PTOLEMY'S WOMAN

She is one of those extremely interesting people who live in the margins of history. In an age when it was considered to be improper to mention a woman's name in public, she was famed throughout the world as the most beautiful of all courtesans, She was Thaïs of Athens and she was a superstar in the great drama of Alexander and Ptolemy. Thaïs has engaged the world's attention over the millennia. She is depicted in great paintings and written of in many novels as well as in the famous opera by Massenet. Her existence is attested to in ancient writings as well as in modern archaeology. There can be no doubt that there once was a women of great beauty who rose from the demi mond in the only manner open to her, to become a queen in Egypt and her name was Thaïs.

Nothing is known of her early life.It is most likely that she was an abandoned girl child or the child of a prostitute raised and trained to be a courtesan.This would require a degree of education higher than that given to most women of the day . She would have been very well trained in all the social graces as well, as it should have been a part of her profession to dine with wealthy and aristocratic men and entertain them with her conversation somewhat in the tradition of a Japanese Geisha. It is ironic that in a society where men held most women imprisoned in a private part of the house, that they paid other women very highly to break the social rules which they themselves, had created.

A courtesan could, by her own devices, save enough money to retire early and spend the rest of her life comfortably on the fringes of society.Some even married later in life to achieve a sort of "semi" respectability. Others ran schools where young initiates were trained to the life and this is most probably,how Thaïs was trained.The story was whispered at the time that she was the dishonored daughter of an Athenian aristocrat, but this is improbable as such parentage would be well known all over the Athens of those days. Still such a rumor would but add to her mystique and reputation and she would have little reason to repudiate it.

When the great Alexander set out to conquer Asia, he did so on borrowed money.His father had died in debt , the country of Macedon was in debt, he had abolished all taxes, and he had more than 30,000 men to feed daily and his only possible source of income was plunder. With his early successes he was able to meet expenses, but by the time he had taken Sardis he and all his generals were wealthy men. The barefoot boy from Macedon, Ptolemy, was now what would be in today's terms a multi millionaire and he could buy anything he wanted. He sent money to Athens to purchase the services of the most beautiful courtesan of the day, Thaïs

The girl was only 17 years old. She was famous and very successful. She led the glamorous and luxurious life of a super star. It must have been an act of some courage to cross the sea to a war zone and become the companion of a rough general in the midst of battleground Asia. Here was of course, an opportunity far greater than any which was ever likely to present itself in Athens.

She most probably had spent her whole life in Athens and must have had all the attachments which any teen aged girl would have formed over the years. The family, the friends, pets, and surroundings which cling to a young girl's emotions. Perhaps there were the debts which most often accompany a glamorous life style without the financial base to support it. The cash down payment would have been substantial and tempting.

Thaïs took the offer. She took a courageous leap that would fling her into the heart of one of the greatest tales of all time. She sailed from Piraeus bound for Asia. She had the emotional strength to cut her ties with her home. She did not know that she would never again return, but neither did she know that she would not. It was a brave move whatever the reasons. She had bet her very life on an opportunity. For a courtesan must, above all things, be an opportunist to survive and Thaïs was a survivor.

She was a valuable property and most likely traveled with a military escort. It is likely during those times of war that she traveled on one of the fast communications ships which would have to have been operated by Alexander during the war. This would only have been in the safe sailing months of the summer. Thaï's must have arrived in Asia in the late summer of 331. She is first recorded in the ancient texts at the banquet in Persepolis in January of 330 and would not have been traveling in the winter months. In the summer of 331 Alexander and Ptolemy had returned from Egypt and were preparing for the battle of Gaugemela (Sept. 1). Ptolemy spent the last part of October and the month of November in Babylon and it is likely that Thaïs was with him. In early December, the army marched east and south to Persepolis. Thaïs must have been with them.

She was far above a common camp follower and Ptolemy was a great general as well as a close friend and companion of the king.. Thaïs would have traveled with all the comforts and luxuries possible in the situation. It would be a month of traveling by cart by day and camping by night. Nothing like life in a palace, but nothing like the hardships which were to come.

By this time, Alexander's mistress, Barsine, may have been traveling with army as well, but she was a woman of royal birth And she was probably kept apart from the more common women. Born the daughter of a Persian satrap, she had been a proper wife to two Greek men and most probably would not have dined with men or attended the drinking parties where she would have known Thaïs. In the end she would bear a son to Alexander and be retired from court with his marriage to Roxanne while Thaïs would bear three children to Ptolemy and become a queen. Moira must have laughed.

The story is told by most ancient historians that it was at a banquet in the great palace of Xerxes at Persepolis that Thaïs suggested to Alexander that they burn it to the ground. The guests laughing and dancing through the halls with torches set it afire and reveled while it burned. It is such a dramatic scene that it has been related through the years as fact even though archaeological evidence proves that the burning of the palace was a carefully planned event. All the valuables in the palace had been removed before the fire was lit and some of the more difficult to move objects are still in place neatly stacked in the courtyard away from the flames. It was most certainly not done upon the momentary whim of Thaïs, but must have been prepared over the course of some days.

The burning of the palace of Xerxes was a symbolic event for it was he who had burned the Acropolis in Athens. Indeed, it may have been proceeded by a banquet in the halls which had already been prepared for destruction . Perhaps the honor of setting the first flame was given to Thaïs. a woman from Athens; it would be fitting. It is worthy of note that it is only the palace itself which was burned. The rest of the city was not. The act of vengeance for the whole world to see was neat and precise.

With the burning of the palace the court of Alexander with Ptolemy and Thaïs moved on. For the next 7 years Thaïs would accompany Ptolemy on a seemingly endless campaign through the deserts, mountains, and jungles which would be Alexander's empire. She would make the tents of war her home along with the conquering armies. She would endure extremes of heat and cold as she passed through the hinterlands of civilization seeing lands unheard of in Athens.She would spend years in the hostile and arid regions of Bactria and Sogdiana where she would be witness to the marriage of Alexander to Roxanne and see Barsine sent away from court with her as yet, unborn son, Herakles. The lesson would not be unnoticed by her.

She would cross the Himalayas down into the valley of the Indus and narrowly escape the horrors of the journey through the Makkran by the luck of accompanying Ptolemy as he took the elephants and women back up north across the Hindu Kush into what is now Afghanistan. She would be with Ptolemy when, At Alexander's command, he took a high born Persian wife. Thaïs would not be sent away as Barsine had been for by now, Ptolemy loved Thaïs and would for the rest of his long life. He would have 2 more dynastic marriages, but he would never stop loving and caring for Thaïs to the end of his days and beyond.

Thaïs was in Babylon on that day in June that Alexander died and the whole world changed forever. She was there through all the ensuing power struggles that plunged the world into hundreds of years of war more bloody than Alexander's campaigns.She would accompany Ptolemy into Egypt as the unofficial wife of the satrap and eventually become the queen consort of Egypt. Always unofficial due to her birth and background but queen in all but name. A carved stone has been uncovered and deciphered in Greece which commemorates a victory in a chariot race by the chariot of Ptolemy and Thaïs. In everything, Ptolemy never forgot to include and honor Thaïs. This could not be because of her power and station. She had no dynastic alliances or claims; he quite simply loved her.

The day must inevitably come when for important reasons of state Ptolemy must use a dynastic marriage to ensure the safety of Egypt and form a marriage alliance with another great power in the continuing battle for power over the world. Thaïs knew this and she may even have helped to plan it. By now she must have been secure in the love of Ptolemy. She was a woman in her 40s and long past the time of being a courtesan. Ptolemy chose to ally himself with Antipatros who was now satrap of Macedon and married his daughter, Eurydike. He had never seen her and never loved her; it was a marriage of convenience and no more than that. For the sake of propriety and to protect an international alliance Thaïs must be sent away from court after all these years and 3 children.

Ptolemy took steps to ensure that for the rest of her life Thaïs would enjoy the same station which she had enjoyed with him. Though he could not make her queen over Egypt, he could make her a queen. As a parting gift he gave her the city of Memphis, the old capitol, quite close to his capitol of Alexandria. She became officially the queen of Memphis. Thaïs was officially and legally a queen at last. The daughter of an Athenian prostitute, the courtesan who came to Asia as a paid companion was now queen of one of the oldest and greatest cities in the world, Memphis, and would be so as long as she lived.

There is in Memphis today a hieroglyphic relief which gives thanks to the queen, Thaïs, for her patronage. Though her name is clearly given as Thaïs, it is notably not enclosed in the royal cartouche which Ptolemy and his two royal wives would enjoy, Still, it says quite distinctly, Queen Thaïs. She died in Memphis, the queen she was.

Footnote:

Although she bore him 3 sons, Eurydike's marriage to Ptolemy did not last long. Ptolemy it seems, did not like the spiritless aristocratic girl from Macedon. She was the antithesis of Thaïs. Ptolemy repudiated the marriage and married Eurydike's aunt, Berenike, who became the queen of Egypt and the mother of the next king, Ptolemy II, but that is quite another tale.

Nothing is known of the lives of the children of Thaïs. One ancient author states only that,"they lived and prospered in Egypt." In all probability they were wealthy and far removed from the sordid abattoir which the house of Ptolemy was about to become.