CLEOPATRA V SELENE

(c. 140/35–69 BC)

   Daughter of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III. Around 116 BC, she married her brother, Ptolemy IX, after he was forced by his mother to divorce his first wife and their sister, Cleopatra IV. She remained in Egypt when her husband was expelled in 107 BC, and in 103 BC she married her cousin, Antiochus VIII Grypus, ruler of Syria, son of her aunt Cleopatra Thea, and former husband of her sister, Cleopatra VI Tryphaena. Antiochus VIII Grypus was killed in 96 BC. Cleopatra Selene then married two further rulers of Syria, Antiochus IX Cyzicenus (d. 95 BC), cousin of her husband but also his maternal half brother through Cleopatra Thea and former husband of her other sister, Cleopatra IV, and finally her stepson, Antiochus X Eusebes (killed around 89 BC). She apparently had two sons by her first husband, whose fate is uncertain, and two sons by her last husband, who aspired to rule in Syria. Cleopatra Selene was captured during an invasion of Syria by Tigranes, king of Armenia, and executed in Seleucia-on-the-Tigris in 69 BC. Because the former Cleopatra V Tryphaena and Cleopatra VI Tryphaena are now regarded as identical, Cleopatra Selene is cited in more recent scholarship as Cleopatra V Selene.