When was alexander helios born

Among people deceased in 25 BC, Alexander Helios ranks 2. Before him is Cornelius Nepos. After him is Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther. Among people born in Egypt , Alexander Helios ranks out of Among politicians born in Egypt , Alexander Helios ranks Read more on Wikipedia Since , the English Wikipedia page of Alexander Helios has received more than , page views. Huge crowds assembled to witness Antony and Cleopatra dressed as the Egyptian goddess Isis sitting on golden thrones on a silver platform with Caesarion, Cleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphos sitting on smaller and less ornate ones just below them.

Cleopatra Selene was given Crete and the Cyrenaica, both territories that were particularly associated with the families of Antony and Cleopatra. Her paternal grandfather, Marcus Antonius Creticus, had been ordered to rid Crete of pirates and the Ptolemies had once controlled the Cyrenaica. Ptolemy Philadelphos, dressed in traditional Macedonian costume, was given the Syrian territories, which Cleopatra had recently reclaimed in order to reconstitute the Ptolemaic Empire, and was made overlord of the Near Eastern client kingdoms west of the Euphrates.

Still very young children, neither of the twins nor Ptolemy Philadelphos was in any position to assume control of their lands at that point, but it was clear that both Antony and Cleopatra intended they should do so within a matter of years. After a decade of hostility, diplomatic relations between the two finally faltered, making military action inevitable. The two factions came face to face with each other off the coast of Greece at the Battle of Actium in September 31 BC.

Octavian won the battle although his victory was far from decisive and was only achieved with the help of his friend and colleague Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.

In the wake of their defeat Antony and Cleopatra returned to Alexandria. While Antony suffered a nervous breakdown and went into seclusion, Cleopatra began planning her next move. Over the next few months she sent a series of messengers to Octavian, offering first to betray Antony and then, when that proved unsuccessful, to abdicate in favour of her children.

By the time Octavian arrived in Egypt in the summer of 30 BC Antony and Cleopatra were ready to make one last stand but, preparing for the worst, had sent the children away.

Once defeat was inevitable, they famously each committed suicide rather than surrender. Caesarion headed to India but en route he was betrayed by his tutor, intercepted by Roman forces and executed. However the deaths of their mother and Caesarion left Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios nominally in charge of Egypt, so they were brought back to Alexandria to reign in name only until the kingdom was officially annexed by the Roman Empire two weeks later.

When Octavian left the newly created province, he took the twins and Ptolemy Philadelphos back to Rome with him. Octavian had originally hoped to take Cleopatra alive. For the first ten years of her life Cleopatra Selene had been raised in Egypt as an Egyptian princess at an Egyptian court; the fact that her father was a Roman citizen, former consul and triumvir was virtually irrelevant at this stage of her life. However, once both of her parents were dead and Egypt had ceased to exist as an independent kingdom, the question of what to do with Cleopatra Selene and her brothers needed to be answered.

In the absence of any surviving relatives, responsibility for them passed to Octavian and he in turn passed it to Octavia. In addition to the members of these two households, Augustus had gradually accumulated a collection of royal children. Only a baby at the time, Juba had been taken back to Rome by Caesar and exhibited in the African section of his quadruple triumph. Juba was awarded Roman citizenship and spent his childhood and adolescence in Rome during which time he was given a Roman education and encouraged in intellectual pursuits, which led to him writing scholarly treatises on a range of subjects many of which were used by Pliny the Elder as sources for his enormous volume Natural History.

With his contemporaries Marcellus, Tiberius and Drusus he even undertook military service with the Roman legions in Spain before Augustus decided to confer on him the newly created client kingdom of Mauretania as his Numidia had now been turned into the Roman province of Africa Nova.

Although Octavia had herself been unlucky in love, she was apparently something of a matchmaker. In 25 BC she was instrumental in arranging a marriage between Cleopatra Selene and Juba and the event was commemorated by the poet Crinagoras of Mytilene in an epigram that survives in its entirety:. Great neighbouring regions of the world, which the Nile, swollen from black Ethiopia, divides, you have created common kings for both through marriage, making one race of Egyptians and Libyans.

Let the children of kings in turn hold from their fathers a strong rule over both lands. Cleopatra Selene and Juba had much in common. Table of Contents. Popular Pages. About Us. Contact Us. Egyptian Amulets. Gods of Ancient Egyptians. Egyptian Goddesses.