Family
Cleopatra Thea was a daughter of Ptolemy VI of Egypt and Cleopatra II. She had two brothers named Ptolemy Eupator and Ptolemy respectively. Her sister Cleopatra III was Queen of Egypt and married to Ptolemy VIII, an uncle. It is possible that Berenice, the fiancee of Attalus III, king of Pergamum is another sister.
Cleopatra Thea married three times:
- She married Alexander Balas (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Βάλας) in about 150 BC. This union produced Antiochus VI Dionysus. Alexander Balas was, neither popular, nor efficient ruler. The marriage was dissolved by her father. Alexander Balas died in battle against Demetrius II of Syria in 145 BC.
- Cleopatra Thea married Demetrius II Nicator, (Greek: Δημήτριος Νικάτωρ) in 145 BC. Cleopatra bore him two sons, who later grew up to be kings: Seleucus V Philometor, Antiochus VIII Grypus, and possibly a daughter Laodice. Demetrius became a captive of the Parthians from 139-129 BC. He was assassinated in Tyre in 125 BC at the orders of his wife Cleopatra Thea.
- Cleopatra Thea married Demetrius' younger brother, Antiochus VII Sidetes in 137 BC after Demetrius was captured by the Parthians. Cleopatra and Antiochus VII had several children: Antiochus IX Cyzicenus and likely Antiochus, Seleucus and one or two daughters named Laodice.
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Famous quotes containing the word family:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)