Berenice

Berenice, the name of several celebrated women of the house of Ptolemy, including (1) the wife of Ptolemy I., celebrated by Theocritus; the daughter of Ptolemy II.; and the wife of Ptolemy III. This last queen, during the king's wars in Asia, made a vow to offer her beautiful hair to the gods when her husband returned safely—a vow which she fulfilled. The hair was suspended in the temple of Aphrodite, from which, according to the fable, it was taken to form a constellation, Coma Berenices.—(2) BERENICE, also called Cleopatra, daughter of Ptolemy IX. (Lathyrus), was, on her succession to the throne, married to Alexander II., by whom she was murdered nineteen days after marriage.—(3) BERENICE, daughter of Ptolemy XI. (Auletes), eldest sister of the renowned Cleopatra, was raised to the throne after her father's deposition, 58 B.C., but was put to death when her father was restored, 55 B.C. She was first married to Seleucus, whom she caused to be put to death, and afterwards to Archelaus, who was put to death with her.—There were, besides, two Jewish Berenices—the one, daughter of Salome, sister of Herod the Great, and mother of Agrippa I.; the other, and more famous, was daughter of this latter monarch. She was three times married: her uncle, Herod, Prince of Chalcis, left her for the second time a widow, at the age of twenty; and she deserted her third husband to return to her brother, King Agrippa II., the same before whom Paul defended himself at Cæsarea. After the capture of Jerusalem, she went to Rome, and Titus, who was much in love with her, would have married her but for the opposition of the people. The intimacy of Berenice and Titus forms the subject of a tragedy by Racine.