Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 18, 2018

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Coin of Cleopatra Selene and Antiochus XIII
Coin of Cleopatra Selene and Antiochus XIII

Cleopatra Selene (died 69 BC) was a queen of Seleucid Syria (83–69 BC). The daughter of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III of Egypt, she became the queen of Egypt in 115 BC when she was married to her brother, King Ptolemy IX, and later probably married King Ptolemy X. In 103 BC, Cleopatra III established an alliance with the Seleucid ruler Antiochus VIII; Cleopatra Selene was sent to be his bride, and stayed with him until his assassination in 96 BC. The widowed queen married her previous husband's brother, Antiochus IX, who died in 95 BC. She then married her stepson, Antiochus X, who probably died in 92 BC. She hid somewhere in Syria with her children until 83 BC, when the Seleucid thrones in Antioch and Damascus became vacant. Declaring her son Antiochus XIII king, she ruled alongside him, according to depictions on coins from the period. She was ousted when the people of Antioch and Damascus, exhausted by the Seleucids' civil wars, invited foreign monarchs as their new rulers. She then controlled several coastal towns until she was besieged, captured and executed in 69 BC by Tigranes in Ptolemais. (Full article...)

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