Dates: about 164 BCE to about 121 BCE
Occupation: Queen of Syria (Phoenician Syria, Seleucids)
Known for: exercising power; image on a Greek coin; ancestor of Zenobia
Also known as: Cleopatra Thea Eueteria, "the other Cleopatra"
Background, Family:
- Father: Ptolemy VI Philometor
- Mother: Cleopatra II
Marriage, Children:
- Alexander I Balas (married about 150 BCE, marriage ended by Ptolemy VI about 147 BCE)
- son Antiochus IV
- Demetrius II Nicator (king of Syria; married about 146 BCE; marriage ended when he was capured by the king of Parthia in 138 BCE)
- son Seleucus V
- son Antiochus VIII Grypus
- possibly others, including daughter Laodice
- Antiochus VII Euergetes (married 138 BCE; death in battle about 162 BCE)
- son Antiochus IX
- possibly others: daughter Laodice, sons
- may have resumed marriage with Demetrius II
About Cleopatra Thea:
Cleopatra Thea may first have been promised in marriage to her uncle Ptolemy VIII. Her father married her to Alexander I who had defeated Demetrius I, and then left Alexander for Demetrius II, with her father's support for Demetrius' rule.
Cleopatra Thea ruled for her husband Demetrius while he was fighting against Parthia. The Parthians captured Demetrius who later marries Rodogune (Rhodogyne), daughter of Mithridates I of Partia.
When Antiochus VII took power, he married Cleopatra Thea. Cleopatra Thea ruled with Antiochus VII, then after his death as regent for her son Antiochus VIII.
Justin and other sources say that Antiochus VIII was responsible for her death by poison, according to some from a cup of poison she meant to give to him.
