by León, Vicki
In mainland Greece, the Spartans also engaged in royal incest; King Leonidas I, who led the heroic Spartan band at the battle of Thermopylae, took his niece Gorgo as wife.
Queen Nefertiti, the most recognized face in Egypt’s eighteenth dynasty, was of nonroyal blood. Nevertheless, her marriage to Akhenaten triggered a wave of dynastic incest.
Romans frowned on incest, considering it unacceptable and against the laws of gods and humans, but it wasn’t until A.D. 295 that they got around to passing a pair of laws making it illegal; one that applied to Roman citizens, and another for non-Romans in the empire. (In the entry on Emperor Titus and Berenice, you can also learn more about incest in the Herodian clan of Judaea.)
In the interim, various members of the imperial families may have dabbled (some might call it “waded”) in incestuous activity. Already mentioned elsewhere in this book are Caligula’s relationships with his sisters. Nero too was accused of intimacy with his mother Agrippina, the main power behind the throne during much of Nero’s reign. Agrippina also married her uncle Claudius—an act that required the Roman senate to pass a law allowing it.
The law wasn’t just for fancy folk. From that time on, any Roman could legally marry his brother’s daughter (which Agrippina was). It was, however, still a crime for Romans to marry their sister’s daughter.
Ankhesenamun of Egypt:
Loved her family, not sure about Grandpa
It’s not often that the quiet heroics of a woman, overshadowed by her too-famous kin, get recognized. It’s even less likely when the person in question lived approximately 3,359 years ago.
If you’ve heard of Ankhesenamun at all, it’s probably as the wife of household name Pharoah Tutankhamun, or as the daughter of Egypt’s only iconoclastic pharaoh, Akhenaten, and his dazzling queen with the blue turban, Nefertiti.
She was the middle sister in a family of six daughters—a circumstance that would soon lead to heartbreak. At her birth around 1348 B.C. she was called Ankhesenpaaten, “Living for Aten.” Aten was the sun god, the deity her dad and mom decided to worship after junking the rest of Egypt’s lineup of gods and goddesses.
As a toddler, she had a sunny childhood, growing up in the sparkling new city her parents had built along the banks of the Nile. Vibrant, almost casual bas-relief portraits of her close-knit family exist, very unlike the stiff and solemn presentations of other pharaohs and their families.
Being an Egyptian princess, however, meant being a royal breeder— especially if there were no princes. The right to rule ran through the female bloodline; all too soon, Ankhesenpaaten learned about “keeping it in the family.” Somewhere around her twelfth year, her mother vanished and she was obliged to marry her own father; a year or two later when her dad passed away, she wed her uncle Smenkhkare. These marriages were starkly real; she gave birth to an Ankhesenpaaten Junior, the baby’s paternity unknown as yet but probably sired by her own dad.
While a teen, still struggling from the losses of her father, mother, uncle, and at least one sister, Ankhesenpaaten now wed her half-brother Tutankhaten, who’d stepped up as pharaoh. He was about three years younger than she, but at least she had a spouse of her own generation. As a couple, they moved back to Thebes, diligently restoring the ancient religion their parents had tossed aside. As part of that process, they changed their names, deleting the reference to Aten worship. Tut became Tutankhamun, and she became Ankhesenamun—“Living for Amun.”
She had nearly ten years to love her boyish husband. Then once again, death came to the golden palace. Ankhesenamun might have been privileged, but she’d seen far too much death in her twenty-one years. Her brother-husband Tut died suddenly, barely eighteen or nineteen. Together, they had already shared the heartbreak of two baby girls, both stillborn.
Ankhesenamun endured Egyptian dynastic incest with successive marriages to her father, uncle, and half-brother. Finally she heroically rebelled against wedlock—this time with her own grandfather!
The glittering objects in Tutankhamun’s tomb have made the name “King Tut” famous although he was still a teen, married to his half-sister, when he died.
The marriages and deaths she’d had to endure haunted her, but the grieving widow feared the future even more. There was no one else, no male of the Amarna royal bloodline, to take the throne. But someone wanted it badly: Ay, her maternal grandfather. More than once, it crossed her mind that he may have had a hand in Tut’s death. A skulking figure, Ay had served as chief minister to the royal family for years. And he had a wife. But to legitimize his claim, he’d need the royal blood of Ankhesenamun.
In desperation, the young queen put aside her bereavement. She told herself, “Do something! You only have seventy days!” That was the time it would take to embalm her dead husband and prepare him for the afterlife. In attempting to break the stranglehold of consanguinity, of familial incest, she did a most astonishing and valiant thing. In her own way, she was as iconoclastic as her father, Akhenaten.
Quickly and secretly she prepared a letter, sending it off with a personal servant she could trust. He delivered it to one of Egypt’s long-standing enemies, the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, who read its lines with astonishment: “My husband died, and I have no sons. They say that your sons are plentiful. If you send me one of your sons, then he would become my husband. I do not wish to be forced to marry a servant. I am afraid.”
King Suppiluliuma was rendered speechless by the offer; his second reaction was wariness. Was she really the Great Royal Wife? What were the Egyptians trying to pull? Instead of answering immediately, he sent an ambassador to smoke out the truth; he came back from Egypt, saying that indeed the offer—and Ankhesenamun—were genuine. With him, he brought back a tablet with another letter from the queen, saying, “If a son existed for me, would I have written about the shame of myself and of my land to another land? You did not trust me. He who was my husband died. I have not written to any other land, I wrote to you! Give me one of your sons! To me he will be husband, but in the land of Egypt he will be king!”
By now Ankhesenamun was frantic.
Finally convinced, the Hittite king sprang into action, choosing his son Prince Zannaza and hastily throwing together wedding gifts and an elaborate entourage for their sendoff.
Too late: the sands in the hourglass of the young queen’s time ran out. Perhaps it was Ay’s men who murdered the young Hittite prince en route, or perhaps he met his death via the troops of Commander Horemheb, another aspirant to the pharoah’s throne.
By the time Tutankhamun was properly mummified, Ankhesenamun had been pushed against her will into marriage with her grandfather, Ay. He gave her a ring with their names on it, and then officiated at Tutankhamun’s funeral.
Ay would rule Egypt for four years, but Ankhesenamun soon disappeared from the records. When Ay died of old age, Horemheb, the nonroyal head of the army, promply declared himself king (not pharaoh) in 1321 B.C.
And King Suppiluliuma? Outraged over the murder of his son, the Hittite king sent his armies against several of Egypt’s territories. He captured many Egyptian prisoners, who carried a deadly weapon: the plague. It tore into Hittite country, eventually killing Suppiluliuma and his successor.
The particulars of Ankhesenamun’s amazing story are now confirmed via unearthed documents and artifacts. The letters she sent to the Hittite king were preserved in the Deeds of Suppiluliuma, a compendium of primary source documents. The ring Ay gave her at their wedding has been discovered. A well-preserved mural in an Egyptian tomb shows the upstart Ay performing the “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony for Tutankhamun, needed to ensure his happy afterlife.
There are still many what-ifs in Ankhesenamun’s tale; neither her burial site nor her mummy have been confirmed yet, although there are several candidates whose exact identities are still being sorted out.
Talk about things coming back to haunt us: the issue of consanguinity, once looked upon as an ancient strategy whereby rulers of Egypt and more recent r
egimes sought to retain their thrones, has become a modern moral dilemma. Children born from sperm and egg donors are now a significant percentage of the population. Each year in the United States alone, between 30,000 and 60,000 are born from sperm donors. As the first wave of these children have become adults, the chances of them meeting and mating become greater and greater. To date, there has not been complete transparency or reporting by either sperm banks, donors, or recipients.
And, as a 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal noted, “The cost of fibbing about fertility is going up. When the science isn’t straightforward, people have to be.”
Snake Adoration:
Healers, prophets, & bunkmates
Decade after decade, serpent phobia (along with fear of spiders) ranks in the top five fears and loathings of Americans. This is noteworthy, since we’ve modified our surroundings to the extent that the chances of running across an actual snake—other than one pancaked on the freeway—are exceedingly rare.
Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, thought highly of serpents. They had more relaxed attitudes about scaly wildlife and housekeeping styles, too. In those days, the temples, public buildings, and houses of everyone, including the most lah-di-dah, were easily accessible by members of the reptilian family.
Whenever a snake happened to glide into the kitchen of a Greek housewife, she was pleased by her “good luck” visitor and set out a saucer of milk. Sometimes she invited the snake in; snakes were and still are excellent predators of vermin, so there was common sense in this positive attitude.
Romans were even more effusive, painting a large snake as the guardian of the hearth on each family lararium or altar. The snake was a stand-in for the male head of household’s “genius,” which back then didn’t define dad’s IQ, merely his powers of procreation.
Beyond their roles as mousers, symbols of fatherly potency, and less cuddly substitutes for rabbit’s feet, snakes carried additional meaning. Serpents had prophetic qualities and healing powers. For instance, when Rome was afflicted by a plague in 293 B.C., the city got help fast when a good-sized specimen of Elaphe longissima longissima crawled off a ship and onto an island in the Tiber River. The helpful staff at the healing sanctuary in Epidaurus, Greece, had sent the six-foot-long serpent as a physician’s assistant of their healing god, Asclepius. In no time the snake had settled in, the plague had abated, and builders were at work, constructing a new temple for the Asclepius deity in herpetic form.
The city of Athens had similar heartwarming tales of a guardian snake at the Acropolis that was fed on honey cakes and was sage enough to skedaddle when everyone else did during the Persian invasion.
Other healing cults around Italy copied the success of Asclepius; at the temple of Bona Dea Subsaxana, for instance, female worshippers could hardly move without stepping on one of the harmless serpents underfoot.
About A.D. 150 the god Asclepius, clearly tired of all the attention lavished on his serpent stand-ins, changed from a deity in human form into a large snake with shaggy hair and primate ears. The only person to witness this transformation was a glib, good-looking, out-of-work prophet named Alex in the Black Sea town of Abonutichus. In short order, Alex founded an oracle, won an audience, and got credulous souls to chip in for a shrine and a daybed for the snake god, who wanted to be known as Glykon.
Alex and Glykon carried on oracling for thirty years, scoring several important prophetic hits. Although the cult had detractors, Alex had the goods to carry off the role. As he “channeled” Glykon’s messages, he often had seizures and drooled—excess saliva being a sure sign of divinity. Decades after the demise of both the snake and Alex, the oracle was still in operation. Even Emperor Marcus Aurelius sought oracle answers from the Glykon cult.
Two thousand years ago almost every man, woman, and child was savvy enough to distinguish poisonous serpents from harmless ones—called dracos or dracones—which often served as household pets. An elderly snake was a favorite of Emperor Tiberius, who fed it with his own hands until the aging slinky got so weak it was destroyed by ants. Dracos were often brought in to enliven smart dinner parties, slithering about amid the dining couches of fashionable ladies.
Given their remarkable acceptance in Greco-Roman society, it’s easy to see why long-ago snakes played a leading role in dreams, portents, legend building, and salacious celebrity gossip. The life story of Olympias, the fiery mom of Alexander the Great, is a case in point. She and her future husband Philip II of Macedon met at a mystery religion orgy on the Greek island of Samothrace. A cult priestess, Olympias handled serpents and wore them on her body as she danced by torchlight. Despite the involuntary retch this inspired in Philip, he fell for her. They made love, wed, and made a baby.
One evening, as Philip fondly peeked in on his new wife, he saw an immense snake lying next to Olympias as she slept. Instant libido loss on his part. Being a Macedonian ruler with multiple wife-visitation options, Philip kept mum but scratched Olympias off his nocturnal visit list.
In due course, Queen Olympias gave birth to Alexander, who from the get-go was a clearly superior boy. The marriage got stormier. Olympias took to drinking too much wine at dinner and had a regrettable tendency to impugn Philip’s paternal role by telling everyone about the night that Zeus took the form of a serpent and fathered her child.
Ancient cultures weren’t phobic about snakes. To them, certain reptiles had healing powers; that’s why Asclepius, god of healing, had a serpent companion.
Meanwhile, Philip sought counseling from the prophetic Pythia of the oracle at Delphi. The oracle warned that someday Philip would lose the eye with which he’d spied on his wife doing the nasty with a major god in snake form. And of course that is what transpired; in one of his endless battles, Philip caught an arrow in the face.
The Greeks and Romans’ awe of snakes is perhaps why one of their most powerful symbols for infinity was the ourobouros, a snake that held its tail in its own mouth. Serpents also representing healing and wisdom to the ancients, and we see traces of that today in the serpent-twined caduceus, the familiar medical symbol.
Teiresias the Seer:
Gender-bender & orgasm expert
The Greeks had unusual views about male and female sexuality, at times seeming indifferent to female orgasm—or at least avoiding such discussion. One orgasmic anecdote does appear in the delightful, thought-provoking stories about the enigmatic, shape-changing seer of long ago, Teiresias.
Greek poet Hesiod was one of many who told and retold the interlocking tales of this prophet-clairvoyant of Arcadia, a bucolic wooded region of Greece. As one of the tales went, young Teiresias happened to observe some snakes copulating and couldn’t resist teasing them. After wounding one snake with his walking staff, he found himself changed into a woman. (It was the goddess Hera’s doing; she was displeased by his Peeping Tom act regarding serpent sex.)
Well, this is interesting, Teiresias thought; before long he started dating, and eventually, making love with a man. Pretty soon he became a priestess, got married, had some kids. One of them, Manto, promised to be a darned good prophesy-spinner, like Teiresias himself.
After his transformation into a woman, seven years passed. Then Teiresias heard from Apollo himself, who said, “You know, if you want to return to your original gender, you just need to watch for more snakes copulating. Injure one of them, as before, and I promise, you’ll be a man again, my son.”
Teiresias followed Apollo’s advice, and sure enough, his transformation occurred just as the god said. He was wondering what on earth to say to his husband and children (who would no doubt be bewildered by his new manliness) when a racket erupted. It was that dysfunctional husband-and-wife team, Zeus and Hera, beginning one of their ferocious arguments.
Zeus claimed that women got a larger share of pleasure from lovemaking than men did, while Hera took the opposite tack. Since they couldn’t agree, they turned to the seer, since he’d now experienced both sides of the man/woman divide.
> “So, Teiresias—which is it?” demanded Hera, who seemed to have a lot of ego on the line.
Teiresias thought she’d be tickled with his answer. “Women enjoy nine-tenths of the pleasure,” he said, “and mortal men must be content with one-tenth.”
The queen of the gods dived at him, gouging out both of his eyes. Then she flounced off; at least, that’s what it sounded like to Teiresias.
According to one of the tales about Teiresias, when he saw snakes copulating he couldn’t resist teasing and wounding them. That ticked off the goddess Hera, who changed him into a woman.
Zeus hung his head. “I feel terrible,” he said.
Grimacing, Teiresias said, “You feel terrible? Try getting your eyes gouged out, and then get back to me.”
“I’m going to give you the gift of prophecy,” Zeus said. “It’s the least I can do. Oh, and instead of one lifetime, you can have seven.”
“What about my eyesight?” Teiresias asked.
“No can undo,” Zeus said, looking nervously over his shoulder for Hera.
“Tell me this. Why did Hera get so angry at my answer?”
Zeus shrugged. “You are mortal, and you just revealed one of our exclusive godly secrets. Can’t have everybody knowing about all that sexual pleasure that women are getting, can we now? Cheer up! You’re a clairvoyant with insight into the souls of men and women.”
That is merely one version of the story; another one has the seer blinded when he stumbles on a naked Athena, bathing.