Sister, Can You Spare a Throne?
You may think you know the personal life of Cicero, but his long shadow looming across millennia of history conceal some important people - their siblings! From Cleopatra's forgotten sisters to the problematic brothers of King Leonidas I of Sparta, here are three of the most important individuals from antiquity - and their quarrelsome relatives who helped make their lives lots of fun.
Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt may have reigned over the Two Lands, but she was Macedonian Greek in ancestry. The last Ptolemaic pharaoh had two younger brothers, both named Ptolemy, but it’s her sisters, both older and younger, that are her star siblings. These ambitious women, Berenice IV and Arsinoe IV, are the subject of Emily Holleman’s debut novel, Cleopatra’s Shadows (read a review here), in which they emerge from said shadows to take their place on the global political stage of the ancient Mediterranean.
Far be it from us to spoil the way Berenice and Arsinoe’s journeys end, but it’s pretty clear from a basic knowledge of history which of the Ptolemy siblings came out on top in this dynastic struggle … at least until the Battle of Actium. Follow these Ptolemaic princesses’ ascension to power in Cleopatra’s Shadows, out October 6, 2015 from Little, Brown.More »
Cleopatra wasn’t the only ancient leader with important little siblings. The famed orator and politician Cicero – who was killed partially on the orders Cleo’s second Roman lover, Marc Antony – boasted a younger brother, Quintus Tullius Cicero. Although Quintus never achieved his brother’s level of fame, he achieved numerous high political offices and served under Caesar, which the general recounts in his Gallic War, and Cicero mentions in a letter, saying, “my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate.”
In his letters to his pal Atticus, who’s also Quintus’s brother-in-law, Cicero expounds on his relationship with his sibling. When Quintus turns against Atticus for some small reason, Cicero indicates to Atticus that his brother is a capricious man, prone to external influence, “for the impression he had received from the artifices [about Atticus himself] of others had more weight with him than duty or relationship or the old affection so long existing between you, which ought to have been the strongest influence of all.” He pleads with Atticus to be the bigger man and put the matter behind all three of them.
Indeed, in that same letter, Cicero provides a motive for Quintus’s injury - jealousy! - when he writes to Atticus, “In affection towards myself, next to my brother and immediate family, I put you first.” Another letter to Atticus reads, “My brother Quintus I love as he deserves for his eminent qualities of loyalty, virtue, and good faith.”
Quintus Cicero is also well-known as the purported author of a famous pamphlet, instructing his brother on how to win an election, although existing records that Quintus played second fiddle to his brother in their lifetimes. Eventually, Quintus was proscribed and killed while Cicero was banished, according to Plutarch’s Life of Cicero. Quintus had fled with his son, also named Quintus, by Atticus's sister, Pomponia, but he was “as betrayed by his servants to those who were in search of him, and put to death, together with his son,” says Plutarch.More »
Remember Leonidas, the king who attempted to keep the Persians at bay with three hundred men - you may have seen him in the movie 300 - at the Battle of Thermopylae at 480 B.C.? His trouble didn't just come from the Persians, but started at home!
King Anaxandrides of Sparta had marital trouble… Originally, his first wife – his own niece – was barren, so some of the most important men in Sparta asked him to set her aside, recounts Herodotus in his Histories. To get around that, he took a second wife, which was an exception to the rule in Sparta.
Wife Number Two had Cleomenes, but then Wife Number One inconveniently got pregnant – Wife Two’s friends even suspected her of faking her condition. It turns out she wasn’t kidding – she gave birth first to Dorieus, then Leonidas, then Cleombrotus. It looks like all she needed to provide an heir was some healthy competition!
Unfortunately for the Spartans, Herodotus says, Cleomenes, who succeeded his father as the eldest son, was insane. Pausanias claims the Spartans believed “Dorieus to be both of a sounder judgment than Cleomenes and a better soldier,” but had to give Son Number One the throne because of primogeniture. was angry he hadn’t been given the throne, so he tried to found a colony in Libya. Fail! – he was routed and returned home three years later. He had better luck in Sicily because his family claimed to be descended from Heracles, who had “won all the region of Eryx, which accordingly belonged to his descendants,” according to Herodotus. Unfortunately for Dorieus, he died before Cleomenes, who “reigned no long time, and died leaving no son but one only daughter, whose name was Gorgo.”
But back to Cleomenes. Once, when Aristogoras, the tyrant of Miletus, asked Cleomenes to help conquer Asia Minor to free all their fellow Greeks, he tried to bribe the Spartan king into doing his bidding, but his daughter Gorgo – who later married her half-uncle, Leonidas - persuaded him against it. This wasn’t the only time he intervened in foreign affairs – in 510 B.C., he kicked the tyrant Hippias out of Athens, which was good for that city, which Herodotus says “grew even greater when her tyrants had been removed.” He continued to interfere with Athens, kicking out Cleisthenes and seizing the Acropolis with his Athenian pal Isagoras. Cleomenes eventually left after an oracle told him to. He tried and failed to conquer Athens again.
And the youngest of the bunch, Cleombrotus? He followed up his brother’s death at Thermopylae by rallying the troops to face the Persians. His own son was the general Pausanias, who served as “guardian of Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas." Unfortunately, his cousin died soon after coming to the throne. Pausanias’s son, Pleistoanax, eventually succeeded as king of Sparta.More »
1. Cleopatra VII and Her Sisters
Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt may have reigned over the Two Lands, but she was Macedonian Greek in ancestry. The last Ptolemaic pharaoh had two younger brothers, both named Ptolemy, but it’s her sisters, both older and younger, that are her star siblings. These ambitious women, Berenice IV and Arsinoe IV, are the subject of Emily Holleman’s debut novel, Cleopatra’s Shadows (read a review here), in which they emerge from said shadows to take their place on the global political stage of the ancient Mediterranean.
Far be it from us to spoil the way Berenice and Arsinoe’s journeys end, but it’s pretty clear from a basic knowledge of history which of the Ptolemy siblings came out on top in this dynastic struggle … at least until the Battle of Actium. Follow these Ptolemaic princesses’ ascension to power in Cleopatra’s Shadows, out October 6, 2015 from Little, Brown.More »
2. Cicero and His Brother, Quintus
Cleopatra wasn’t the only ancient leader with important little siblings. The famed orator and politician Cicero – who was killed partially on the orders Cleo’s second Roman lover, Marc Antony – boasted a younger brother, Quintus Tullius Cicero. Although Quintus never achieved his brother’s level of fame, he achieved numerous high political offices and served under Caesar, which the general recounts in his Gallic War, and Cicero mentions in a letter, saying, “my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate.”
In his letters to his pal Atticus, who’s also Quintus’s brother-in-law, Cicero expounds on his relationship with his sibling. When Quintus turns against Atticus for some small reason, Cicero indicates to Atticus that his brother is a capricious man, prone to external influence, “for the impression he had received from the artifices [about Atticus himself] of others had more weight with him than duty or relationship or the old affection so long existing between you, which ought to have been the strongest influence of all.” He pleads with Atticus to be the bigger man and put the matter behind all three of them.
Indeed, in that same letter, Cicero provides a motive for Quintus’s injury - jealousy! - when he writes to Atticus, “In affection towards myself, next to my brother and immediate family, I put you first.” Another letter to Atticus reads, “My brother Quintus I love as he deserves for his eminent qualities of loyalty, virtue, and good faith.”
Quintus Cicero is also well-known as the purported author of a famous pamphlet, instructing his brother on how to win an election, although existing records that Quintus played second fiddle to his brother in their lifetimes. Eventually, Quintus was proscribed and killed while Cicero was banished, according to Plutarch’s Life of Cicero. Quintus had fled with his son, also named Quintus, by Atticus's sister, Pomponia, but he was “as betrayed by his servants to those who were in search of him, and put to death, together with his son,” says Plutarch.More »
3. King Leonidas I of Sparta and His Brothers
Remember Leonidas, the king who attempted to keep the Persians at bay with three hundred men - you may have seen him in the movie 300 - at the Battle of Thermopylae at 480 B.C.? His trouble didn't just come from the Persians, but started at home!
King Anaxandrides of Sparta had marital trouble… Originally, his first wife – his own niece – was barren, so some of the most important men in Sparta asked him to set her aside, recounts Herodotus in his Histories. To get around that, he took a second wife, which was an exception to the rule in Sparta.
Wife Number Two had Cleomenes, but then Wife Number One inconveniently got pregnant – Wife Two’s friends even suspected her of faking her condition. It turns out she wasn’t kidding – she gave birth first to Dorieus, then Leonidas, then Cleombrotus. It looks like all she needed to provide an heir was some healthy competition!
Unfortunately for the Spartans, Herodotus says, Cleomenes, who succeeded his father as the eldest son, was insane. Pausanias claims the Spartans believed “Dorieus to be both of a sounder judgment than Cleomenes and a better soldier,” but had to give Son Number One the throne because of primogeniture. was angry he hadn’t been given the throne, so he tried to found a colony in Libya. Fail! – he was routed and returned home three years later. He had better luck in Sicily because his family claimed to be descended from Heracles, who had “won all the region of Eryx, which accordingly belonged to his descendants,” according to Herodotus. Unfortunately for Dorieus, he died before Cleomenes, who “reigned no long time, and died leaving no son but one only daughter, whose name was Gorgo.”
But back to Cleomenes. Once, when Aristogoras, the tyrant of Miletus, asked Cleomenes to help conquer Asia Minor to free all their fellow Greeks, he tried to bribe the Spartan king into doing his bidding, but his daughter Gorgo – who later married her half-uncle, Leonidas - persuaded him against it. This wasn’t the only time he intervened in foreign affairs – in 510 B.C., he kicked the tyrant Hippias out of Athens, which was good for that city, which Herodotus says “grew even greater when her tyrants had been removed.” He continued to interfere with Athens, kicking out Cleisthenes and seizing the Acropolis with his Athenian pal Isagoras. Cleomenes eventually left after an oracle told him to. He tried and failed to conquer Athens again.
And the youngest of the bunch, Cleombrotus? He followed up his brother’s death at Thermopylae by rallying the troops to face the Persians. His own son was the general Pausanias, who served as “guardian of Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas." Unfortunately, his cousin died soon after coming to the throne. Pausanias’s son, Pleistoanax, eventually succeeded as king of Sparta.More »