The Decline and Fall of the Ptolemies

The death of Ptolemy VI brought his younger brother Ptolemy VIII to the kingship. This was the start of a prolonged, if intermittent, turbulent period of family strife, punctuated by rebellions, plots and wars. One king, Ptolemy VII, was murdered, Ptolemy VIII’s two simultaneous wives plotted and rebelled, and when he died one of these, Kleopatra III, was his effective successor. Ptolemy VIII was in fact not a bad king in some ways, and encouraged the exploitation of the discovery of the monsoon