The Power of Excess: Royal Incest and the Ptolemaic Dynasty

From: Anthropologica | Date: July 1, 2006| Author: | Copyright information

Abstract: The Greco-Macedonian dynasty of the Ptolemies, which ruled Egypt from 322 until 30 BCE, established early on a practice of incestuous marriage in the royal house. This custom, which may have had a number of pragmatic functional purposes, was on a more profound level symbolic of royal po wer. But royal incest, as practised by the Ptolemies, was only one of a larger set of behaviours, all of which were symbolic of power, and all of which were characterized by lavishness, immoderation, excess and the breaching of limits in general.

Keywords: incest, marriage, Ptolemy, Cleopatra, power, ...

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