9. The Feuding Siblings: Ptolemies VI and VIII, and Cleopatra II
The Seleucid invasions of Egypt and resultant political and diplomatic machinations further added to the chaos engulfing the Ptolemaic Kingdom. When Antiochus IV captured Alexandria and made Ptolemy VI his puppet, the people of Alexandria rioted, and chose the puppet king’s obese younger brother, Ptolemy VIII Physcon, or Ptolemy Potbelly, (182 – 116 BC) as monarch. After the Seleucid were forced out of Egypt by Roman threats, Ptolemy Potbelly agreed to a three-way joint rule, with his brother Ptolemy VI, and their sister Cleopatra II, who was also Ptolemy VI’s wife.
It was an unstable arrangement, that lent itself to intrigues, conspiracies, and betrayals, and further destabilized Egypt. Ptolemy Potbelly was not in Egypt when Ptolemy VI died in 145. Their sister Cleopatra II, the deceased king’s wife, promptly declared her son, Ptolemy VII, as king. When Potbelly returned, he convinced his widowed sister to marry him, instead, and the sibling-spouses would rule jointly. He double crossed his sister/ new wife, by having her son, Ptolemy VII, murdered during the wedding feast. He also reneged on his promise to rule jointly with his sister-wife, and declared himself sole ruler.
