Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Cleopatra 'The Syrian' and A Couple of Rebels - Their Images, Iconography, and Propaganda
Cleopatra 'The Syrian' and A Couple of Rebels - Their Images, Iconography, and Propaganda
Cleopatra 'The Syrian' and A Couple of Rebels - Their Images, Iconography, and Propaganda
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
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
American Research Center in Egypt is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the
American Research Center in Egypt.
http://www.jstor.org
Cheshire
Abstract
Following upon theacme ofPtolemaic political domination, economicprosperityand
cultural
development
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
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.,
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.
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
Arsinoe
Sosibius
Not
and Agathocles.
only was the survival of the Ptolemaic
was due
in major
Ioannes
Nikolaos
in Alexandria
dynasty
threatened
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;
'
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;
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
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
kingdom. Had
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.
Hg.
2. Bronze
Athens,
group.
um,
Pancratiasts'
Dimitriou
Muse
National
Collection
ANE
Museum
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
25
A parallel
spices
27
(ardmata).
"Verbrannte
in the United
the war was
the weapons
"Wild West."
States
over,
III was
Renate
Pharaonen?"
235, 239-45,
Muller-Wollermann,
2002),
in n. 860; Wendy
Cheshire,
The Bronzes
ofPtolemy II Philadel
CHESHIRE
353
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
Kyrieleis,
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,
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
Cf. Wolfgang
to popular
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
from a military
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
Alexandria
Angeles,
1993),
64-66,
79.
JARCE 45 (2009)
356
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
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
Cleopatra
57
58
59
I in 195.64
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
CHESHIRE
357
replaced
read h(y).67
down
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
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
ual
issues.
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,"
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.
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
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.
Rickham,
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
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
his Horus
upon
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,
Decree
of 196 and
It was proclaimed
in these documents
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
When
at Raphia
princess
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
Polybius
Ptolemy V had
CHESHIRE
361
it has
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
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
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
inHenri
Melaerts,
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
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.
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,
coin
portraits
28. Giornate
Hellenistic
Engraved
Dependencies
of theMain
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
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
British Museum
GR
1917.5-1.96.
Max.
in theDepartment
and Peter Higgs,
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
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
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
meier132
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.
heads
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
Fig.
9.
Terracotta
Head
from Memphis.
between
London,
Petrie Museum
of Egyptian
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
123ff.
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
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
hine
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
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
Both
a young woman
images clearly portray
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
368
JARCE 45 (2009)
donian
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
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
ence
a refer
(shtp-ib-Hr) is
the precise
of Hathor;
of Arsinoe
II, who was also
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
Museum.
royal sculptural
style. The
examples
all
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
bears
Museum
politan
assumed
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
of
"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
13-14.
Figs.
Larrieu.
Marble
"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
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
of Arabia
that
time.186
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
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
elements,
Museum
pis. 49-51.
most masculine
Fig. 15. Hyacinth
Portrait
molean
Intaglio
with
I. Oxford, Ash
of Cleopatra
Museum
1892.1572.
Cour
Museum.
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.
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,
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
to Demeter.
Even
208
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
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
Thebaid
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
220
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
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
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
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.
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
a role of military
or
rule?SKOPA(S),
PO(lykrates), Nl(kon),
monogram K(-leopatra) for the ruling queen's
An imposing gold octadrachm
in the British Museum
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
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,
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
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.
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.
Egyptian
Museum
RC
1755.
Photographs
courtesy
of
Manifest
(Epiphanes)."258
A bluntly carved sandstone head of a pharaoh
to the statuette of Cleopatra
I in theMetropolitan
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
It is unfortunate
of the ancient
text devoted
no
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,
ofEgypt (London,
2003),
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
lives"), transliterated
counted the years of
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
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
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,
(written in hieroglyphs
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;
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
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
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
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.
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.
CHESHIRE
387
their attachment
support of Nubian
in the first decades
Within
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
hand
1959 museum
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
Musea,
debate.309
The
Stad Antwerpen,
companion
Vleeshuis, Catalogus
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
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
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
"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
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