Earth and Space News: Drusilla, Cleopatra's Great Granddaughter, Was Queen Consort of Emesa

Summary: Cleopatra's great granddaughter, Drusilla, was the first of her first husband's two same-named wives and Queen Consort of Emesa by her second husband.

Cleopatra's great granddaughter, Drusilla, was the first of her first husband's same-named queenly wives and became Queen Consort of Emesa (modern-day western Syria) via her second husband.

Three children were born to last Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII Philopator (69-Aug. 10 or 12, 30 BCE) and Roman militarian and politician Marcus Antonius "Mark Antony" (Jan. 14, 83-Aug. 1, 30 BCE). Cleopatra Selene II (Greek: Κλεοπάτρα Σελήνη; "Cleopatra the Moon"; 40-5 BCE) and her twin, Alexander Helios (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος Ἥλιος; "Alexander the Sun"; 40 BCE-?), were born in 40 BCE. The couple's third child, Ptolemy Philadelphus (Greek: Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Φιλάδελφος, Ptolemaios Philadelphos; 36-29 BCE), was born in 36 BCE.

Both boys disappeared from the extant Rome-supportive sources after the marriage of Cleopatra Selene to Juba II (Latin: Gaius Iulius Iuba; Ancient Greek: Ἰóβας, Ἰóβα or Ἰούβας; ca. 48 BCE-23 CE), prince of Numidia in 25 BCE. With her brothers' unexplained absences, Cleopatra's only daughter remained the only line of Cleopatrian descent. Cleopatra- and Mark Antony-defeater Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus "Octavian" (Gaius Octavius; Caesar Augustus as of January BCE; Sep. 23, 63 BCE-Aug. 19, 14 CE) had gifted the newlyweds with rulership of the newly created Roman client kingdom of Mauretania in northwestern Africa.

King Juba II and Queen Cleopatra Selene had two children. Ptolemy (Greek: Πτολεμαῖος, Ptolemaîos; Latin: Gaius Iulius Ptolemaeus; ca. 13/9 BCE–40 CE), known as Ptolemy of Mauretania, was born, ca. 13 to 9 BCE, as their first child, according to British Egyptologist Joann Fletcher (born Aug. 30, 1966) in Cleopatra the Great (Part Six, Chapter 12 Epilogue: The Aftermath, page 336), published in 2011. The royal couple also had a daughter, whose name, "we may guess," was Cleopatra, according to British archaeologist and Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley (born Feb. 25, 1960) in Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (Chapter Eight: Cleopatra's Children, page 201), published in 2008.

In 21 CE, Ptolemy assumed coregency with his father. In 23 CE, as his father's heir, he inherited the Mauretanian kingship in 23 CE (Fletcher, page 337).

Unfortunately, approximately 17 years of kingship ended with his execution, ordered by third Roman Emperor (37-41 CE) Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Aug. 31, 12-Jan. 24, 41 CE), known as Caligula (Fletcher, page 338). Ptolemy and Caligula (Latin: "little boot") were related; as second cousins they shared Mark Antony as grandfather. Yet, jealousy motivated Caligula's order of execution. Greater crowd attention for Ptolemy's resplendent purple cloak induced Caligula's jealous wrath, according to Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (ca. 69-after 122 BCE) in his biography of Caligula in De Vita Caesarum (Life of the Caesars), commonly known as The Twelve Caesars (English translation [1914] by American classical scholar John Carew Rolfe [Oct. 15, 1859-March 26, 1943], Book IV, XXXV, page 459). Ptolemy's great wealth triggered his second cousin's murderous jealous, according to Roman historian Lucius Cassius Dio (ca. 155-235 CE), known as Dio Cassius, in Roman History (Ῥωμαϊκὴ Ἱστορία, Historia Romana), his historical compendium of ancient Rome, written in Greek (English translation [1955] by American classicist Earnest Cary [Feb. 25, 1879-]; Dio's Roman History, vol. VI, Book LIX: 25.1, page 337).

Third Roman Emperor Caligula's ordered execution of his second cousin, Ptolemy of Mauretania, Queen Consort Drusilla's father, possibly was motivated by jealousy over greater attention bestowed upon Ptolemy or over Ptolemy's great wealth; ca. 30-40 CE marble bust of Ptolemy of Mauretania, in collection of Louvre Museum (inventory number MA 1887), and found in Cherchell, Algeria (formerly Caesarea, palace of Juba II, King of Mauretania, and his wife, Cleopatra Selene, Queen of Mauretania, daughter of Mark Antony and last Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra, and mother of Ptolemy of Mauretania); image taken Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 20:44:19: Gary Todd (Gary Lee Todd, Ph.D.), Public Domain, via Flickr

Ptolemy may have left behind a wife and a daughter, although his personal history remains paltry. He and his wife, named Urania or Julia Urania, had a daughter, Drusilla, who likely numbered as the first of three wives of Marcus Antonius Felix, appointed as a procurator of the Province of Judaea during the reign (41-54 CE) of fourth Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Aug. 1, 10 BCE-Oct. 13, 54 CE), known as Claudius (Tyldesley, Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, Chapter Eight: Cleopatra's Children, page 202).

Julia Urania may have been connected with the Emesene (or Emesan; (Arabic: آل شمسيغرام, ʾĀl Šamsīġirām) royal house, according to American Egyptologist Christopher "Chris" John Bennett (1953-Jan. 10, 2014) and French genealogist, historian and information technology (IT) professional Christian Settipani (born Jan. 31, 1961). The Roman client dynasty of Priest-Kings, whose territory equates to modern-day western Syria, had taken Julius as nomen genticilium (Latin: nomen, “name," + genticilium, "clan"), according to Bennett's findings on the Ptolemaic Dynasty on his Tynsdale House-provided website, Egyptian Royal Genealogy ("Cleopatra Selene [footnote 10]").

Drusilla has been possibilitized as Ptolemy's daughter and Felix's first wife by Roman historian and politician Publius Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 55-ca. 120 CE), known as Tacitus, as referenced by Bennett. In his Histories (Historiae), Tacitus noted Drusilla's ancestry.

". . . Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, . . . . had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law . . . of Antony," genealogized Tacitus, according to Alfred John Church's translation, published in 1873 (Book V, Chapter 9).

Yet, Drusilla of Mauretania actually was Antony and Cleopatra's great-granddaughter (Latin: proneptis, pro, "in front of," + neptis, "granddaughter"), not their granddaughter (neptis). Tacitus may have not erred in using neptis, which also loosely translates as a "female descendant," according to Chris Bennett in "Drusilla Regina," published in the May 2003 issue of The Classical Quarterly (page 316).

Drusilla's first husband numbered among six men valued by fourth Roman Emperor Claudius. "He was equally fond of Felix, giving him the command of cohorts and of troops of horse, as well as of the province of Judaea; and he became the husband of three queens," Suetonius succinctly observed (John C. Rolfe translation [1914]; The Twelve Caesars, Book V: The Deified Claudius, XXVIII, page 59).

Felix divorced Drusilla of Mauretania to become the second husband of his second Drusilla-named wife, Drusilla of Judaea, daughter of Herod Agrippa I (Roman name Marcus Julius Agrippa; ca. 10 BCE-ca. 44 CE), last Jewish king of Judaea. After Felix's marriage to Drusilla of Judaea in 54 CE, Drusilla of Mauretania married Sohaemus of Emesa, the brother of Judaean Drusilla's first husband, Gaius Julius Azizus, who reigned as Priest King of Emesa from 42 to 54 CE. Drusilla of Mauretania's second marriage entitled her as Queen Consort of Emesa as her second husband succeeded his childless brother to the Emesene Priest-Kingship (Chris Bennett, "Cleopatra Selene [footnote 10]"). Sohaemus reigned from 54-ca. 72 CE, according to Chris Bennett's genealogical chart of Ptolemaic descendants, published under Descendant Lines of Ptolemaic Dynasties on his Egyptian Royal Genealogy website.

As Queen Consort of Emesa, Drusilla of Mauretania birthed Gaius Julius Alexion, who ruled as Roman Client Priest King of Emesa from 72 to 78 CE. Through Alexion, Drusilla was grandmother of Gaius Julius Sampsiceramus, credited as builder the Tomb of Sampsigeramus (Arabic: ضريح شمسيغرام, Ḍarīḥ Shamsīghirām). The first century CE mausoleum, located in the necropolis of Emesa (modern-day Homs, western Syria), was dynamited in 1911 under Ottoman Syria (1516-1831, 1841-1918) as clearance for an oil depot, according to French archaeologist Henri Alfred Seyrig (Nov. 10, 1895-Jan. 21, 1973) in "Antiquités Syriennes" (page 204), published in the 1952 issue of Syria: Revue d'Art Oriental et d'Archéologie.

Gaius Julius Sampsiceramus, builder of his mausoleum in ca. 78/79 CE in the Roman client kingdom of Emesa (modern-day Homs, central western Syria), placed in the Cleopatrian-Antonine line as great-great-great grandson of last Ptolemiac Queen Cleopatra and Roman militarian and politician Marcus Antonius "Mark Antony"; his paternal grandmother, Drusilla of Maretania and Queen Consort of Emesa, was the daughter of Ptolemy of Mauretania, son of Cleopatra Selene, Queen of Mauretania and Cleopatra and Antony's daughter: image of Tomb of Samsigeramos, photographed in 1907, approximately four years before its demolition in 1911 as clearance for an oil storage facility, in Carl Watzinger, "Das Grabmal des Samsigeramos von Emesa," Kunsthistoriska Sällskepets Publikation (1923): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Drusilla of Mauretania shared the same name and the same birth year (38 CE) with the second wife, Drusilla (right), daughter of King Herod Agrippa I of Judaea, her first husband, Marcus Antonius Felix (left); Guillaume Rouillé, Promptuarii Iconum Pars Secunda (1553): Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_f5FDAAAAcAAJ/page/n210/mode/1up;
Public Domain, Google-digitized, via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/ucm.5323619313?urlappend=%3Bseq=25%3Bownerid=22286620-27; Public Domain, Google-digitized, via HathiTrust @ https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucm.5323619313&seq=25

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Gavorse, Joseph. ". . . . After inviting Ptolemy, whom I have mentioned before, to come from his kingdom he received him with honor, then suddenly had him executed for no other reason than that when giving a gladiatorial show, he noticed that Ptolemy on entering the theater attracted general attention by the splendor of his purple cloak." Book IV: 35.1, Page 188. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. Book IV Gaius Caligula: 165-203. New York: The Modern Library, 1931.
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Gavorse, Joseph. "It would be trivial and pointless to add to this an account of his treatment of his relatives and friends, Ptolemy, son of King Juba, his cousin (for he was the grandson of Mark Antony by Antony's daughter Selene), and in particular Macro himself and even Ennia, who helped him to the throne. All these were rewarded for their kinship and their faithful services by violent deaths." Book IV: 26.1, Page 182. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. Book IV Gaius Caligula: 165-203. New York: The Modern Library, 1931.
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Gavorse, Joseph. "Toward those to whom he was devoted his partiality became madness. . . . When a Roman Knight created a disturbance, he sent a Centurion to bid him go without delay to Ostia and carry to King Ptolemy in Mauretania a message the purport of which was: 'Do neither good nor ill to the man whom I have sent you.'" Book IV: 55.1, Page 199. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. Book IV Gaius Caligula: 165-203. New York: The Modern Library, 1931.
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Lucius Cassius Dio. "While the senators were passing these decrees, Gaius sent for Ptolemy, the son of Juba, and on learning that he was wealthy put him to death . . ." Book LIX: 25.1, pages 336-337. Dio's Roman History, vol. VII. With an English Translation by Earnest Cary, Ph.D. On the Basis of the Version of Herbert Baldwin Forster, Ph.D. Loeb Classical Library LBL 175. London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge MA Harvard University Press, MCMLV [1955].
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Perrin, Bernadotte, trans. "LXXXI. As for the children of Antony, Antyllus, his son by Fulvia, was betrayed by Theodorus his tutor and put to death; and after the soldiers had cut off his head, his tutor took away the exceeding precious stone which the boy wore about his neck and sewed it into his own girdle; and though he denied the deed, he was convicted of it and crucified. [2] Cleopatra's children, together with their attendants, were kept under guard and had generous treatment. But Caesarion, who was said to be Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar, was sent by his mother, with much treasure, into India, by way of Ethiopia. There Rhodon, another tutor like Theodorus, persuaded him to go back, on the ground that Caesar invited him to take the kingdom. But while Caesar was deliberating on the matter, we are told that Areius said: -- Not a good thing were a Caesar too many." Pages 318-321. Plutarch's Lives, vol. IX: Anthony, pages 138-333. In eleven volumes. Loeb Classical Library. First printed 1920. London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, MCMLIX [1959].
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Rolfe, J.C. (John C.), trans. "VII. He had to wife Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa and Julia, who bore him nine children. Two of these were taken off when they were still in infancy, and one just as he was reaching the age of boyhood, a charming child, whose statue, in the guise of Cupid, Livia dedicated in the temple of the Capitoline Venus, while Augustus had another placed in his bed chamber and used to kiss it fondly whenever he entered the room. The other children survived their father, three girls, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, born in successive years, and three boys, Nero, Drusus, and Gaius Caesar. Nero and Drusus were adjudged public enemies by the senate on the accusation of Tiberius." Book IV: pages 410-413. Suetonius. The Lives of the Caesars. In two volumes: I. Book IV: Gaius Caligula, pages 403-497. London: William Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Co., MCMXIV [1914].
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Rolfe, J.C. (John C.), trans. "IX. His surname Caligula he derived from a joke of the troops, because he was brought up in their midst in the dress of a common soldier. To what extent besides he won their love and devotion by being reared in fellowship with them is especially evident from the fact that when they threatened mutiny after the death of Augustus and were ready for any act of madness, the mere sight of Gaius unquestionably calmed them. For they did not become quiet until they saw that he was being spirited away because of the danger from their outbreak and taken for protection to the nearest town. Then at last they became contrite, and lying hold of the carriage and stopping it, begged to be spared the disgrace which was being put upon them." Book IV: pages 414-417. Suetonius. The Lives of the Caesars. In two volumes: I. Book IV: Gaius Caligula, pages 403-497. London: William Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Co., MCMXIV [1914].
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Rolfe, J.C. (John C.), trans. "XXVI. It would be trivial and pointless to add to this an an account of his treatment ofhis relatives and friends, Ptolemy, son of king Juba, his cousin (for he was the grandson of Mark Antony by Antony's daughter Selene), and in particular Macro himself and even Ennia, who helped him to the throne; all these were rewarded for their kinship and their faithful services by a bloody death." Book IV: 26.1, pages 444-445. Suetonius. The Lives of the Caesars. In two volumes: I. Book IV: Gaius Caligula, pages 403-497. London: William Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Co., MCMXIV [1914].
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Rolfe, J.C. (John C.), trans. "XXXV. . . . After inviting Ptolemy, whom I have mentioned before, to come from his kingdom and receiving him with honour, he suddenly had him executed for no other reason than that when giving a gladiatorial show, he noticed that Ptolemy on entering the theatre attracted general attention by the splendour of his purple cloak." Book IV: 35.1, pages 458-459. Suetonius. The Lives of the Caesars. In two volumes: I. Book IV: Gaius Caligula, pages 403-497. London: William Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Co., MCMXIV [1914].
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Earth and Space News

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Drusilla, Cleopatra's Great Granddaughter, Was Queen Consort of Emesa

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