ni yIgs.w) as uniting the rebel forces were doubtless reinforcements but not the instiga
tors of the "Egyptian" revolts.287 The light-handed manipulation
of instruments of Egyptian royal
were
more
dogma could suggest that they
closely bound to the Lower Nubian peoples who
ethnically

Demotic

wandered

back and forth over the border

areas of the Dodekaschoenus

and Meroe.288

sources

show that the uprising began in Edfu and the Pathyrite nome, and moved from there
to Diospolis magna.289 While Ptolemy IV built substantially onto the temples of the Southern fron
tier?the Isis Temples at Aswan, Dakke, Philae, and Sehel, as well as in the Theban area, the building
loss of control in the Thebaid and farther
program of Ptolemy V was very limited.290 The Ptolemies'
The

rulers to spread their sphere of influence into the Dodekaschoenus.

In
the Meroitic
at
time
V
lost
in
the
when
the
of
First
had
control
the
the
Meroitic
Philae,
Cataract,
Ptolemy
region
as
into
leader Arqamani
moved
the
is
recorded
vacuum,
II)
power
(Ergamenes
by his decoration of
south allowed

Temple, later reinscribed with cartouches of Ptolemy V.291 The same ruler built a
a Nubian
in
the
leader who was probably the successor of
chapel
Temple of Dakke.292 Adikhalimani,
is
in
his
of
adoration
the local Egyptian gods by a stela found at
Arqamani/Ergamenes,
represented
the Arensnuphis

at Kalabsha
also paid
Philae,293 and he built onto the Temple of Debod.294 The sanctuary of Mandulis
at
to
the
Meroitic
rulers
the
time
of
the
native
in
rebellion
the
The two
Thebaid.295
allegiance
Egyptian

usurpers to the throne in Thebes were understandably

preoccupied
securing a tenuous hold on the
are
not commemorated
rule of Upper Egypt, and their collective reigns
by building activity, while the

of the native sanctuaries in their names is limited, to our present knowledge,

to one
of
in
at
in
I
Greek
the
of
To
lim
this
Haronnophris
graffito
clumsy
Temple
lettering
Sety
Abydus.296
can now be added the San Jose head, but it is unknown
ited expression of revolutionary propaganda
whether the statue to which itbelonged once stood in a major native temple or in a modest?perhaps
"decoration"

in the desert. The Ptolemies retained throughout the conflict their control of the
improvised?chapel
towns of Elephantine
vital
border
and Syene.297 The turbulent times are reflected in a
strategically
Berlin Demotic papyrus,298 a letter addressed to three Egyptian priests who had fled the temple com
on Philae
plex
during the hostilities,
them that it is now safe to return.

seeking refuge inNubia;

a local authority in Elephantine

assures

287
a band
Veisse, Les revokes, 84-86; Torok, Kingdom ofKush, 427f. That the rebel leaders were themselves Nubians,
leading
of Egyptians, was argued by Sethe, "Die historische
on the
35-49.
Sethe, 42, based his conclusion
Bedeutung,"
writing of
in lines 7 and 13 of the Demotic
text of the Raphia Decree
followed by the foreign-land determinative,
while the
Chaonnophris
as slb.w ("enemies"),
are determined
man but without
larger corps of rebels, also characterized
by the beheaded,
falling
indication of foreign origin. Vittmann,
that the orthographic
in this document
subtleties
"Feinde," 207-9, has commented
to indicate that
or both rebel leaders, were themselves Nubians.
alone are not enough evidence
Nevertheless,
Chaonnophris,
the seemingly African
of the San Jose head
is a warning
that Sethe's opinion
should not be unequivocally
physiognomy
dismissed.
288 Cf.

Torok, Kingdom ofKush, 433.

289
Veisse, Les revokes, 240-42.
290
Lanciers,
I," 178, passim.
"Tempelbauten,
291
Lanciers,
I," 95f.; Veisse, Les revokes, 87f.
"Tempelbauten,
292
Erich Winter,
and seine Bautatigkeit
in Nubien," MDAIK
37 (1981), 510f.; Lanciers,
II., seine Datierung
"Ergamenes
I," 97.
"Tempelbauten,
293Adel
Found at Philae," MDAIK
34 (1978), 53-56.
Farid, "The Stela of Adikhalamani
294
Lanciers,
I," 96.
"Tempelbauten,
295
Lanciers,
II," I76f.; Veisse, Les revokes, 92.
"Tempelbauten,
296 pjeter
\y Pestman, Jan Quaegebeur,
and R. L. Vos, Receuil de textes demotiques et bilingues (Leiden,
1977), no. 11 (with
earlier bibliography);
Veisse, Les revokes, lOf.
297
Pestman,
134-36; Veisse, Les revokes, 18, 91f.
"Haronnophris,"
298
Karl-Th. Zauzich, Papyri von der Insel Elephantine, DPB / (Berlin, 1978), no. 15527, vso. 2-5; Lanciers,
II,"
"Tempelbauten,
180. Veisse, Les revokes, 221 f., expresses
uncertainty about the date of the

CHESHIRE

387

The ethnic distinction of the rebel leaders seems to be confirmed

by the portrait discussed above,
which wears a typical pharaonic costume, the nemes and uraeus. The broad and
plump face with thick
a
and
it
differentiates
from
the
Greco-Macedonian
rulers inAlexandria.
saucy expression
lips
clearly
the
common
rebels felt much in
with the peoples of bordering Lower Nubia and Meroe,
Evidently
although

their attachment

support of Nubian
in the first decades

to the Egyptian cults remained. As

was able to gain the
Chaonnophris
was
he
with
the
troops by 187/6,299
clearly compatible
people of the South. A date
of the second century bc and a more probable attribution to the second usurper

from the south, Chaonnophris

can be
(r. 200-186), but possibly to his predecessor, Haronnophris,
on stylistic
as
as
well
the
was
non-Greek
The
conflict
grounds
by
type.
physiognomic
on
as
characterized
one
the
of
the
versus
Ptolemies
of
not
of
rebels,
part
consistently
loyal subjects
versus
Hellenes
in
in
the first two decades of the second century,
Thebes
Egyptians.300 Nevertheless,
anti-Greek sentiment must have been considerable.301
advocated

Within

this framework, it is possible to re-evaluate the head of an

in Antwerp
Egyptian pharaoh
a
The
has
was
some
curious
at
The
which
time
shaved down on
head,
(figs. 19-22).302
piece
history.
the right side of the neck to fit with a torso that originally did not
in the
belong to it,was discovered
on
an
an
the
of
beneath
ancient
enclosure
vaulted
resident,
century
eighteenth
property
Antwerp
that would have dated back to ancient Roman or, at the latest, medieval
times.303 It received its
as a "statue of Isis" in the
misnomer
since
the
eighteenth century, evidently
garment
wrap-around
to people of that time to be a feminine costume.304 Both the head and torso were
appeared
sculpted
out of gray granite, but the two pieces were carved
separately out of slightly different specimens of
the stone and fitted together by an adept craftsman.305 The head portrays a
plump-faced male wear
the edge, to which is
ing the royal nemes with its thin, horizontal band?now
severely abraded?along
a
uraeus
attached
serpent coiled in an elegant figure eight. The surface of the head cloth is smooth
without the frequently detailed, plastic indication of lateral stripes. No traces of paint are now visible.
The statue was combined, possibly in Roman
times,306 with the torso of a man who wears a non
a
and
book
holds
roll in his right fist in front of his abdomen, his left
Egyptian, wrap-around garment
299
Hu6,
300
Trm

Agypten, 507; Vei'sse, Les revoltes, 93-95.

attitude was no different from the traditional

of their Pharaonic
cf. David O'Connor,
standpoint
predecessors;
theLike Occurred, 155-85, esp. 157-59; Vittmann,
"Feinde," 198ff.
"Egypt's View of 'Others'," in Tait, ed., Never Had
301
Veisse, Les revoltes, 130f., 135.
302
A.l: Constant De Wit, "Some Remarks
the so-called "Isis" in the Museum
CdE
Vleeshuis,"
Antwerp,Vleeshuis
concerning
39 (1964), 61-66; Berthe Rantz, "Notes sur la pseudo-Isis
d'Anvers," Latomus 35 (1976), 383-98, pis. 37-39; Bothmer, Egyptian
to
therefore limit the discussion
Sculpture, 84. The present author has not been able to view the statue first-hand and must
in this light, the statue would certainly merit an additional,
suggestions;
close-up investigation.
303
Rantz, "Notes," 383, quoting early sources with a history of the investigations.
304
is a Twenty-Seventh
statue of an official in a Persian costume, which
Similarly, Louvre A.93
Dynasty basalt naophorous
was combined
a head of Isis
"La statue de Hekatefnakht,"
times; see Jacques Vandier,
incongruously with
sculpted in Roman

Revue

du Louvre
14 (1964), 57ff., figs. 1-3, 8-13,
"Hellenistic."
The illogical montage
is already
dating the head erroneously
in drawings dating to 1707, when
the restored piece was in an English private collection; Vandier,
"Hekatefnakht,"
depicted
around
the body, leaving the breasts exposed, was a favorite, exotic costume used on many
6If., fig. 13. A garment wrapped
as well as on 18th and 19th century
Neo-Classical
the
of Cleopatra
sculptures of Egyptian or Nubian women,
interpretations
Great; cf. Jean-Michel Humbert, Michael
Patnazzi, and Christiane
Ziegler, eds., Egyptomania. L'Egypte dans I'art occidental 1730
cat. No.
1930 (Paris, 1994), 284f., cat. no. 165 (ill.); 290-92
170 (ill.); 454 fig. 7, 578, cat. no. 390 (ill.). In these times, the asso
ciation of the Persian costume with Isis was popular.
305
Constant DeWit,
"A propos de l'Isis d'Anvers," BIFAO 58 (1959), 87, n. 6, 96; Rantz, "Notes," 386f., 395.
306 was
It
who
61ff., that the owner of the property where the statue was discovered,
suspected by De Wit, "Some Remarks,"
was an artist
one
two
assume
have
united
the
himself.
would
that
statue
the
base
trade,
by
might
fragments
Certainly
acquired
with it bearing an inscription, "ISIS," inset in bronze
of an eighteenth
(Rantz, "Notes," 386, 389), was the concoction
century
collector. There
that the head, to be identified below as a rebel usurper, as well, had been combined
is, however, a possibility
in the chaotic times of the revolt with the
conveniently
typologically foreign statue, which had since been

388

JARCE 45

CHESHIRE

Figs.

23-24.

tesy of DAIK,

Granite
Neg.nos.

Fragment from
D-DAI-KAI-F-7053

Dyad

from Canopus.
+ 7054.

Alexandria,

389

Greco-Roman

Museum

11275.

Photographs

cour

in Persian art, but also

clasping his right wrist?a costume and a gesture that were conventions
in Egypt for statues of certain officials during periods of Persian occupation
(Dynasties 27-29) and
sometimes later.307 The second century BC dating?in any case, of the head?suggested
by DeWit in a

hand

1959 museum

from the time of

catalogue308 is defensible through comparison with the monuments
V and VI discussed above. The fleshy lips of this ruler, pressed firmly one atop the other
like short sausages, recall the peculiar, detached and terse rendering of the horizontally set lips of the

Ptolemies

I (figs. 6-7)?one
of several indications that the artist of the Antwerp king was
Brooklyn Cleopatra
versed in native Egyptian sculpting style and techniques. The saucer-round shape of the king's large,
wide open eyes is accentuated by the bold, deep cutting of the inside edges of the eyelids and appear
to expand even more since the outer edges are only indicated by an indentation tomark their thick
ness rather than by a heavy, encircling line. The irises and
pupils are plastically indicated but do not
detract from the overall pop-eyed stare reminiscent of much Ptolemaic royal portraiture. A notewor
thy subtlety is the thickened, fleshy rendering of the inner corners of the eyes to suggest tear ducts.
An important argument in dating the Antwerp head is its close stylistic resemblance
to the por
a
now
trait head of boy pharaoh from Canopus,
in the Alexandria Museum
(figs. 23-24), whose iden
tity has been

307

Constant

a subject

DeWit,

of much

Oudheidkundige

Egyptian Sculpture, 85.

308
Oudheidkundige Musea,
309
Museum
Greco-Roman

Musea,

debate.309

The

Stad Antwerpen,

companion

Vleeshuis, Catalogus

5, no. 4; Rantz, "Notes," 385, 396.

Van de Walle,
"La
11275: Baudouin

statue fragment

VIII, Egypte

of his

(Antwerpen,

1959),

consort

in

5; Bothmer,

de Mariemont,"
CdE 24 (1949), 29ff., pi. 7; idem,
'Cleopatre'
et Cleopatre,"
le pretendu
CdE 25 (1950), 31-35; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 37,
groupe d'Antoine
73f., 120, 175, cat. H5, pi. 61, 1-2; Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture, 98f., no. 34 (ill.); Stanwick, Portraits, 18f., 23, 28, 34ff., 45,
see Bothmer,
49, 60, 79, 86, 122, cat. no. El, figs. 153f. For the identification as Ptolemy VI and not as Ptolemy XV "Kaisarion,"
"Un nouveau

Egyptian

document

Sculpture,

concernant

132f.; Cheshire,

Ptolemies,

390

JARCE 45 (2009)

to Cleo
and, in greater detail, in a separate publication,311
patra II, despite a growing consensus in recent scholarship that it should portray Cleopatra VII. The
of this important statue group in the first century bc has only contributed to
popular misplacement
of late Ptolemaic art. The identification of the boy king as
the confusion regarding the development

Mariemont310

has been

attributed above

not one of the younger brothers or the son and co-regent of Cleopatra VII, Ptole
Ptolemy VI?and
mies XIII through XV?is arguable on stylistic as well as on physiognomic grounds. The rendering of
the boy's wavy hair in energetically curving, snakelike locks, each varied in form from the next and
from each other by deep undercutting, was borrowed from the dramatic trend inMiddle
art as exemplified in the early part of the second century bc on the Great Altar at Perga
mum.312 This stylewas adapted in Ptolemaic art on the portraiture of Ptolemy VI, not only on a mar
separated
Hellenistic

statues in hard stone in

but also on Pharaonic-style
style in Alexandria,313
and
Another
of
feature
of
Athens314
Alexandria.315
stylistic
portraits
Ptolemy VI is the sharp-edged,
angular cut of the eyebrows, achieving a rough-hewn effect similar to wood carving; this style appears
ble bust

in Hellenistic

not only on the two portraits of that king in Egyptian type wearing a nemes inAthens and Alexandria,
but also on the Hellenistic-style marble bust inAlexandria,
the head of the boy king from the Alexan
drian dyad (figs. 23-24) and the head inAntwerp (figs. 19-22). The harsh simplification of Philome

to a flat frontal plane and flat cheek planes, exposed

tor's bony physiognomy
through taut skin to
near
at
to
a
of
of
the
frontal
like
sides
box
is common to all the
the
face
the
adjoin
right-angles
plane
above-mentioned
heads attributed to Ptolemy VI. The construction of the Antwerp head is less box
like because of the fleshier physiognomy of a different individual, which obscures the bone structure.

A comparison of the profile view of the Antwerp king with that of the boy king from the dyad inAl
exandria
(figs. 19, 23), however, shows on both remarkably flat side planes and a rough-hewn,
differs from other rep
squared-off structuring of the head form. The dyad fragment at Alexandria
a
at
resentations of Philometor
in that it portrays the king
very young age, probably precisely at the
time of his coming-of-age, his marriage
to his sister, Cleopatra
in 175/4.316 As
II, and his coronation
a
as
was
as
not
be
of
his
head
form
in
later
young boy,
years, the eyes
might
expected
yet
elongated
are wide and given a delicate, childish look
a
linear
of the inner
outline
through
slightly ornamental,
a
edges of the eyelids and
graceful tapering of the lids towards the corners?in contrast to the stern

coin portraits of his mother, his acting guardian and regent from his childhood years
(fig. 3). The fe
a
a
of
the
in
bears
similar
Mariemont317
pendant figure
dyad
gentle, wide-eyed expression with
full fleshed, rounded countenance
of youth and can only represent his sister-bride, Cleopatra
II.
A basic structural similarity of the Antwerp head to the pharaoh of the Alexandrian
dyad points to
the former being created in the early second century, as well. Again, with the lack of stylistic parallels
from the end of the third century, it is impossible to state without doubt that
Chaonnophris's
prede

male

is not represented, but comparisons point preferably to a later

cessor, Haronnophris,
dating. The
"Ptolemaic" look of the large, round eyes and the rather rough carving of the eyebrows of theAntwerp
solid sculpting style speak so clearly for a traditional royal atelier
head, as well as the understated,
310
Musee

"La 'Cleopatre'
de Mariemont,"
document
29ff., pis. 6f.; idem, "Un nouveau
(= E49): B. Van de Walle,
royal B505
et Cleopatre,"
le pretendu
Frauensta
3Iff.; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 119f., 185, cat. Mil;
Albersmeier,
groupe d'Antoine
tuen, 24Iff., 339f., etc., cat. 91, pi. 53dc. For the identification as Cleopatra
II, and not Cleopatra
VII, see Bothmer, Egyptian
Choix d'oeuvres 50: Egypte (1990), cat. no. 40; Cheshire
Scultpure, 85; C. Derriks, Mariemont.
(see n. 267).
311
See n. 267.
312 For
example, Kahler, Pergamon, pis. 9, 10, 13, 18, 23, 31, 34b.
313
Greco-Roman
Museum
24092: A. Adriani, BSArchMex
32 (1928), 97ff. fig. 11, pis. 10-12; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
Alexandria,
59ff., 120f., 127, 174, cat. F3 (bibliog.), pis. 49, 2; 50; 51.
314
See n. 130.
315
See n. 128.
316
On the child marriage
of the two siblings, see Holbl,
History, 172; HuB, Agypten, 541.
317
See n.
concernant

CHESHIRE

391

that it is evident that the usurper inUpper Egypt sought this out, as if to ally himself with the indige
nous aristocracy in exceptional circumstances. To search for comparisons among the Ptolemies of the
first quarter of the second century, one must revert again to only two candidates. The Antwerp ruler
structure of Ptolemy VI.318 Coin portraits representing
later in his life319 show him with somewhat fleshier cheeks yet still the same
fine-boned structure of the nose and the high, domed forehead, and a gentle, serene facial expres
sion with a slight smile and lack of tension in his large eyes. The Antwerp head is less subtle, instead
clearly does not have
Ptolemy V Epiphanes

the thin facial bone

the horizontal band of

direct and almost intrusive?and definitely corpulent. Beneath
unabashedly
as
an
nemes
hair
is
surface
the
of the Antwerp pharaoh,
rendered
unarticulated
lying in flat relief
times. The profile of the basalt head is
against the temples, a stereotype rendering from Pharaonic
even from these views, the large eyes and the
difficult to reconstruct, as the nose area ismutilated;
seem
to
and
the head form appears squat rather than elon
dominate
the
portrait,
firmly pressed lips
not
appear to have the high, domed forehead of Ptolemy V nor the oval
gated. This pharaoh does
must remain
face shape of Ptolemy VIII.320 An attribution of the Antwerp head to Chaonnophris
two
but it cer
to
rule
of
the
of
the
of
due
the
documentation
leaders,
tentative,
paucity
renegade
more
to
on
to
a
than
who
would
be
attribution
Ptolemy VIII,
plausible
tainly appears
stylistic grounds
not rule Egypt as an adult until 145.
attributable to the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes
As the number of royal monuments
grows, so
does the evidence for a breakdown of the Egyptian artistic tradition. The Hellenistic media of propa

illustrated by the bronze wrestlers' group inAthens (fig. 2) and the splendid gold and silver
ganda?as
an overt
to reward the Ptolemaic mercenaries
for their service (fig. 1)?proclaimed
coins minted

to the Hellenistic
koine. Two Egyptian-style representations
commitment beyond Egypt's boundaries
I (figs. 6-7, 10-11) wear a coiffure of long ringlets and a row of snail shell curls across
of Cleopatra
the brow that is decidedly un-Greek but was equally at home in Egypt as in the Near East. The single
on many of her coins and represented on one portrait statue (figs. 10-11) was a
cornucopia depicted
to the sprigs of grain in some of her Hellenistic
Greek attribute that corresponded
portraits. The

motif, reverting to iconographic symbols first used for the deified Arsinoe Philadelphus, made refer
ence to Egypt's extended relations with her neighboring kingdoms, should the Pharaoh fail to arrange
to procure ample food supplies through his appeal to the gods at home.
Based on the recent work by Stanwick, one gains the disappointing
impression that the Pharaonic
are of remarkably mediocre quality, and the small alabaster head of
V
of
Ptolemy
style images sculpted
the boy king, wearing the side-lock of childhood, in Berlin321 appears to have been more of a schematic

caricature than an attempt to create a dignified work of nationalist art. The bold, chunky portrait of the
in San Jose (figs. 16-18) boldly asserts his provincial roots in the region
rebel leader (Chaonnophris?)
around the Nubian frontier. It is ironic that a second portrait possibly attributable to Chaonnophris,
inAntwerp (figs. 19-22), is the only thus far recognized native royal portrait of relatively high
artistic caliber in hard stone from the time of Ptolemy V?but representing a usurper.
the head

Independent

318

Scholar

YoV portraits of Ptolemy VI, see Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 58ff., pis. 46-51.
II no. 1291; III pi. 94,5; IV, cols. 273ff.; Bevan, History, 253, figs. 45-46; Kyrieleis,
Svoronos
"Portratmunzen,"
225, fig. 7.
>K 612, attributed convincingly by O. Neverov, Antique Intaglios in theHermit
A carnelian
intaglio in St. Petersburg, Hermitage
the king as an adolescent with the same gentle
1976), 63f., no. 61 (color ill.), to Ptolemy V represents
age Collection (Leningrad,
nose and chin.
a
facial bone structure, a high, domed
and characteristic
forehead,
pointed
long, flat cheeks,
expression
320On
see Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 63f., pis. 52f.; Stanwick, Portraits, 71-73;
the physical features of portraits of Ptolemy VIII,
"Ptolemies VIII-X."
Cheshire, Ptolemies, Chapter
321
See n. 47.
319