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20 Noble Relationships in History that Had Internal Conflict

Khalid Elhassan July 23, 2019 23 min

Peter the Great - Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia

4. The King Who Married His Sister, Then Ditched Her For Her Daughter

When Ptolemy Potbelly murdered the son of his sister Cleopatra II during their wedding, his sibling-wife was, understandably, upset. Even more so, when he reneged on the promise to rule jointly with her. Potbelly then made things worse by seducing and marrying Cleopatra II’s daughter, Cleopatra III – his stepdaughter, as well as double niece, being the daughter of both his sister and his deceased brother, Ptolemy VI. Adding insult to injury, Potbelly did not bother to divorce Cleopatra II, before marrying her daughter.

So Cleopatra II organized a revolt in Alexandria in 132 BC, that forced her brother/ husband/ son-in-law, and his stepdaughter/ niece/ wife, to flee the city. The resultant civil war pitted Cleopatra II, supported by the city of Alexandria, against her daughter and Ptolemy Potbelly, who had the backing of the rest of Egypt. When things turned against Cleopatra II, she offered her throne to the neighboring Seleucids in Syria. However, they were unable to rescue her, and she was forced to flee to Syria in 127 BC.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.