THEME: Hellenistic diplomacy THEME HELLENISTIC MARRIAGE ALLIANCES
In around 250 BC, Magas, the stepson of Ptolemy I, died after ruling Cyrene for almost a quarter of a century. For almost his entire reign he was married to the Seleucid princess Apama. Immediately after he died his widow suddenly replaced their daughter’s fiancé, Ptolemy III, with another man, Demetrius ‘the Handsome’. While Justin (26.1–3) would have us believe that this dynastic move was driven by a sordid tryst between the queen mother and her future son in law, surely there must be more to this story than just forbidden love. Why, after over 25 years in Cyrene, did this queen suddenly find her moment to act?
In the otherwise shadowy figure of Apama of Cyrene we find a fascinating insight into the web of strategy, interrelation, and loyalty that was woven among the Hellenistic dynasties. For all its size and diversity, the Hellenistic world was in no small part bound by a very simple institution: marriage. Dozens of alliances between Greek and non-Greek dynasties alike were secured and renewed through the marriage of a king or crown prince to a princess, reorganizing both the strategic and familial geography of the period in the process.
The royal women involved in these marriages were the means by which this dynastic web was woven. Especially in the Seleucid context, they played a pivotal role in not only creating but also maintaining the structure of the empire. Royal women suchwomen on the surface makes it seem as if they are just passive pawns in a dynastic game controlled entirely by their male relatives, but they were far more than just diplomatic tokens that could be used once. Instead, in Apama of Cyrene we find a princess who was eminently aware of her own role – and her own agency – in this marital web. We will begin with her career before turning to the broader dynastic system in which she lived.
