Arsinoe II was a Ptolemaic queen and co-regent of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of ancient Egypt.
17 Facts About Arsinoe II
2.
Arsinoe II was given the Egyptian title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt", making her pharaoh as well.
3.
Arsinoe II became co-ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom upon her marriage to her brother, Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
4.
Arsinoe II was the first daughter of Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter, founder of the Hellenistic state of Egypt, and his second wife Berenice I of Egypt.
5.
At about age 15, Arsinoe II married King Lysimachus, who was then around 60 years old.
6.
Arsinoe II reportedly paid for a rotunda in the Samothrace temple complex, where she was likely an initiate.
7.
In 281 BC, Lysimachus died in battle and Arsinoe II fled to Cassandreia.
8.
Arsinoe II sought refuge in the Samothrace temple complex, which she had benefited during her tenure as queen.
9.
Arsinoe II eventually left from Samothrace for Alexandria, Egypt, to seek protection from her brother, Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
10.
Whatever the case, after the divorce of Ptolemy, Arsinoe II then married her brother.
11.
Arsinoe II received burial and deification rites at Mendes, where she had been a priestess, Those rites are commemorated in the Mendes stele.
12.
An annual priesthood, known as the Canephorus of Arsinoe II Philadelphus, was established by 269 BC.
13.
An annual procession was held in Arsinoe II's honour, led by the Canephorus.
14.
The admiral Callicrates of Samos erected another sanctuary at Cape Zephyrium, at the eastern end of the harbour, where Arsinoe II was worshipped as Aphrodite Euploia.
15.
Arsinoe II appears in this guise on a set of mass-produced faience Oenochoae, which seem to have been associated with funerary ritual in Alexandria.
16.
Arsinoe II seems to have been a genuinely popular goddess throughout the Ptolemaic period, with both Greeks and Egyptians, in Egypt and beyond.
17.
Arsinoe II married Lysimachus of Thrace in 300 or 299 BC and had three children:.