115 BC story

tc1983e03 · 1983-02-02

Finally, Queen Cleopatra II dies peacefully in her bed, and her brother, King Ptolemy, leaves on his own deathbed a will which he designed to cause mayhem among his family. His wife Cleopatra III is named as his successor, but she chooses her favorite younger son, Alexander, to share the throne with her. The mob dislikes that, because Alexander is not the eldest son, so she has no alternative but to proclaim her elder son Chickpea, whom she loathes, King of Egypt instead, but proceeds to divorce him from her eldest daughter Cleopatra IV, with whom he already has a daughter, Cleopatra Berenike, and to marry her youngest daughter Cleopatra Selene to him instead, making her, and not the firstborn Cleopatra IV, wife of the king and thus queen consort of Egypt. After that she exiles Cleopatra IV, who tries to get support with her younger brother Alexander, who is now governor of Cyprus; when she fails, she goes to the court of her cousin Grypus and her sister Tryphaena, who receives orders from her mother to put Cleopatra to death. Cleopatra double crosses Grypus and uses her army to help Grypus's brother and rival to the throne, Cyzicenus, who marries her and makes her Queen of Syria, so when the civil war in Syria takes another turn, Grypus and Tryphaena capture Cleopatra IV and Tryphaena has her killed. Some time later, the war in Syria again takes different turn, and Queen Cleopatra Tryphaena gets captured by her brother-in-law Cyzicenus, who takes revenge upon her for killing his wife, and slowly and painfully kills her. In the meanwhile, Queen Cleopatra III and her daughter, Queen Cleopatra Selene, arrange for Chickpea to be driven out of the kingdom by an angry mob, whom they convince that Chickpea tried to kill his mother. Chickpea flees Egypt and goes to Cyprus, while Alexander finally becomes his mother's co- ruler, whom she treats as a puppet. Selene is married to the widowed King Grypus of Syria, her cousin and ex-brother-in-law, and Cleopatra III forces Alexander to marry his niece Cleopatra Berenike, Chickpea and Cleopatra IV's young daughter. When hearing of this, his secret wife in Cyprus, with whom he even had a son, takes her own life. When Alexander receives the news, he finally stands up to his mother and tries to suffocate her, but fails, only to be helped by the young, but very ambitious Cleopatra Berenike, his niece and chosen bride-to-be, who wants above everything else to become the ruling queen of Egypt, who finishes her grandmother off with a cushion.