Queen Arsinoe II
'Pure daughters of the Greeks come here to pray . . POSIDIPPUS, Epigram on the temple of Arsinoe- Aphrodite-Zephyritis.
This was a vital woman. A king's daughter She married a king, Lysimachus.
He gave her humming cities her private domain- Tius, Heraclea, Amastris, Casandreia- She murdered his son. And when the king, broken, was dead She married his enemy Ptolemy Ceraunus, Her own step-brother. From him she flew, Wanting a richer man, and so came to Egypt, To her weak, wealthy full-blood-brother Ptolemy The Second. She married him. She won his wars, Intrigued, murdered, outwitted, tied in knots The haughty Hellenistic world.
Her head was stamped on golden coins, rearing
The diadem—the first woman ever—
A greatful stream of honours filled her lap.
When she died, she was solemnly deified: Arsinoe-Aphrodite-Zephyritis. BetWeen the beach of Pharos and the Nile Her temple faced the long-drawn Western winds, A priestess by her altar day and night : Pure daughters of the Greeks, come here to pray' .
A god should know what to protect you from.
C. A. TRYPANIS
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