Berenice - Definition and Overview

The name Berenice or Berenike is the Macedonian form of the Greek name Pherenike. It refers to:

• several Ptolemaic and Seleucid queens (see below) in Cyrenaica and Egypt,
• two Judean princesses (see below),
• the ancient Red Sea port Berenice or Berenice Troglodytica,
• the Libyan city of Benghazi which used to be called Berenice,
• Bérénice, a tragedy by the French dramatist Jean Racine,
• Berenice, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and
• Berenice 001 to 012, a series of French experimental rockets.

Ptolemaic and Seleucid queens

• Berenice I was the mother of Magas of Cyrene and bride of Ptolemy Soter.
• Berenice was the daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus and wife of the Seleucid monarch Antiochus II Theos.
• Berenice II was the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, and the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes.
• Berenice Cleopatra, daughter of Ptolemy X, married as her second husband Alexander II., grandson of Ptolemy VII. He murdered her three weeks afterwards.
• Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, eldest sister of the great Cleopatra. The Alexandrines placed her on the throne in succession to her father (58 B.C.). She married Seleucus Cybiosactes, but soon caused him to be slain, and married Archelaus, who had been made king of Comana in Pontus (or in Cappadocia) by Pompey. Auletes was restored and put both Berenice and Archelaus to death in 55 B.C.

Judean princesses

• Berenice, daughter of Salome Alexandra, sister of Herod the Great.
• Berenice, daughter of Agrippa I, king of Judaea.