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“While the inbreeding was meant to stabilize the family, it had a paradoxical effect. Succession became a perennial crisis for the Ptolemies, who exacerbated the matter with poisons and daggers. Intermarriage consolidated wealth and power but lent a meaning to sibling rivalry, all the more remarkable among relatives who routinely appended benevolent-sounding epithets to their titles.” — Stacy Schiff
While the inbreeding was meant to stabilize the family, it had a paradoxical effect. Succession became a perennial crisis for the Ptolemies, who exacerbated the matter with poisons and daggers. Intermarriage consolidated wealth and power but lent a meaning to sibling rivalry, all the more remarkable among relatives who routinely appended benevolent-sounding epithets to their titles.