Why Cleopatra’s Sister Reveals There Was More to Her Story

Cleopatra’s lesser known sister, Arsinoe IV, was guessed to be a teenager when she rebelled against Julius

Caesar and sent him fleeing into the sea as Sophie Overton points out and rightly goes on to say that it is often

overlooked.

Indeed, Plutarch in his Parallel Lives doesn’t touch upon her existence but The Alexandrian Wars, attributed to

Julius Caesar, explains how Arsinoe slew the military commander Achillas after a dispute and, “after his death,

she possessed the whole power without a rival, and raised Ganymed to the command of the army”. Yet, if

Arsinoe ‘possessed the whole power’ why isn’t she even mentioned in the victory against Julius Caesar?

Perhaps because she was a girl. Overton puts Arsinoe’s age at being between thirteen and sixteen at the time

that “in her name, the rebel forces launched a surprise attack on Julius Caesar at the Lighthouse of Pharos,

which left Julius Caesar needing to swim for his life.” Would a young boy achieving the same have earned

more of a mention, even grudgingly so, when his enemies would write about him?

It is true that Arsinoe’s victory was short-lived. When Roman reinforcements arrived, they took Arsinoe
hostage and then paraded her in chains through the streets of Rome. Overton explains that Julius Caesar had

intended to execute her afterwards but refrained from doing so after the crowds took pity on her. She was

allowed to live, until Julius Caesar’s assassination.

So, why did Cleopatra garner fame, whilst her sister was withheld from history? The short answer is that

Cleopatra was on the right side of it. Even so, some historians couldn’t separate her from the relationships she

had with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

Plutarch implies that Cleopatra was the reason for the downfall of Mark Antony as though she had bewitched

him; “he was taken captive in this manner”. That idea would likely have appealed to a misogynist over the

concept of Cleopatra being clever and Mark Antony’s downfall being his own. It seems to show that Plutarch

was unable to allow himself to believe that a woman could have agency of her own.

A popular story about Cleopatra was that she rolled herself up in a carpet to introduce herself to the older

Caesar, who had taken the role of arbitration between Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII after the death of Pompey.

So astutely, Cleopatra won Caesar’s support and beat her younger sister by being able to wield the weight of the

Roman Empire.

Joyce Tyldesley, in her article for Britannica, ‘Cleopatra Queen of Egypt’, points out that mention of Cleopatra

was diminished into merely her relationships with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Further, she points out
that official Roman history portrayed Cleopatra as predatory. An argument could be made that Arsinoe isn’t
mentioned in official Roman histories because she didn’t have a relationship with a prominent Roman man.

Karen Murdarasi in her article, ‘Who was Cleopatra’s younger sister?’ explains that Arsinoe could have been as

young as 20 when she was killed inside the temple of Artemis in Ephesus at the order of Mark Antony.

Cleopatra was removing a threat to her rule. Just like she had done with her co-ruler brother. Clearly, Arsinoe

was seen as more dangerous and more noteworthy than previous scholars may have given her credit for.

This is the point. Misogynistic treatment of the history around Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoe is the problem.

Cleopatra was only valued by them in as much as she accompanied two powerful men. Amy Crawford
underlines this when she wrote about Cleopatra being named “a crazy queen” by the poet Horace and then as
“the shame of Egypt” by the Roman poet Lucan. The story of Arsinoe highlights that misogynistic historians

not only sought to sideline Cleopatra, but virtually deleted a young daring queen from the events of the past. If

a boy had been half the person Arsinoe was, standing up to the greatest power of her time, he would have

earned more than three mentions for doing less.

It is important to revisit the history of women such as Arsinoe to show that other women in history were of note

for more than just beauty. This writer believes that Arsinoe demonstrates that her sister Cleopatra was
politically astute and became the lover of a man over twice her age to ensure she remained in power. Arsinoe

deserved more of a mention in history for her bravery and Cleopatra earned exactly that but was still only

mentioned as an appendage to a man for a long time, until Shakespeare revised her history.

Essentially, Arsinoe was reduced to very few mentions in history and her sister Cleopatra was reduced to little

more than an accessory to Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony because men at the time wanted to downplay their

significance. Unfortunately, there are few other mentions of Cleopatra and Arsinoe outside of the history that

was written by Rome. Revisiting the stories of Cleopatra and Arsinoe and drawing the attention away from the

biased Plutarch’s depiction, can humanise the women they were and draw out the truth of how powerful women
such as Cleopatra and Arsinoe were.

Bibliography:

Tyldesley, Joyce ‘Cleopatra Queen of Egypt’(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cleopatra-queen-of-

Egypt)

Murdarasi, Karen, 8th

July 2016 ‘Who was Cleopatra’s younger sister?’

(https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/07/08/arsinoe-

iv/#:~:text=Ptolemy%20XIII%20and%20Arsinoe%20allied,siege%20of%20the%20capital%2C%20Alexandria.)

Blakemore, Erin 28th April 2023 ‘She ruled Egypt and seduced the Romans. But who was Cleopatra?’

(https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/cleopatra-egypt-pharaoh-life-history)

Cooney, Kara 5th

November 2018 ‘Should women rule the world? The Queens of ancient Egypt say

yes.’(https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/kara-cooney-queens-of-egypt-women-rule-the-world)

Crawford, Amy 31st

March 2007 ‘Who Was Cleopatra?’(https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-

cleopatra-151356013/)

Overton, Sophie 13th

October 2020 ‘Arsinoe of Egypt: A Retelling of The Royal Rebel Against Rome’

(https://historyinpolitics.org/2020/10/13/arsinoe-of-egypt-a-retelling-of-the-royal-rebel-against-rome/)

Plutarch, Parallel Lives Translation by Bernadotte Perrin

(https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html)

Caesar, Julius The Alexandrian Wars Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn

(http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/alexandrian.html)