Astronomy and Ideology in the Coma Berenices

Abstract

Berenice II dedicated a lock of her hair to all the gods in the temple of Arsinoe-Aphrodite on Cape Zephyrium for the safe return of Ptolemy III from the Laodicean War in Syria. Said temple had been established in honor of Arsinoe II by admiral Callicrates near the Canopic mouth of the Nile (ca. 270–268 BCE). While the queen’s action is usually understood as a gesture of personal devotion to her husband, it also carried a potently public, political, and religious message. The Alexandrian poet Callimachus composed an aetium in which he explained how after the ceremony the queen’s lock was carried off by a gentle breeze and placed among the stars as a new constellation, which the mathematician Conon subsequently discovered in the sky.

ἦ με Κόνων ἔβλεψεν ἐν ἠέρι τὸν Βερενίκης βόστρυχον ὃν κείνη πᾶσιν ἔθηκε θεοῖς

The astronomical data presented in this essay were calculated by Teije de Jong (Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek,” Amsterdam) and Mathieu Ossendrijver (Humboldt University, Berlin). This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France; avail. from http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/ (accessed March 2013–August 2014). Few classicist or historians can claim to be well versed in the scientific intricacies of astronomy, ancient or modern. I am therefore immensely grateful for their willingness to assist me on this project.