Philadelphia named for an incestuous relationship?

[bibliophage]

A Greek textbook I'm reading contains this shocker. Philadelphia [is] the Quaker city of brotherly love, although the name in antiquity commemorated the incestuous love of Ptolemy Philadelphos for his sister.I'd really like to prove this is some kind of sick myth, but the only evidence I've found so far is corroborative. The Encyclopedia Britannica says Ptolemy II Philadelphos (308-246 B.C.), Hellenistic king of Egypt, married his sister Arsinoe II. Both Ptolemy and Arsinoe were thereafter called "Philadelphoi" (brother-loving). The city we know as Amman, Jordan, was first called Rabbah and renamed Philadelphia by Ptolemy (in honor of himself) when he conquered that part of the world.

There are a couple of holes I can see in the theory. Why did they call him brother-loving and not sister-loving?
The Greeks had different words for "love." Why did they use the root phil- (fondness / friendlieness)? Isn't that the sort of love a brother and sister are supposed to have for each other? Why didn't they use a word based on the root erot- (passionate love)?
The name Philadelphoi would seem to be pejorative, but Ptolemy liked it so well he named a city Philadelphia in honor of himself. It doesn't really make sense.
There was more than one Philadelphia in the ancient world, though Amman is the only one I could find out much about. Is it possible that the earliest such city predates Ptolemy?
And finally, what was William Penn thinking? Apparently he really thought it meant something like "brotherly love" (in the sense we usually mean by that). But you'd think he'd do some basic research on the history of the name before naming his city. I suppose he named the city more after the concept of brotherly love than after the city in Jordan, but still . . .

[jb_farley]

wow dude. bibliophage, i was prepared to rip you a more useful one when iread the title. but now, after reading the post, um... does this mean i should sleep with my brother now?

[Abe]

Philadelphia just means "Brotherly love", not incest. All men are a brotherhood, there is peace on earth, fellowship and friendship everywhere, etc.

I think that was the intended meaning.

[DAVEW0071]

Yeah, Abe, that was the intended meaning, but the point of the OP is that there is a deep, dark history behind it.

Not a challenge, or anything, just trying to keep the original point clear.

Nice research, Bib. I wonder if the RNC knows about this....:eek:

[Guy Propski]

Bib, I think I can make a couple of points here:

1) It was pretty common for the Egyptian royalty to marry siblings or other close relatives. I believe Anknaton (sp?) married his sister, as did good old King Tut. No one thought any less of them (at the time), because they were considered gods, and they could do as they please. The Greeks were pretty liberal minded about sex, so that may be why they used the phil- root to describe the situation.

2) I don't remember reading anything about it, but I'm pretty sure Billy Penn wasn't looking for any deeper meaning when he used "Philadelphia." As a member of the Society of Friends, Penn considered all men his brothers, and naturally would want to commemorate this by founding a city of brotherly love (spiritual, not carnal).

3) I also can't find a citing, but I'm pretty sure the city Philadelphia is mentioned in the Bible. As you pointed out, Philadelphia was later renamed Amman (Jordan), but it had the name Philadelphia from about 200 BC until about 200 AD. It later became the site of an Eastern Orthodox monestary. During the early Christian era, it was well known as a site of spiritual learning, which mostly wiped out most of the knowledge of the pagan origin of the city.

4) It's not like Ptolemy was screwing his sister on the steps the temple. Their marriage was most likely one of convenience, to ensure the creation of a future Ptolemy. So the darker meaning of this relationship that you're seeking didn't exist.

[John Corrado]

1) It was pretty common for the Egyptian royalty to marry siblings or other close relatives. I believe Anknaton (sp?) married his sister, as did good old King Tut. No one thought any less of them (at the time), because they were considered gods, and they could do as they please. The Greeks were pretty liberal minded about sex, so that may be why they used the phil- root to describe the situation.

Actually, the Egyptian Pharoahs were expected to marry their siblings. After all, the Pharoahs were Gods, and therefore could only be expected to mate with other Gods. The only other Gods walking around were their brothers and sisters- ergo, you marry your brother or sister as the only possible receptacle of your God-love.

I feel dirty just writing that paragraph.

[DAVEW0071]

The name Philadelphoi would seem to be pejorative, but Ptolemy liked it so well he named a city Philadelphia in honor of himself. It doesn't really make sense.

Well, let's face it, the guy married his sister, and didn't anything was wrong with that, so it obviously wasn't pejorative to name the city Philadelphia.

We can't judge ancient cultures by our own mores. Unless, of course, your mores include marrying your sister.

[don Jaime]

Ptolemy II was called "Ptolemides", the son of Ptolemy, in his lifetime, but Arsinoe II was called Philadelphos in hers. She married him when she was in her forties, after she had been married off to a half-brother, Ptolemy Keraunos. Ptolemy I probably arranged this first marriage to ensure a descendent of his favorite Berenike succeeded him eventually, and half-sibling marriages were not considered unusual. There never has been a good explanation of the later full sibling marriage beyond keeping her from marrying otehr possible claimants. Arsinoe II adopted the children of Arsinoe I - Ptolemy II divorced her - and acted as his foreign minister of sorts, negociating with other Greek kingdoms.
A poet named Sotades ridiculed the incestuous marriage, saying "You (Ptolemy) are thrusting your foul prick in that unholy hole!" Sotades was imprisoned for this. He escaped after Arsinoe's death, but Ptolemy had a general hunt him down. Caught on a ship in the Aegean, he was sealed into a metal container and thrown in the sea.
Several Philadelphias were named for Arsinoe II. Other, definitely incestuous Ptolemies used "phil-" names that had nothing to do with their marriages, like "Philopator" and "Philometer", neither of whom had carnal relations with theri parents. I'm satisfied that "Phladelphia" means the city of fraternal love, in the sense the Chamber of Commerce likes.

[Polycarp]

John Corrado has the straight dope on Pharaonic incest. But the brother-sister matings were (1) specifically for destined-for-the-throne offspring; both were encouraged to take lovers otherwise, and (2) often a way to bring new blood into the royal house, counterintuitive as that may sound. In such a case, the Pharaoh and his sister the Great Wife, with no healthy son, adopted a noble boy, who married their daughter, preserving the tradition.

Akhnaten, by the way, along with introducing monotheism, added a new kink to the process: he fell in love with his half-brother Smenkhhare, and IIRC married him, along with Nefertiti.

Which leads us to the irony in the title of that Tom Hanks movie. :)

[Jophiel]

3) I also can't find a citing, but I'm pretty sure the city Philadelphia is mentioned in the Bible. As you pointed out, Philadelphia was later renamed Amman (Jordan), but it had the name Philadelphia from about 200 BC until about 200 AD. It later became the site of an Eastern Orthodox monestary. During the early Christian era, it was well known as a site of spiritual learning, which mostly wiped out most of the knowledge of the pagan origin of the city.
Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus {...} Philadelphia... -Revelation 1:11

From what I remember, Philadelphia was considered one of the seven "pillar" churches that was responsible for the "government" (in a manner of speaking) of early Christianity.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

The Ancient Romans used to refer to incest as "the Egyptian vice".


They refered to homosexuality (& lesbianism) as "the Greek vice".

Puts the phrase "French postcards (nudge-nudge, wink-wink)" in a whole new light, don't it? ;)

[Guinastasia]

Hell, Cleopatra married one of her brothers!

[Amok]

John Corrado wrote:
Actually, the Egyptian Pharoahs were expected to marry their siblings.


The one objection I see to that is that Ptolemy II was not (ethnically) an Egyptian, he was a Macedonian. He was the son of Ptolemy I, who was a Macedonian general of Alexander's who became ruler of Egypt when Alexander's empire split following his death (and his mother was also a Macedonian). I'm not sure if the Ptolemy dynasty adopted many of the local customs, but I do know they continued to speak Greek while ruling Egypt.

Furthermore, Egypt had not been under the rule of the Pharoahs for at least several hundred years. I forget when the last real Pharoah ruled, but Alexander did not conquer an independent Egypt ruled by Pharoahs but rather one that was part of the Persian Empire. (For that matter, he didn't conquer it at all, really, the Egyptians were fed up with Darius, the emperor of Persia at the time, and Persian rule in general, and they voluntarily crowned him Pharoah of Egypt when he showed up with his army after making his way down the Phoenician coast.)

So, yes, brother-sister marriage was the norm amongst the Pharoahs, but I'm not entirely sure that's relevant to Ptolemy II's situation. Was he adopting the practices of the ancient Pharoahs to endear his subjects to him? His mother, Berenice, was half-sister to Ptolemy I, which I suppose sets a bit of a precident, but Ptolemy I never married Berenice, having married instead Eurydice (daughter of Antipater, regent of Macedonia while Alexander was off fighting in Asia). Was the practice of marrying siblings common in Macedonia among the royalty or nobility? (As far as I know, it wasn't, but that that didn't appear to stop Ptolemy I from getting it on with his half-sister, though don Jamie implies that half-sibling marriage was not uncommon, but full-sibling marriage was.) Did Ptolemy II's royal decendents have a practice of marrying their siblings too? Cleopatra apparently did, but she was several hundred years down the line. Ptolemy II was born only thirty or so years after Alexander conquered Egypt, when I would assume the Macedonian influence in the court would still have been strong.

[bibliophage]

I can't connect to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online right now, but they made it clear that the Greeks (and presumably the Macedonians as well) were scandalized when Ptolemy married his sister.

[Johanna]

Why did they call him brother-loving and not sister-loving?

They did. The Greek word for sister is adelphê and the word for brother is adelphos. So the name Philadelphia covers both.

The Greeks had different words for "love." Why did they use the root phil- (fondness / friendlieness)?
Isn't that the sort of love a brother and sister are supposed to have for each other? Why didn't they
use a word based on the root erot- (passionate love)?

As linguists will tell you, when you have a variety of words for the same basic thing, one of them will be "unmarked"--the general term that covers all of them as a default. The "marked" ones are more restricted in application. In Greek, philos is the unmarked word for love. It works in an erotic context as well as in a nonerotic context. Consider the term philanderer.

[nebuli]

Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus {...} Philadelphia... -Revelation 1:11

From what I remember, Philadelphia was considered one of the seven "pillar" churches that was responsible for the "government" (in a manner of speaking) of early Christianity.
That was a different Philadelphia though, not present Amman. The Philadelphia in Revelations was in western Asia Minor, modern Turkey. The Ptolmeys did briefly rule the area, so they probably supplied the name for this one also.

[don Jaime]

Let me first begin by apologizing for any errors in advance. The Ptolemies differentiated themselves by recycling throne names so that telling them apart is hellish in the extreme, and their practice of naming almost every son Ptolemy and declaring him co-king even if he expired at two months makes them hard to number. That and it's been a while since I've read up on this.

Half-sibling marriage is normal for ancient Greek kings. Typically wives or concubines kept separate households and their children had little contact as siblings. Ptolemy I and Berenike were half-siblings, IIRC, as well as all Pharoanic brother-sister marriages. This is considered normal in many other cultures as well.

Ptolemy III (Euergetes) married his first cousin, not his sister. Ptolemy IV (Philopater) married his full sister, but was depraved and slept with just about anybody; Arsinoe III was isolated at court and does not appear to have liked him much. Ptolemy V (Philometer) was an only child. Ptolemies VI and VII were married to their sister simultaneously, thanks to a losing war with the Seleukids and Roman interference, and things get so complicated that I need a chart. Suffice it to say that all the members of the Ptolemaic dynasty hated each other and married each other a lot after Ptolemy V. The famous Cleopatra - VI or VII, depending on how you count - married two half-brothers, both, of course, named Ptolemy. They were both bumped off in power politics around puberty. She was also the only one in the whole family to learn to speak Egyptian, which should tell you what these Greeks thought of the natives.

So half-sibling marriage had Greek and Egyptian roots, and full sibling marriage is a Ptolemaic Greek development.

[Polycarp]

What I found most intriguing here, to hijack this thread even further, is that owing to the vBB software, John Corrado's post has the signature line quoting me three posts above the post in which I complimented him from which he copied it. Do we have a causality violation going on, or something? :)

Just for the record, the Philadelphia of Revelation is one of "the seven cities which are in Asia" -- i.e., the seven towns that the early Christians had a church in that were located in the Roman province of Asia, more or less in southeast Turkey. It is quite distinct from the Philadelphia that had been and later would be again Amman --now the capital of Jordan...and that one was part of the Ptolemaic kingdom for a couple hundred years.

The Ptolemies, a Greco-Macedonian family ruling as conquerors over Egypt, tried to be "more Egyptian than the Egyptians" -- the incest among them was just one of many ways in which they tried to make themselves into the 28th or so dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs in the minds and hearts of their subjects...mostly without success.

[don Jaime]

I feel obliged to make some corrections to my previous comment and come into agreement with Polycarp.

Berenike I, Pt. II and Ars. II's mom, was not Ptolemy I's sister, half or otherwise. Ptolemy V was called Epiphanes, and his son Ptolemy VI was Philometor. Ptolemy VII was also called Euergetes, but was known to the mob as "Physkon".

Polycarp is right that Greeks in Egypt admired Egyptian culture and considered it the font from which much of Greek culture emerged. But their "Egyptian" practices, like royal incestuous marriages, were as much the product of Greek stereotype as actual Egyptian practice. So, he's right that the Ptolemies wanted to be like Egyptians, and I'm right that they didn't want to be Egyptians. They didn't speak the language, they didn't wear Egyptian dress, and they stayed in very un-Egyptian cities, like Alexandria. Actual Egyptians had a heavier tax burden, too.

Enjoy the Love-In.

Long way from Jordan, no?

[Helen's Eidolon]

Summing up from my thoughts...

I read the entire thread and I'm coming in a bit late, so this is gonna be short and not as factual as some other stuff...

Whether or not Philedelphia is named directly after this or not:

1) Egyptian royalty (though Macedonian in heritage) always married siblings, half or full.

2) Ancient Greeks tended towards homosexuality.

So no matter which way you look at it, it's got SOME kind of connotation... whether it's the Egyptian kind OR the Greek kind of "brotherly love".

[bibliophage]

I'm back from the library, but I have no definitive answers. Philia can refer "fondness between lovers", but that is a relatively late usage. Late compared to what, I don't know. The Ptolemaic dynasty was late compared to, say, the time of Pericles. The original use of the word is to denote affectionate regard amongst family members, friends, etc.
The word philadelphos meant brother-loving (in the non-incestuous sense) long before Ptolemy and Arsinoe. It was used in this sense by Xenophon among others.
Philadelphia (the word, not the place) occurs in the Greek New Testament, in Romans 12:10 (among other places): "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;"
Arsinoe II apparently was referred to as "philadelphos" in her lifetime. There are inscriptions bearing the name "Arsinoe philadelphos" that seem to imply she was still alive when they were made.
Those biographers of William Penn who mention the subject at all agree that he probably named his city directly from the Greek roots, and not after the old-world cities of the same name. He was apparently a classicist as well as a biblical scholar, and so he was probably familiar with both the Greek word and the old-world cities. One biographer mentioned speculation that he may have been inspired by the "Philadelphians", a kind of religious movement (?) that many Quakers belonged to.
Both the Greeks and Macedonians were scandalized that full siblings would marry, even though half-sibling marriage was not uncommon in Macedonia.

My primary remaining question is whether or not Arsinoe was called "philadelphos" before she married her brother. As don Jaime said, Other, definitely incestuous Ptolemies used "phil-" names that had
nothing to do with their marriages, like "Philopator" and "Philometer", neither of whom had carnal relations with theri
parentsThis makes me think the name "philadelphos" may have been bestowed on her because she showed devotion to one or more of her brothers long before she married Ptolemy.

[Amok]

don Jamie wrote:
Berenike I, Pt. II and Ars. II's mom, was not Ptolemy I's sister, half or otherwise.


Are you sure about that? This site (http://www.bartleby.com/65/be/Berenic340.html), for instance, says she was:


Berenice, b. c.340 B.C., d. 281 or 271 B.C., consort and half sister of Ptolemy I, king of ancient Egypt... Berenice, whose portrait appears with that of Ptolemy on many medals, was the mother by him of Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II.


The source the site uses is apparently The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. Now, I won't claim that because the information that Berenice was Ptolemy I's half sister appears in an encyclopedia it has to be true, especially since I don't know what primary sources the encyclopedia has used, but I am curious as to what sources you have that claim she isn't.

I spent a bit of time trying to find a site online that would specify who Ptolemy I's and Berenice's parents were (to see if they did indeed share a common parent), but without much luck. A site run by an organization called the "Princeton Economic Institute" gives some history on Ptolemy I (http://peicommerce.com/HISTORY/EUROPE/GREECE/EGYPT/PTOL-1.HTM) (apparently as background on the coins of the time) and says:


The throne of Egypt fell to Ptolemy I, the son of Lagus, a Macedonian of common birth.


But does not specify who Ptolemy I's mother was, and doesn't mention Berenice's parents at all.

Interestingly, in an arcticle about Arsinoe II (http://peicommerce.com/HISTORY/EUROPE/GREECE/EGYPT/ARSINOE2.HTM) it also makes some claims about why she might have married Ptolemy II.


Ptolemy Ceraunus then came to Arsinoë and her sons who held up with some troops, in the great citadel of Cassandreia. Ptolemy Ceraunus then offered marriage to his half-sister and against the better judgement of her eldest son, she accepted.

The disastrous consequences that followed provide some insight into why inter-marraige between brother and sister developed in Egypt. Clearly, Arsinoë, felt her situation quite desperate or she would not have considered such a groom. Ptolemy Ceraunus swore a solemn oath that he would adopt her sons, recognize their places in the succession, and not marry another woman or have children by another women. Such a public promise illustrates Arsinoë, desire perhaps to seek a throne without court rivals and that Ptolemy Ceraunus' guarantee against polygamy suggests that he was well aware of the appeal of such a guarantee to a royal woman during this particular time. Arsinoë, also perhaps felt that her eldest son could [not?] succeed without the support of Ptolemy Ceraunus, despite his personal objection.

Following the marriage, Ptolemy Ceraunus indeed proved that his character was blacker than the deepest night. Ptolemy Ceraunus murdered Arsinoë two younger sons and drove Arsinoë herself from Macedonia. Arsinoë eldest son appears to have disagreed with his mother's judgement and fled at about the time of the wedding.

Arsinoë returned to Egypt, to the court of her brother Ptolemy II. Once again, Arsinoë was involved in a dynastic struggle against her brother's first wife, Arsinoë I - a daughter of Lysimachus by Nicaea and thus the sister of Agathocles. About 278 BC, a few years after the defeat of his wife's father Lysimachos, Ptolemy II accused Arsinoe I of complicity in a plot against his life and banished her to Coptos, in Upper Egypt. Shortly thereafter,Ptolemy II married his sister, Arsinoë.

Arsinoë thus received both status and power in Egypt. There is no record of her keeping contact with her eldest son. Therefore, having no children by her brother, she was forced recognize the children of his first wife as heirs to the throne of Egypt.

Arsinoë's experience with the drawbacks of polygamy by a royal king both with her father and with her husband, contributed to the decline of royal polygamy in the immediate years thereafter. Multiple and competing heirs by different mothers served only to divide the royal household. It was indeed this competition that destroyed the dynastic hopes of Lysimachus. Thus, Ptolemy II shared this troubled past in his struggle against his half-brother. By choosing Arsinoë as his wife, Ptolemy II rejected polygamy in favor of its extreme opposite, royal sibling marriage that consolidated the dynasty rather than dividing it as did polygamy.

(bolding added by me)


I'm not sure how accurate the above is in terms of Arsinoe II and Ptolemy II's actual motivitations (and it doesn't strike me as the most scholarly of sources, especially considering the grammatical errors), but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

[don Jaime]

Amok,

My opinion is Ptolemy married Arsinoe to ensure no one else could. As his sister, and daughter of the previous king, she already had prestige in Egypt. She had to be married off to somebody trustworthy to ensure this power wasn't used against him. Given the complicated marriage politics and the perfidity of their own half-brother Ptolemy Keraunos, Ptolemy II probably decided he was his own safest option. It could also have served to renew her Egyptian prestige, like this other one says, since she had been more important in Makedonia than Egypt for so long. And Ptolemy and Arsinoe could just be sexual deviants. We'll probably never have the full answer. The flaw in all these arguments is the real chance that a disgusted populace would have revolted against Ptolemy and Arsinoe, negating whatever beneficial effect they were after.

I can't remember what I cited for Ptolemy I and Berenike. I'm wanting to say Bevans, but I don't think that's right. I'll have to look it up again. I do recall that their parents had different names.

[don Jaime]

Walter Ellis in "Ptolemy of Egypt" (1994) says contemporary acounts list Ptolemy's parents as Lagos and Arsinoe and Berenike's as Magas and Antigone. She came to Egypt as a lady's maid to Ptolemy's previous wife. A later commentary by Theokritos claimed she was a half-sister to give her family prestige and to help legitimize the full sibling mariages of the later Ptolemies.

[Mojo]

John Corrado's post has the signature line quoting me three posts above the post in which I complimented him from which he copied it. Do we have a causality violation going on, or something?

Actually, he got the sig from the Oracle at IllaDelphi.

[Amok]

Walter Ellis in "Ptolemy of Egypt" (1994) says contemporary acounts list Ptolemy's parents as Lagos and Arsinoe and Berenike's as Magas and Antigone. She came to Egypt as a lady's maid to Ptolemy's previous wife. A later commentary by Theokritos claimed she was a half-sister to give her family prestige and to help legitimize the full sibling mariages of the later Ptolemies.


Makes sense. Thanks for the reference. I guess that would have made Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II's marriage seem even more odd. As bibliophage already stated, it appears the greeks at the time were quite shocked by the marriage. Whether the common people of Egypt would have been, I'm not sure.