Ptolemy of Mauretania

Ptolemy, the son of King Juba II and Queen Cleopatra Selene II of Mauretania, has a younger sister called Drusilla of Mauretania.

His father is the son of King Juba I of Numidia, who was descended from the Berber people of North Africa and was an ally to the Roman Triumvir Pompey.

His mother Cleopatra Selene II was the daughter of the Ptolemaic Greek Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman Triumvir Mark Antony.

Ptolemy is of Berber, Greek and Roman ancestry.

Ptolemy and his sister Drusilla are the only grandchildren of Juba I of Numidia and Cleopatra VII of Egypt and are among the younger grandchildren to Mark Antony.

Through his maternal grandfather, Ptolemy is distantly related to Julius Caesar and the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Ptolemy is a first cousin to Germanicus and the Roman Emperor Claudius and a second cousin to the Emperor Caligula, the Empress Agrippina the Younger, the Empress Valeria Messalina and the Emperor Nero.

Ptolemy was most probably born in Caesaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania (modern Cherchell, Algeria) in the Roman Empire.

He was named in honor of his mother’s ancestors, in particular the Ptolemaic dynasty.

He was also named in honor of the memory of Cleopatra VII, the birthplace of his mother and the birthplace of her relatives.

In choosing her son's name, by-passing the ancestral names of her husband, Cleopatra Selene II had created a distinct Greek-Egyptian tone and emphasized her role as the monarch who will continue the Ptolemaic dynasty.

By naming her son Ptolemy instead of a Berber ancestral name, she offers an example rare in ancient history, especially in the case of a son who is the primary male heir, of reaching into the mother's family instead of the father's for a name.

This emphasizes the idea that his mother is the heiress of the Ptolemies and the leader of a Ptolemaic government in exile.

Through his parents, Ptolemy has Roman citizenship, and they sent him to Rome to be educated.

His mother dies in 6 CE and is placed in the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, built by his parents.

Ptolemy of Mauretania has received a good Roman education in Rome and become Romanized.

He is part of the remarkable court of his maternal aunt Antonia Minor, an influential aristocrat who presides over a circle of various princes and princesses that assists in the political preservation of the Roman Empire’s borders and affairs of the client states.

The youngest daughter of Mark Antony and the youngest niece of Emperor Augustus, Antonia Minor is a half-sister of Ptolemy's late mother, also a daughter of Mark Antony.

Antonia Minor's mother was Octavia Minor, Mark Antony's fourth wife and the second sister of Octavian (later Augustus).

Ptolemy lives in Rome until the age of twenty-one, when he returns to the court of his aging father in Mauretania.

When Ptolemy returns to Mauretania, Juba II makes Ptolemy his co-ruler and successor.

Coinage has survived from Juba II’s co-rule with his son.

On coinage, on one side there is a central bust of Juba II with his title in Latin ‘King Juba’.

On the other side there is a central bust of Ptolemy and the inscription stating in Latin ‘King Ptolemy son of Juba’.

Juba II dies in 23 and is placed with Cleopatra Selene II in the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania; Ptolemy becomes the sole ruler of Mauretania.

Ptolemy, like his father, appears to be a patron of art, learning, literature and sports.

In Athens, Greece, statues are erected to Juba II and Ptolemy in a gymnasium in Athens and a statue is erected in Ptolemy’s honor in reference to his taste in literature.

Ptolemy dedicates statues of himself on the Acropolis.

The Athenians honor Ptolemy and his family with inscriptions dedicated to them, which reveals that the Athenians have respect towards the Roman Client Monarchs and their families, a civic practice common in the first century.

The local Berber tribes, the Numidian Tacfarinas and Garamantes, had in 17 begun a revolt against the Kingdom of Mauretania and Rome.

The war has ravaged North Africa; Berbers, including former slaves from Ptolemy’s household, have joined in the revolt.

As Ptolemy’s military campaigns are unsuccessful in ending the revolt, he summons the Roman Governor of Africa, Publius Cornelius Dolobella and his army to assist him.

The war finally ends in 24.

Although Ptolemy’s army and the Romans are the victors, both sides have suffered considerable losses of infantry and cavalry.

The Roman Senate, impressed by Ptolemy’s loyal conduct, sends a Roman Senator, who greets Ptolemy as king, ally and friend and awards him an ivory scepter, and an embroidered triumphal robe, a traditional recognition and reward by Rome to her allies.

Ptolemy of Mauretania has grown popular among the Berbers and has traveled extensively throughout the Roman Empire.

In Caesarea, prayers are offered for the health of Ptolemy at the Temple of Saturn, worshiped in Mauretania as the God of agriculture.

A temple and a sanctuary cult are dedicated to Saturn in Caesaea by 30 and throughout Mauretania various temples are dedicated to Saturn.

The kingdom of Mauretania and its seaport capital, Caesaraea, flourish until 40, when its last monarch, Ptolemy of Mauretania, is murdered under unknown circumstances while on a visit to Rome on the order of his unstable second cousin, the Roman Emperor Caligula.

This incident sparks a Berber rebellion against Roman rule led by Ptolemy’s former freedman Aedemon, who, from outrage and out of loyalty to his former master, wants to take revenge against Caligula.

Details on these events are unclear.

Cassius Dio had written an entire chapter on the annexation of Mauretania by Caligula, but it is now lost.