Ptolemaic Period
Ptolemy XIII
Ptolemaic kings · 305-30 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Ptolemy XIII was still a young teenager, guided by court advisors, when those advisors tried to win Julius Caesar's favor with the severed head of his defeated rival Pompey, a miscalculation that disgusted Caesar instead and helped set in motion the war that drowned the boy king in the Nile within the year. Additional detail: UCL Digital Egypt.
Dynastic chronology: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
Co-ruler, then rival, of Cleopatra
Ptolemy XIII inherited the throne jointly with his elder sister Cleopatra VII under their father's will, but the two quickly became rivals, and Ptolemy's regency council, led by the eunuch Pothinus, forced Cleopatra out of Alexandria. Their power struggle drew in Rome directly when the defeated Roman general Pompey fled to Egypt seeking refuge after his loss to Julius Caesar in the Roman civil war.
A gift that backfired fatally
Hoping to win favor with the victorious Caesar, Ptolemy's advisors Pothinus, Achillas, and Theodotus of Chios had Pompey assassinated as he came ashore and presented his severed head to Caesar as a trophy. Caesar, who had once been Pompey's son-in-law and had intended to show him clemency, was reportedly horrified and disgusted rather than pleased, and he used the incident as a pretext to intervene directly in the Ptolemaic succession dispute on Cleopatra's behalf. In the fighting that followed, known as the Alexandrian War, Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile in early 47 BCE, only about fifteen years old, when his boat capsized while he tried to flee Caesar's forces.
Sources for this profile
- Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- Dodson, A., & Hilton, D. (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
- University College London. Kings of Ptolemaic Egypt.
- UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Chronology. UCLA.
The complete, APA-formatted reference list is on the Academic Sources & Bibliography page.