PTOLEMY VII., or EtERGETES II., best known by the nickname PrivscoN.. or Big belly, ascended the throne after the death of his brother. He married his brother's sister and widow, Cleopatra (who was also his own sister), and on the same day murdered her infant son Ptolemy Eupator, whom she had at first declared king. The history of his reign is one unbroken record of murder and blood, whence his subjects nicknamed him Kakergetes (" the malefactor"). Not only relatives who stood in his way to the throne, but those who opposed his accession, and even innocent persons, were butchered with savage cruelty. His private vices and debaucheries were equally infamous. He divorced his wife and sister Cleopatra to marry her daughter by her first husband—his own brother; and when temporarily driven from his throne, 130-127 B.C., by the indig nation of his subjects, who chose the divorced Cleopatra in his room, the monster took a diabolical revenge by murdering his own and Cleopatra's son, and sending the head and hands as a present to the latter on her birthday. One is almost ashamed to add that he retained the hereditary taste for learning, and patronized learned men. He himself
wrote a work of 24 books called Memoirs (IlYpomnemata). He reigned from 146 to 117 B.C.
Besides these. there are several Ptolemies of less note—as, for example PTOLEMY VIII., or S0T0R II., otherwise called LATTIYRCS or LATtronus, who reigned first from 117 to 107 B C., and again from 89 to 81 B.C. ; also PTOLEMY IX., or ALEXANDER I., youngest son of Ptolemy VII., who reigned from 107 to 90 B. c. ; PTOLEMY N., or ALEXANDER son of Alexander I., n.c. ; PTOLEMY XI., or DIONYSUS, or Atmcrus, an illegitimate non of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who reigned from 80 to 51 B.C. ; PTOLEMY XII., who reigned for some time in conjunction with his sister Cleopatra. and who was ultimately drowned in the Nile, after being defeated by Omsar; and lastly, PTOLEMY XIII., younger brother of the preceding. Cesar appointed him joint ruler with Cleopatra, his sister and intended wife. lie died by violence in 4'4 B.C., at the instigation of Cleopatra.