Overview
Cleopatra Selene (; – 69 BC) was the Queen consort of Egypt (Cleopatra Selene or Cleopatra V Selene) from 115 to 102 BC, the Queen consort of Syria from 102–92 BC, and the monarch of Syria (Cleopatra II) from 82 to 69 BC. The daughter of Ptolemy VIII Physcon and Cleopatra III of Egypt, Cleopatra Selene was favoured by her mother and became a pawn in Cleopatra III's political manoeuvres. In 115 BC, Cleopatra III forced her son Ptolemy IX to divorce his sister-wife Cleopatra IV, and chose Cleopatra Selene as the new queen consort of Egypt. Tension between the king and his mother grew and ended with his expulsion from Egypt, leaving Cleopatra Selene behind; she probably then married the new king, her other brother Ptolemy X.
Following the marriage of the Syrian Seleucid princess Cleopatra I to Ptolemy V of Egypt, dynastic marriages between the two kingdoms became common. In 102 BC, Cleopatra III decided to establish an alliance with her nephew Antiochus VIII of Syria; Cleopatra Selene was sent as his bride. After his assassination in 96 BC, she married his brother and rival Antiochus IX. Cleopatra Selene lost her new husband in 95 BC and married a final time to Antiochus IX's son Antiochus X, who disappeared from the records and is presumed to have died in 92 BC, but may have remained in power until 89/88 BC (224 SE (Seleucid year)). Cleopatra Selene then hid somewhere in the kingdom with her children. Eventually, Syria split between the sons of Antiochus VIII with Philip I ruling in the Syrian capital Antioch and Antiochus XII in the southern city Damascus.
Cleopatra Selene had many children by several husbands. Probably following the death of Antiochus XII in 230 SE (83/82 BC), she declared Antiochus XIII, her son by Antiochus X, king, and seems to have declared herself co-ruler; they claimed Antioch following Philip I's death. But the people of Antioch and the governor of Damascus, exhausted by the Seleucids' civil wars, invited foreign monarchs to rule them: Tigranes II of Armenia took Antioch, while Aretas III of Nabataea took Damascus. Cleopatra Selene controlled several coastal towns until Tigranes II besieged her in 69 BC in Ptolemais; the Armenian king captured the queen and later executed her.
Historical background, family and name
By the second century BC, the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom were weakened by dynastic feuds, constant wars against each other (known as the Syrian Wars), and Roman interference.
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