Berenīcé
（
Βερενίκη). A name common to several women of antiquity.
It is of Greek origin, and means “victory-bringing” or “bearer
of victory,” the initial B being written, according to Macedonian usage, for the
letter
Φ, or, in other words,
Βερενίκη being put for
Φερενίκη, just as the
Macedonians said
Βίλιππος for
Φίλιππος. The most remarkable of this name were the following:
1.
The granddaughter of Cassander, brother of Antipater. She married Philip, a Macedonian,
probably one of the officers of Alexander, and became by him the mother of many children,
among whom were Magas, king of Cyrené, and Antigoné, whom she married
to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. She followed into Egypt Eurydicé, daughter of
Antipater, who returned to that country to rejoin her husband, Ptolemy I. Berenicé
inspired this prince with so strong a passion that he put away Eurydicé, although
he had children by her, and married the former. He also gave the preference, in the
succession to the throne, to her son Ptolemy, notwithstanding the better claims of his
offspring by Eurydicé. Berenicé was remarkable for her beauty, and her
portrait often appears on the medals of Ptolemy I. along with that of the latter.
2.
Daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoé. She followed her mother into
exile, and retired with her to the court of Magas, at Cyrené, who married
Arsinoé and adopted Berenicé. This will serve to explain why Polybius
and Justin make Berenicé to have been the daughter of Magas, while Callimachus
gives Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoé as her parents. After the death of Magas,
Arsinoé engaged her daughter in marriage to Demetrius, son of Demetrius
Poliorcetes; but, on the young prince's having come from Macedonia to Cyrené, she
became attached to him herself. Demetrius, conducting himself insolently, was slain in a
conspiracy, at the head of which was Berenicé. The latter thereupon married her
brother Ptolemy (Euergetes) III. A short time after the nuptials Ptolemy was obliged to go on
an expedition into Syria, and Berenicé made a vow that she would consecrate her
beautiful head of hair to Aphrodité if her husband returned safe to Egypt. Upon
his return she fulfilled her vow in the temple of Aphrodité Zephyrites. On the
following day, however, the hair was not to be found. As both the monarch and his queen were
greatly disquieted at the loss, Conon the Samaritan, an eminent astronomer of the day, in
order to conciliate the royal favour, declared that the locks of Berenicé had been
removed by divine interposition, and translated to the skies in the form of a constellation.
Hence the cluster of stars near the tail of the Lion is called
Coma Berenices
(Berenicé's hair). Callimachus wrote a piece on this subject, now lost, but a
translation of which into Latin verse by Catullus has reached our time (
Catull. Carm. lxvi). Berenicé was put to death B.C. 216,
by the order of Ptolemy Philopator, her son.
3.
A daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus, given by him in marriage to Antiochus Theos, king of
Syria, in order to cement a peace between the two countries. After the
death of her father Antiochus put her aside, and recalled his former wife Laodicé.
This last, having taken off Antiochus by poison, sought to destroy Berenicé also
as well as her son. This son was surprised and carried off by an emissary of
Laodicé's, and shortly after put to death; and Berenicé, in searching
for him, was entrapped and slain, B.C. 246.
4.
Called by some authors Cleopatra , was the only legitimate child of Ptolemy Lathyrus, and
ascended the throne after the death of her father, B.C. 81. Sulla , who was at that time
dictator, compelled her to marry, and share her throne with, her cousin, who took the name of
Ptolemy Alexander. She was poisoned by the latter only nineteen days after the marriage.
5.
Daughter of Ptolemy Auletes. The people of Alexandria having revolted against this prince
in B.C. 58, drove him out, and placed upon the throne his two daughters, Tryphena and
Berenicé. The former died soon after, and Berenicé was given in
marriage to Seleucus, surnamed Cybiosactes. His personal deformity, however, and vicious
character soon rendered him so odious to the queen that she caused him to be strangled.
Berenicé then married Archelaüs; but Ptolemy Auletes having been restored
by Gabinius, the Roman commander, she was put to death by her own father, B.C. 55.
6.
A native of Chios, and one of the wives of Mithridates of Pontus. On the overthrow of this
monarch's power by Lucullus, Berenicé, in obedience to an order from her husband,
took poison along with his other wives, but this not proving effectual, she was strangled by
the eunuch Bacchus, B.C. 71.
7.
Daughter of Agrippa I., king of Iudaea, and born A.D. 28. She was at first affianced to
Marcus, son of Alexander, but this young man having died, Agrippa gave her in marriage to his
brother Herod, king of Chalcis, by whom she became the mother of two sons, Berenicianus and
Hyrcanus. Having lost her husband when she was at the age of twenty, she went to live with
her brother Agrippa, a circumstance which gave rise to reports injurious to her character. To
put an end to these rumours, she made proposals to Polemo, king of Cilicia, and offered to
become his wife if he would embrace Judaism. Polemo consented, but she soon left him, and
returned, in all probability, to her brother, for she was with the latter when St. Paul was
arrested at Jerusalem, A.D. 63. The commerce between the guilty pair became now so public
that the rumour even reached Rome, and we find Juvenal alluding to the affair in one of his
satires (vi. 155). She followed Agrippa when he went to join Vespasian, whom Nero had charged
to reduce the Jews to obedience. A new scene now opened for her; she won the affections of
Titus, and, at a subsequent period, when Vespasian was established on the throne, and Titus
returned home after terminating the Jewish War, she accompanied him to Rome along with her
brother Agrippa. At Rome she lived openly with Titus, and took up her abode in the imperial
palace, as we learn from Dio Cassius, who states also that she was then in the flower of her
age. Titus, it is said, intended even to acknowledge her as his wife; but he was compelled by
the murmurs of his subjects to abandon this idea, and he sent her away from the city soon
after his accession to the throne. Such, at least, is the account given by Suetonius (
Tit. 7), who appears more entitled to belief than Dio Cassins,
according to whom Titus sent Berenicé away before his accession to the
throne, and refused to receive her again, when she had returned to Rome a short time after
the commencement of his reign. There is a great difficulty attending the history of this
Berenicé as regards her intimacy with Titus. She must, at least, have been
forty-two years of age when she first became acquainted with the Roman prince, and fifty-one
years old at the period of the celebrated scene which forms the subject of Racine's tragedy.
Many are inclined to believe, therefore, that the Berenicé to whom Titus was
attached was the daughter of Mariamné and Archelaüs, and, consequently,
the niece of the Berenicé of whom we have been speaking, she would be twenty-five
years old when Titus came into Iudaea. The story of Berenicé forms the subject of
a play by Racine,
Bérénice.
