Thais, wife of Ptolemy?

[nick]

Hi Companions -I checked http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346491/fullcredits
and noticed that actress Ulla van Zeller is casted as "Thais, Ptolemy's wife". As I recall, Thais appears in the histories as the (Athenian?) 'public woman' who encouraged Alexander to set fire to Persepolis. Or she casted the first torch or something like that.My question: are we looking at a strange twist in the movie storyline here? Is it the same Thais? Was Ptolemy really married to *a* Thais or *the* Thais? Does anyone know what is supposed to be in the script?Best regards -Nick

[susan]

I don't think they married, but she had two sons by Ptolemy (Lagos & Leontiskos) and a daughter Eirene who later married Eunostos, King of Kypriot Soloi (Athenaeus 13.576e) so she was obviously more than a hetaira.Ptolemy married Artakama, Barsine's sister, at Susa. I don't know whether or not he divorced her.Susan

[amyntoros]

Hi Nick:From: Athenaeus - Deipnosophistae, Book XIII, 576, d/e"And did not Alexander the Great keep with him Thais, the Athenian prostitute? Cleitarchus speaks of her as having occasioned the burning of the palace at Persepolis. This Thais, after Alexander's death, was married to Ptolemy, the first king of Egypt, and bore to him Leontiscus and Lagus, also a daughter, Irene, who was married to Eunostus, the king of Soli in Cyprus."I just love Athenaeus. I think it was Sikander that described him here as the National Enquirer of ancient times! :-)Best regards,Linda Ann

[ruthaki]

I have the geneologist chart of the Ptolemys and I don't believe Thais is listed on it as she was only a courtesan (his 'common-law' wife, in modern terms). He had the Persian wife, left her behind I believe, and later married one of Antipater's daughters who was his legal Macedonian wife.
(and on the subject of the movie casting, is till think Anthony Hopkins, though a superb actor, is too old to play the part of Ptolemy unless they are using him in a flashback sense, as he wrote some of the diaries used as the "sources"

[agesilaos]

Since,Athenaeus says he married her and that a king married their daughter it would seem better to accept that they did marry. His son by Berenike succeeded him rather than Lagos which as a family name suggests he was legitimate so either he predeceased his father or perhaps the throne passed by porphyrogeniture rather than primogeniture.

[ruthaki]

Was Ptolemy's wife (daughter of Antipater) named Berenike or Eurydike?? I've got conflicting information and I need to know. Thanks. ruthaki

[jona]

Thais and Ptolemy had children, which played important roles in the diplomatic marriage game of early Hellenism.Lane Fox has argued, in my view convincingly, that Thais is not mentioned by Arrian as one of the Persepolis pyromanes, because Ptolemy did not want to mention the woman he (had once) loved as a mere arsonist. I've always liked this idea.Maybe it is not entirely beside the point that Saint Augustine does more or less the same thing in his *Confessions*. The venerable bishop of Hippo mentions that he had a concubine but does not tell us her name. This was most gentlemanlike. The woman had gone back home, and Augustine did not want to make her the talk of the town.Perhaps the idea that a gentleman never speaks about the women he has loved in order to protect their honor, did already exist in Antiquity; Augustine and Ptolemy seem to have behaved according to this standard.Jona

[susan]

Eurydike was Antipater's daughter; Berenike was her lady-in-waiting, whom Ptolemy married as well. She had been previously married to an unknown Macedonian named Philip. There was a lot of rivalry between Ptolemy's children.Susan

[agesilaos]

I 'm pretty sure that the story of Thaiais' pyromania begins in Kleitarchos whose history was reknowned for being a rhetorical tour de force but an historical travesty - it is just as likely that neither Ptolemy nor Aristoboulos nor Kallisthenes, Chares, Niarchos etc included it because it only happened in Kleitarchos fetid imagination due to the wealth of rhetorical contrasts it contains.

[jona]

"I'm pretty sure that the story of Thais's pyromania begins in Kleitarchos"That's almost certainly correct. At least, almost every scholar seems to agree."whose history was reknowned for being a rhetorical tour de force but an historical travesty"I doubt this. Many scholars (e.g. Heckel, Holt, Bosworth) have argued that the Vulgate contains more valuable information than was accepted about a generation ago. Kleitarchos was certainly not perfect, and his story is colored by rhetoric pyrotechniques. But he is not a really bad historian.Personally, I am impressed by the Babylonian chapters (Diodorus is the only one who understood the ritual of the "stranger on the throne"). At this point, Kleitarchus offered really first class historical information. The same applies to QCR's chapters on Bactria and Sogdia (which are said to contain only one recognizable, chronological error).I am not arguing that Kleitarchos is the perfect historian, which he is clearly not, but his work is not a historical travesty like -for instance- the Alexander Romance. Aren't you confusing Kleitarchus with Pseudo-Kleitarchus?Jona

[agesilaos]

I agree that there is more value in Curtius than previously thought, though that does not equate necessarily with Kleitarchos as he used a mixture of sources and added a good chunk off his own bat. But the military narrative is decidedly weak in Diodoros the battles being mere rhetorical exercises. It is to be expected, however, that details of Eastern customs should be full and (hopefully) accurate as Kleitarchos' father Dinon had written a Persika. My point about the story starting with Kleitarchos is that he is usually taken to be writing later than three major works, those of Kallisthenes, Ptolemy and Aristoboulos and they did not mention it nor Chares who likes a scandal, the scope of Nearchos work may not have encompassed it nor may Onesikritos'.It seems likely that Diodoros may have pirated his version of Klietarchos from Pompeius Trogus, there is a distinct lack of Greek technical terminology, which could be the result of retranslation from latin.I am not normally one to confuse my sources by the way in fact I'm normally painfully pedantic! By the way did you read my query about your first posting, the Darius tablet? Now that the Forum does not prompt when you get a reply it is too easy to miss them.

[ulla]

hi nick.......
how are you?
i have my own forum, funny that.
cannot help but feeling flattered, also on 'thais'
behalf.
kind regards, ulla van zeller