The Hounds of Zeus - View Single Post

Raiyven · 06-26-2005, 06:48 PM

/flame ON!
ah, Queen Victoria. one of Britain's more frumpy queens. Empress of India, never even friggin went there.

Inbreeding was common in the Hellenistic era, however politically motivated it may have been. Particularly common was between brothers and sisters, of note Ptolemy II Philadelphos 'the brother-loving' marrying his sister Arsinoe (recorded as Arsinoe II; he previously married an unrelated woman also named Arsinoe, whom he packed off to an island somewhere to marry his sister), arguably to maintain a pure-blood dynastic monarchy begun by his father, Ptolemy I Soter 'the saviour'.

However, the successor Ptolemies got worse in political and military tact, and sadly the last true Hellenistic kingdom eventually became an inert political entity, saved time and time again by Rome's intervention against succeeding generations of Seleucid rulers.

Or maybe it was something in the water

/shrugs

/flame OFF!

06-26-2005, 06:48 PM	#15
Raiyven Big Bad Thread Boogeyman Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Burlington, ON. Age: 42 Posts: 406	/flame ON! ah, Queen Victoria. one of Britain's more frumpy queens. Empress of India, never even friggin went there. Inbreeding was common in the Hellenistic era, however politically motivated it may have been. Particularly common was between brothers and sisters, of note Ptolemy II Philadelphos 'the brother-loving' marrying his sister Arsinoe (recorded as Arsinoe II; he previously married an unrelated woman also named Arsinoe, whom he packed off to an island somewhere to marry his sister), arguably to maintain a pure-blood dynastic monarchy begun by his father, Ptolemy I Soter 'the saviour'. However, the successor Ptolemies got worse in political and military tact, and sadly the last true Hellenistic kingdom eventually became an inert political entity, saved time and time again by Rome's intervention against succeeding generations of Seleucid rulers. Or maybe it was something in the water /shrugs /flame OFF! __________________ "For in that we are both especially daring and especially thorough in calculating what we attempt, we can truly be distinguished from other men, for whom ignorance is boldness but calculation brings hesitancy. Rightly would they be judged strongest in spirit who recognize both dangers and pleasures with utmost clarity and are on neither count deterred from risks." - Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War: 2.40, "The Funeral Oration of Perikles" (431 BCE)