Arsinoe IV is the fourth daughter of…

41 BCE

Arsinoe IV is the fourth daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes, sister of Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII.

Their late father had left Ptolemy and Cleopatra as joint rulers of Egypt, but Ptolemy had soon dethroned Cleopatra and forced her to flee Alexandria.

When Julius Caesar in 48 BCE arrived in Alexandria and sided with Cleopatra's faction, Arsinoe had escaped from the capital with her mentor Ganymedes and joined the Egyptian army under Achillas, assuming the title of pharaoh.

When Achillas and Ganymedes clashed, Arsinoe had had Achillas executed and placed Ganymedes in command of the army.

Ganymedes had initially enjoyed some success against the Romans, negotiating an exchange of Arsinoe for Ptolemy, but the Romans soon received reinforcements and inflicted a decisive defeat on the Egyptians.

Arsinoe had been transported to Rome and forced to appear in Caesar's triumph.

Despite usual traditions of prisoners in triumphs being strangled when the festivities were at an end, Caesar had spared Arsinoe and granted her sanctuary at Ephesus.

Arsinoe has lived in the temple for many years, always keeping a watchful eye for her sister Cleopatra, who sees her as a threat to her power.

Her fears prove well-founded; in 41 BCE, at Cleopatra's instigation, Mark Antony orders the twenty-six-year-old Arsinoe executed on the steps of the temple, a gross violation of the temple sanctuary and an act that scandalized Rome.

The priest Megabyzus, who had welcomed Arsinoë on her arrival at the temple as Queen, was only pardoned when an embassy from Ephesus made a petition to Cleopatra.

Arsinoe reportedly was given an honorable funeral and a modest tomb, but no conclusive remains of such a burial have been found.

However, an octagonal monument situated in the center of Ephesus will be proposed in the 1990s by Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to be the tomb of Arsinoë.

A writer from The Times described the identification of the skeleton as "a triumph of conjecture over certainty".

Although no inscription remains on the tomb, it can be dated to between 50 to 20 BCE.

The body of a woman estimated at fifteen to twenty years old will be found in 1926 in the burial chamber.

Thür's identification of the skeleton is based on the shape of the tomb (octagonal, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria), the carbon dating of the bones (between 200 – 20 BCE), the gender of the skeleton, and the age of the young woman at death.

It is also claimed that the tomb contains Egyptian motifs, such as "papyri-bundle" columns.

Arsinoë, if the monument is indeed her tomb, would be the only member of the Ptolemaic dynasty whose remains have been recovered.

Forensic/archaeological analysis of the origins of the skeleton and tomb is ongoing.