school
Familiarity Breeds: Incest and the Ptolemaic Dynasty
Author(s): Sheila L. Ager
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 125 (2005), pp. 1-34
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033343 .
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http://www.jstor.org Journal of Hellenic Studies 125
(2005) 1-34
FAMILIARITY BREEDS:
INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY*
Abstract: This paper examines the problem of Ptolemaic incest from a variety of cross-disciplinary perspectives.
Specifically,
it seeks to establish the
following:
that there is little in the ancient record to support
the common claim
that the Ptolemies suffered extensively
from the deleterious genetic effects of
inbreeding;
that the various theories so
far put
forward as explanations
for Ptolemaic incest offer at best only a partial rationale for this dynastic practice;
that
the most compelling rationale for Ptolemaic incest is to be found in complex, and perhaps unconscious, symbolic
motivations analogous
to those observed by anthropologists
in other cultures; and
finally, that, for the Ptolemies, incest
was, like the
truphi
for which
they were so notorious, a dynastic signature which highlighted
their singularity and
above all, their power.
Do you alone hang back, when all others hasten to the bed of the princess? The wicked sister is
marrying her brother - the Roman general
she has married already; hastening
from one husband to
another, she possesses Egypt and is playing
the harlot for Rome. She was able to conquer Caesar's
heart by drugs;
if you put your
trust in the boy,
I pity you.
If a
single night brings
them
together,
if her
brother once submits to her embraces with incestuous heart and drinks in unlawful passion on pretence
of natural affection, then he will grant her your head and mine, each perhaps
in return for a kiss.'
THUS the Egyptian eunuch Pothinus to his fellow schemer Achillas in Lucan's epic poem on the
Roman civil war. The Roman poet offers a highly colourful version of the
story of Caesar and
Kleopatra, and dwells
lovingly on the depraved sexuality of the latter, a
sexuality fraught with
danger
for her enemies at the Alexandrian court. It is not very likely
that Lucan's words rep-
resent anything
like historical truth, but
they do offer an apt
introduction to the issue of the
marital conventions of the Ptolemaic
family. The question of incest in the Ptolemaic dynasty
-
its purpose,
its meaning, and all its ramifications - is a broad one. Most
scholarly works on
Ptolemaic Egypt
touch on the matter at least briefly, pausing
to
speculate on the reasons for this
peculiar royal habit. Nevertheless, relatively
few works have tackled the question
in depth.2
This article seeks both to enlarge on previous
studies by addressing
the rationale and the mech-
anisms of the Ptolemaic practice, and to enhance our understanding of it by examining
it
through
an
interdisciplinary
lens: one that
incorporates anthropological,
scientific and historiographic
viewpoints.
THE QUESTION OF 'INCEST'
The English word 'incest' comes from the Latin incestum, with its connotations of
'impurity,
unchastity, defilement, pollution'.
It is therefore a highly value-laden word in the original Latin.3
Terms for incest in other cultures also tend to have a valuative moral quality, but the values
expressed can be very different, a fact which warns us against assuming
that the precise percep-
tions of incest are universal. The Chinese term luan
lun, for example, unites words meaning
*
I am very grateful
to my anthropology colleagues at
the University of Waterloo - Professors Maria Liston,
Harriet Lyons, Robert Park and Anne Zeller - for their
help and suggestions.
I would like to extend my sincere
thanks as well to the anonymous JHS referees. This
article grew out of a paper delivered at a
faculty/graduate
seminar at McMaster University, and I would also like to
thank the participants
in that seminar for their comments.
Any errors in this paper are of course my own.
1 Lucan 10.356-65 (Duff
translation 1962, slightly
modified).
2 Among
the more recent publications,
see Carney
(1987); Bennett
(1997); Ogden (1999) 67-116; Hazzard
(2000) 85-93. Hopkins (1980, 1994), Shaw (1992), and
Scheidel's several publications on incest in Graeco-
Roman Egypt do not deal primarily with royal
incest.
3 Moreau
(2002) 18-19. 2 SHEILA L. AGER
'disorder' and 'social relationship', while the word employed by
the African Tswana, botlhodi,
means
'something ominous, predicting evil'.4 The Indonesian
sumbang ('improper', 'repugnant',
'disharmonious')
is used to qualify many things and concepts other than
incest.5 The non-
Romance
languages of Europe
tend to focus on
'concepts of blood, contamination, or shame'6 -
an example
is the German Blutschande.
The ancient Greeks had no
single word to describe the act of marriage or intercourse with too-
close kin. The modem Greek word, haimomixia,
is unattested before the ninth century AD.7
With its
straightforward etymology ('mingling of blood'),
this term may
in fact be one of the less
value-laden words for incest. On the other hand, the ancient periphrases used
(in
the absence of
a
single term) are very heavily value-laden, and
imply
that the Greeks saw the act as one that was
defiling, and loathsome to the gods: anosios or anagnos sunousia, for example, 'unholy, impure
intercourse', or gamos asebis, 'impious marriage'. While it is not clear that ancient Greek belief
saw the commission of incest as
inevitably resulting
in a state of formal pollution, miasma,
it is
certainly
the case that incest sullied those who committed it and made them abhorrent to the
gods.8
The offence offered to the gods by human acts of incest was not the only
source of condem-
nation of the act. It was also repugnant because it was representative of a lack of restraint, of a
loss of the virtue of
s6phrosune.
Plato talks about this loss of self-control,
for which incest is
only one of a number of indicators:
Some of the unnecessary pleasures and desires are immoral ...
[the] sort that emerge
in our dreams,
when the reasonable and humane part of us is asleep and its control relaxed, and our bestial nature, full
of food and drink, wakes and has its
fling and tries to secure its own kind of satisfaction ... there's
nothing
too bad for it and it's completely
lost to all sense and shame. It doesn't shrink at the
thought
of intercourse with a mother or anyone else, man, beast or god, or from murder or sacrilege. There is,
in fact, no
folly or shamelessness it will not commit.9
The
intemperance implicit
in this behaviour leads to overindulgence
in all
things, including
things forbidden, whether
they be food or sex. Plutarch echoes Plato's views in one of his own
essays on virtue: when the shackles of conventional social conduct are removed, desires may
awaken not only
for Oedipal intercourse, but also for 'unlawful meats'
(br6seis athesmous).lo
While Plutarch does not
specify
the nature of these forbidden foods,
it is
significant
that much
ethnographic literature, ancient and modem,
links incest with cannibalism." The Yapese people
explicitly
likened incest to a 'voracious ... sexual cannibalism', while the Tahitian word for
incest,
'amu toto, literally means
'eating blood'.12 Far-away peoples (the
farther the better) are
commonly suspected of
indulging
in both incest and cannibalism, as Strabo accused the Irish
(4.5.4). Obviously, people who are at the limits of the known world can easily pass beyond
those
limits, morally as well as geographically. The link between cannibalism and incest is thus not
merely a matter of anthropologically observed (or imagined) customs among marginal cultures;
there is also a clear symbolic connection. These two acts represent the ultimate breach of limits,
the ultimate violation of kindred flesh: dining on one's own kind is a sort of gastronomic incest,
4 Seligman (1950) 309; Needham
(1974) 63-4; Arens
(1986) 5-6.
5 Needham
(1974) 63-4.
6 Shepher (1983) 27; see also Needham
(1974) 63-4.
7 Rudhardt
(1982) 731-2.
8 On the question of incest and miasma, see Parker
(1983) 97-100.
9 P1. Rep. 571
(Lee
translation 1955).
10 Plut. Mor. 101a.
11 For connections between
incest, cannibalism
(especially cannibalism of kin) and familial murder in
general,
see
(inter alia) Strabo 4.5.4; Isoc. Panath. 121-
2; Sext. Emp. Pyr 3.245-8; Schneider
(1976) 162;
Moreau
(1979); Arens
(1979) 14, 27-8, 146 and
(1986)
vii-ix; Parker
(1983) 98, 360, 364; Durham
(1991) 291;
Arfouilloux
(1993); Nagy (1999/2000) and Archibald
(2001) 20-1 for beliefs about the early Christians.
12
Labby (1976) 171; Hooper (1976) 227. INCEST AND THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY 3
and it is no coincidence that acts of cannibalism in myth are often directed against kindred. Once
Thyestes has eaten his sons, there is nothing
to prevent him from raping his daughter.
Thus,
in
spite of their lack of an actual word for
'incest', and in
spite of the fact that Plato
implies
that whatever laws there were restricting
it were unwritten,13 the Greeks clearly had a
notion that it was abhorrent to the gods. The aversion to incest is
something
that the Greeks
share with virtually every other known culture.14 What is not universal, however,
is the notion
of where to draw the line. One culture's definition of the approved degrees of kinship within
which it is permitted
to marry and/or have sexual relations will not necessarily hold true for
another culture. Not only
is it the case that different cultures vary as to who falls within the
prohibited degrees of kinship,
it is also true that different cultures respond differently
to breaches
of the incest rules: some are more horrified by parent-child incest, others by brother-sister
incest.15 The ancient Code of Hammurabi prescribes exile for a father who committed incest
with his daughter, burning alive for a mother and son who
indulged
in the same behaviour, and
fails to mention
sibling
incest at all.16
Western culture has seen the incest prohibition both expand and contract over time. Elizabeth
Archibald points out that in the mediaeval period
in Europe,
the prohibited degrees of kinship
were vast, banning
'sexual intercourse between all relatives connected by consanguinity or affin-
ity
to the seventh degree'.17 Modem Western
society has relaxed these mediaeval prohibitions
drastically;
in the contemporary Western world, the
(fluctuating) boundary appears
to lie along
the line of first-cousin marriage.18 As for ancient Greece, on the other hand, prohibitions were
even less restrictive: it is common to point
to the Classical Athenian law permitting half-brother
and half-sister to marry (provided they were offspring of the same father rather than the same
mother).19
It should thus be clear that, while the power of Sophokles' Oedipus Rex offers
resounding testimony
to the horror the Greeks felt at the notion of committing incest, Greek
ideas about
just exactly what constituted incest are not necessarily precisely consonant either
with our own or with those of other ancient cultures.
INCESTUOUS PTOLEMIES: SOME GENEALOGICAL QUESTIONS
Without delving
too deeply
into the reconstruction controversies of the Ptolemaic
family tree,
it
seems best to begin with a brief
survey of the history of the practice
in this house. The genealog-
ical chart
(FIG. 1) gives
some idea of the pattern pursued over the generations, though
there are
some gaps and uncertainties in our knowledge. There are times when we cannot determine
13
P1. Laws 838-9
(cf Xen. Mem. 4.4.19-23).
14 The only apparent cases of non-royal culturally
approved
full
sibling
incest are from the Roman period
in
Egypt (Bell (1949); Hombert and Preaux
(1949);
Modrezejewski (1964); Hopkins (1980, 1994); Boureau
(1992); Shaw
(1992); Bagnall and Frier
(1994) 127-34;
Scheidel
(1995, 1996a, 1996b, 1997, 2002, 2005); Parker
(1996); Hendrix and Schneider
(1999); Gonis
(2000) (the
only known case of incestuous marriage between
twins)
and Zoroastrian Persia, which may also have influenced
its immediate neighbours (Lee (1988); Herrenschmidt
(1994); Mitterauer
(1994); Scheidel
(2002)). The Persian
example
is often
ignored
in favour of the better publi-
cized example of Roman Egypt. See Storrie
(2003)
for a
discussion of
sibling marriages among
some Hoti groups
in Venezuelan Guiana.
15
See, e.g., Goody (1956); Fox
(1962); Durham
(1991) 294-5; Reynolds and Tanner
(1995) 170.
16 Mitterauer
(1994); Ziskind
(1988).
17 Archibald
(2001) 11.
tions
(in eight states, criminal sanctions) against
the mar-
riage of first cousins and 20 states with no sanctions
against
such a union: Bratt (1984).
19 Philo, De
spec. leg. 3.4.22. According
to Philo, the
Spartan
situation was precisely
the reverse - children of
the same mother
(not
the same
father) could marry one
another - but it is
tempting
to see this claim as the sort of
typical
'inversion' the popular imagination gave
to
Spartan society (VWrilhac and Vial
(1998) 94).
It is not
certain that Athenian half-siblings
took advantage of the
law and regularly married each other; we actually know
of very
few such marriages (Hopkins (1980); VWrilhac
and Vial
(1998) 94). 4 SHEILA L. AGER
FIG. 1. Ptolemaic genealogy (conventional)
(not all members of the
family are included here)
Eurydike
=
Ptolemy I
Soter
Berenike Philip
Ptolemy
Keraunos
Arsino II
Philadelphos
Ptolemy II
Philadelphos
I
Magas of
Cyrene
Antiochos I
(Seleukid)
Apama Antiochos II
Ptolemy III
Euergetes
Berenike II Seleukos II
other
children
Ptolemy IV
Philopator
Arsinod III Antiochos III
I
Ptolemy V Epiphanes: : Kleopatra I
Ptolemy VI:
Philometor
=Kleopatra II Ptolemy VIII
Euergetes II
Ptolemy ('Physkon')
('Memphites')
Ptolemy
Eupator
Kleopatra
Thea
[Ptolemy VII
(Neos Philopator?)]
Kleopatra III
Kleopatra
Selene
Ptolemy
IX:
Soter II
('Lathyros')
I
Kleopatra IV Kleopatra
Tryphaina
Ptolemy X
Alexander I
2 sons Ptolemy
of Cyprus
Ptolemy XIIl
('Auletes')
9
SKleopatra V
Tryphaina
Kleopatra
Berenike III
;daughter
Ptolemy XI
Alexander II
Berenike IV Arsinoe IV Ptolemy XIII Kleopatra VII Ptolemy XIV
Ptolemy XV
(Caesarion)
Alexander
Helios
Kleopatra
Selene
Ptolemy
Philadelphos
beyond doubt
just how inbred a particular Ptolemy, Arsino
, or Kleopatra might be, since we do
not know for certain what his or her parentage
is. Alternative genealogical reconstructions will
be noted, but this is not the place
for an intensive examination of these arguments (the chart
adheres to the conventional genealogical reconstruction of the dynasty); what is
sought here is a
sense of the overall pattern.20
The first
sibling-marriage
in the
family was that of Arsinoe II to her paternal half-brother
Ptolemy Keraunos, but this union was
swiftly eclipsed by
the far more
significant marriage
which took place a few years
later.