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Proskynema of the Achaean Theodotos for Ptolemy XII

2021; Edizioni Ca’ Foscari; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.30687/axon/2532-6848/2021/01/010

2532-6848

Alessandro Rossini,

Historical and Literary Studies

A proskynema by an Achaian, at Philae, for Ptolemy XII and his children, is usually dated to the king’s widowhood. The death of Cleopatra Tryphaena, Ptolemy XII’s only known official wife, has been placed in 69-68 BC, while his youngest child was born in 59 to an unknown woman. Ptolemy died in 51. The inscription was dated 59/58-52/51. But traces of the reappearance of Tryphaena during the kings’s exile (58-55) – together with Berenice, the only legitimate daughter – implies that Tryphaena was deposed and subjected to abolitio memoriae , and that Ptolemy got involved in relationships illegitimate to Greek eyes. The absence of any queen in the proskynema could derive from their unimportance from a Greek point of view, and the epigraph could be, at least, ten years older.