Overly Sarcastic Podcast: The Ptolemies

[@jessl6523]

“He had an affair with... it was either a brother and sister or a man and his wife” ... well... it *could* be both?

[@kramhorse]

Brother and sister. Agathocles then his sister Agathoclea. THAT leads into an amazing and fucked up drama. A nice riot and human dismemberment

[@spookyshadowhawk6776]

@@kramhorse Sounds like West Virginia, yeehaw!

[@alasdeangel3929]

Sweet home Alabama!!

[@kevinsullivan3448]

It's pretty much any inner city culture. It's not like anyone actually knows who their daddy really is.

[@SingingSealRiana]

Nah, brother and sister marriage where Pharao exclusive

[@brennathompson3854]

Fun fact: No new DNA entered the Ptolemy family tree since Ptolemy V and Cleopatra I, and Cleopatra VII's inbreeding coefficient is 0.359. To put that into perspective, Reddit user amacaroon calculated the inbreeding coefficient of Daenerys Targaryen at 0.375. Both are higher than Charles II "I can barely function" of Spain at 0.254.

[@PhoenixFireZero]

What does this entail?

[@guestguest4881]

They should have been INCREDIBLY deformed and crazy

[@lagggoat7170]

Well if you have enough children and all the deformed ones die (like it often happened prior to modern medicine) there can still be children born who are ok-ish. The possibility for deformities is higher but it isn´t at 100 %.

[@VT-mw2zb]

Guest Guest for all we know the Ptolemies weren't very disfigured or crazy. They were a bit obese and had some obesity-related diseases, but that's all.

[@noahjohnson935]

Brenna Thompson new DNA entered with Caesar when him and Cleopatra VII had an affair, they had a son

[@smileyface81mc77]

You know it’s bad when the lines in the family tree start going diagonal.

[@ajaychaturvedi5757]

Halp sksksks

[@Medea144]

Omg fair!!!

[@tyrant-den884]

Playing a CK3 game where I made an equal gender polygamist religion. The computer will marry sons to step-mothers, daughters to step-fathers, then those kids back around. The family tree graphics are not made to handle it.

[@GhostBear3067]

Diagonal and BACKWARDS!!

[@Ace-ace-baby]

Yes you do know

[@TheDakkaman]

The Ptolemies didn’t have a gene “pool”. They had a gene shot glass.

[@AnimeSunglasses]

Which they apparently pounded every Friday night, too...

[@Syryu]

I don't know what's funnier: -The insane amount of incest, murder, and debauchery -The fact that this "glorious" dynasty could only settle on two names for their heirs Or -Blue's "This must be what going mad feels like" tone all throughout the video.

[@AceNinjaViking]

After that much incest, it was probably a case of, "It's a girl!" "...Mom, what's your name again?" "Uhhhh... Cleopatra, I think...." "Just do that then." It's all very 'Idiocracy', I think. XD

[@Christobix]

@@AceNinjaViking The person asking after their own mother's name is obviously the baby girl's mother, who is, of course, _also_ named Cleopatra.

[@felissylvestris6557]

No no the girls were also called arsinoe and berenice so there's that

[@muixc]

That's not a family tree. That's a family pretzel.

[@christianmoralesortiz4688]

Lavender PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTT LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO ROFLAO YOU EARNED YOURSELF POINTS FOR THAT!!!!!!!!!XD

[@emileblackwood8338]

LMFAO

[@Outlaw8908]

My... sides.... they are gone....

[@kokuyokukuroyuki8776]

One of these days...I'm going to quote you...

[@SvenniTayivek]

It's a family tumbleweed

[@alanepithet2931]

Blue's voice during this entire thing... you can hear his utter confusion, shock, and general nervousness talking about it. Like 'look at this insane mess'. And it was insane. And glorious. Sometimes history is weirder than fiction.

[@claypigeon7063]

*+Al* It's not just history - reality is stranger than fiction 100% of the time. If fiction clashes with our definition of reality, than fiction got it wrong and needs to try again. If reality clashes with our definition of reality, than WE got it wrong and need to go back to the drawing board.

[@baszko6152]

@@claypigeon7063 Thats why argument that something in someone writing or other property of fiction is Bullshit is bullshit in itself. I mean there is genuine bulshit BUT at times likes this let's look at history and say eeeh could have happend.

[@DaDunge]

It's because his teacher, probably to push some false narrative about monarchy, failed to equp him with an understanding what marriage meant for pharaohs in Egypt. Egyptian Pharaos were the divine couple with their queens, they were married as a religious ceremony, they weren't married in the sense we use the word.

[@alanepithet2931]

@@DaDunge I don't think the whole 'incest' thing (and despite the trappings of ceremony, it *was* incest. Ptolemy the 3rd was born of the union of the 2nd and his sister.) is the only issue. Don't forget the whole 'murdering his mother and sisters' thing the 3rd did. Or the polygamous incestuous *thing* with Ptolemy the 8th. The one that didn't end when he murdered his nephew-brother as a baby and dismembered it.

[@DaDunge]

@@alanepithet2931 Oh I am sure some of them actually did have kids with their wives, but it was the exceptions not the rule.

[@DarkTider]

So, Ptolemy married Cleopatra, got it!

[@GhostBear3067]

Rinse, repeat, catastrophe

[@Maninawig]

One married two of em

[@Vera_Nova]

Repeat ad nauseum

[@07ipa3_igstagungratudjenar5]

@@Maninawig so let's just say he married cleotpatras

[@cmdrblaze6487]

Blue: so this ptolemy married cleopatra Me: which cleopatra? Blue: yes

[@112steinway]

"I found a bust of Ptolemy!" Do you have ANY idea how little that narrows it down?

[@TheTrainmobile]

Ptolemy VIII: I'm going to marry my wife's daughter, who is technically my niece. **Sweet Home Alexandria intensifies**

[@richfiles]

*_Sweet Home Alexandria_* has got me rollin' on the floor! XD

[@T_Kelso]

His double niece...

[@pascalcwilson]

Family issues, and inbreeding. It's the Egyptian Game of Thrones. Game of Tombs.

[@greenergrass4060]

Game of wombs

[@catrinacorbett1579]

yesssss

[@tntkff9901]

... I would watch that...

[@kingpotato7183]

Game of wombs

[@fang609]

Aegon Targaryen the first is pretty much Cleopatra the second, only he married his sister's, concord a hole content (except one country),cared about his family and even though he had a small army and ship's he had 3 Dragons.

[@KayLithyn]

Literally almost everything else in history makes more sense than the Ptolemies. Seriously, three generations and you get ten Ptolemies and five Cleopatras. Just...why?

[@requiem6465]

And I thought the Habsburgs were bad.

[@daisygowanditchburn4844]

Seems that you had to be a ptolomy of Cleopatra. Even if you were from outside you had to change your name.... It is almost like if you couldn't be an incestuous partner you at least had to pretend to be.

[@sauron1427]

the final count is actually 14 ptolemys and 7 cleopatras (the 7th being the famous one). And there is incest throughout, even after the ones covered in the video. jeez.

[@donaldreynolds6857]

I would hate to be the guy who sorts the palace mail.

[@martonlerant5672]

​@@donaldreynolds6857 Can't agree more. Its one thing that they fuck each other. The damned bastards have all the same name just to spite everyone. Not to mention stuff like shredded offspring coming in the mail - that is not something the mail guy should need to ever deal with..

[@danielutzon4870]

Keeping up with the cleopatras

[@danielutzon4870]

Dude... im aware. Cleopatras just sounded better

[@danieloceansmith3156]

Daniel Utzon my only question... Were they just looking for people with the name cleopatra to date? Like at some point you gotta wonder if there was a prophecy about the greatest beauty being cleopatra and they took that as every woman named cleopatra was worth bonin

[@agamingboi2343]

@@danieloceansmith3156 I believe the two Celopatra that Ptolemy the 9th both married are also HIS SISTERS and PTOLEMY THE TENTH'S SISTERS in which Ptolemy the tenth married one of them.

[@arandomcomment1092]

Officially made the likes to a thousand

[@DjDevie]

Aaaaaahahahahahahaha

[@MisterMagic562]

I love that Blue clearly sounds like he just got back from class, sat down, and went “I need to talk about this”.

[@NineSun001]

Because this is what happend and he specifically stated in the beginning of the video...

[@mrtrollnator123]

Because that's what literally happened...?

[@9foxgrl15]

This was his venting session

[@StrikaAmaru]

I went and googled "ptolemaic egypt family tree" Ye flipping gods. It's a braid. It's the Ptolemaic family braid.

[@JaelinBezel]

Yeah, it probably looks like one of those celtic braids.

[@WHATTHEHELL666]

@@JaelinBezel It looks like one French braid./srs

[@Yora21]

I just looked up the family tree and it's actually getting SO much worse after where the video ended. Ptolemy 9 and 10 is where the insanity goes off the charts. Ptolemy 9 and 10 and Cleopatra 4 and 5 were all siblings. After Ptolemy 9 dies, Ptolemy 10 does not only marry Cleopatra 5, but also the daughter of Cleopatra 5 and Ptolemy 9, Berenice, with which he has a daughter called Cleopatra 6. That Cleopatra 6 marries Ptolemy 12, who is the son of Ptolemy 9 from his first marriage to Cleopatra 4. And these are the parents of THE Cleopatra who had kids with Julius Ceasar and Mark Anthony (while also having been married to both her brothers). There's also a Ptolemy 11 in there. If the official records are correct (which I somewhat doubt), there was no adding of new genes after Ptolemy 5 and Cleopatra 1. The recods say that from there on it was always marrying sisters and nieces.

[@fabianhale845]

Yora Ptolemy IX did not die yet. He outlived Ptolemy X. And Berenike III was the daughter of Ptolemy IX and Kleopatra Selene I (who is mistakenly identified as Kleopatra V in the video.).

[@l.tc.5032]

So the Cleopatra was the first one in generation s to finally get some new blood in the gene pool. Well good for her I guess.

[@martonlerant5672]

Poor king tut had also a pretty similar (dis)functional family - you know the pharoh whos tomb was not robbed before the europeans. Funny thing is all the linear breading was fine till his granddad married out, introduced some recessive genes into his kids, who managed to pair two copies, and have tut... THe interesting thing is not that they survived, i man if they would have died out, they would have died out in the first few generations. Its how much they mishandled egypt.

[@maddocpax788]

You researched and posted what was left out. This may be the single best comment I've ever read on youtube.

[@timothymclean]

Wait, they named someone something other than Ptolemy of Cleopatra? What is this madness?!?

[@JuFated]

This is literally HELLO MY BROTHER AND OR UNCLE AND OR HUSBAND

[@christianmoralesortiz4688]

Juu Ju YAAASSS!!!!!!XD

[@catfoy8888]

or all of the above

[@bloodstoneore4630]

Zeus to aphrodite: hello daughter and/or auntie

[@zubinjain8675]

BRONCLEBAND

[@thepaintpad9817]

Hello, brunksband.

[@ckirkaldy8884]

This is why my Western Civilizations class was opened up by my instructor with the question "are you ready to learn some messed up stuff?" Good times!

[@hades2596]

Your Western Civ class started with the Ptolemies? Man, that's a really interesting place to start a semester.

[@ckirkaldy8884]

OSP Blue No it started in a pretty normal place, but there was some pretty interesting stuff to be teaching a bunch of high school seniors in the South. Lysistrata? Whoa my parents had a field day when they saw that on my syllabus!

[@swannbenziane7880]

How the fuck do they define western civilization, I mean it's never been well defined.

[@galacticbluejay36]

@Axiom Steel26 probably because of Egypt's foreign entanglements with Greece, Macedon, and Rome and the Hellenization of their culture that occured as a result of Alexander's conquests. Throw in some caesar/Cleopatra baby drama and its hard not to talk about Egypt a little bit unless you wanna totally ignore the context Cleopatra was situated in historically. A similar thing occurs when you look at 20th century American history and get whole sections on Japan. When nations (even culturally disparate ones) are heavily entangled with one another it becomes hard to talk about one without mentioning the other. You CAN. But only by sacrificing much needed context at the micro level.

[@afrothekobold]

"Where's the chart" is never a good thing to hear when talking about a family tree

[@diamondinthesky4771]

"Congratulations my lord, you have a son! What shall we name him?" "Ptolemy." "Wonderful name! Huh? Oh look, twins! Twin boys!" "Name the other one Ptolemy too."

[@kylewilson2819]

So...Ptolemy 1 and Ptolemy 2?

[@felbarashla]

Remember those are their king names. Phaoroahs had like, 5 names so when they took the throne they would take the name Ptolemy (insert number here).

[@prestonjones1653]

@@kylewilson2819 No, 6 and 8. What happened to 7? Who knows! EDIT: Nevermind I just got to that pary

[@SerunaXI]

Egypt was ruled by hicks, and it was glorious.

[@myohmy9000]

"I'm a little bit crazy right now because I'm crazy" 10/10 most legit crazy quote

[@papajohnloki]

Incest - a game the whole family can play.

[@kiddo6393]

papajohnloki It's a family affair

[@cwovictor3281]

It's a Family Feud!

[@JeanLucCaptain]

Insert star wars meme HERE.

[@kiddo6393]

Jean-Luc Martel Don't do it IT'S A TRAP

[@JeanLucCaptain]

Luke + LIEA FOREVER

[@willherondale6367]

Blue: *says greek word* Blue: "that means something in greek"

[@abhinavtiku4501]

So, let me get this straight. Ptolemy VIII married his sister, Cleopatra II, who was previously married to their brother, Ptolemy VI, who fathered Cleopatra III, who then married Ptolemy VIII? So, in effect, Ptolemy VIII made his step-daughter/niece also his wife??? And this understandably enraged his sister, who was also his wife (and technically his mother-in-law)???? Yeah, I need to sit down.

[@WildFyreful]

"Alexander dies drunk at a party -- and then *THIS* [bleep] happens! NO!" I always come back to this video just to enjoy your bewildered, very comedic shock.

[@thebalkanking4712]

You know, I knew that some of the dynasties of the ancient world were messed up but this is just ridiculous.

[@hades2596]

For sure, the Borgias don't have anything in the Ptolemies

[@ryannfolmar3371]

The BalkanKing oh man besides the first 3 generations of them which were great leaders and people, the rest of the family were fucking insane, murderers of there own family. Greedy as could be. Probably the worst monarch of all time. Can't think of which family but a Roman one was hot on there heels for second place.

[@Zajin13]

That's so Habsburgian.

[@poilboiler]

It's not a proper royal family tree if it's not shaped like the trunk.

[@HistoryNerd808]

Ryann Folmar Are you thinking of the Julio-Claudians? The one with Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero

[@larabraticic5024]

Your voice pretty much tells what a huge mess that whole family really was. I so loved it. To portrait such a dissfunctional family in such a way that we can understand it is awesome. You were awesome.

[@nighty7913]

this is like a bad soap opera and i love it

[@red1964]

+hyacinthoide As the BBC so ably proved in the early 1980s. It was supposed to be another I Claudius but...no, it wasn't.

[@peccantis]

A great soap opera where every guy is named Ricardo Jimenez and every gal is named Estrella Lopez.

[@jeffgalus8454]

nighty I know right

[@colorado1164]

Cleopatra: who are you sleeping with? Ptolemy: No it isn't me! It is my twin brother Ptolemy! Cleopatra: then who is he sleeping with? Ptolemy: our sister, cleopatra

[@mrarmaggedon31415926]

I once wrote up this whole geneology from ptolemy V-XII in a long rambling post. It got weird. Ptolemy V married Cleopatra I and had three children: Ptolemy VI (a.k.a. mother lover), Ptolemy VIII (a.k.a. the fat), and Cleopatra II. Ptolemy VI married Cleopatra II and had 5 children including Cleopatra III and Ptolemy VII who, despite the regnal name, probably never took the throne. Ptolemy VIII ruled along side Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra II although he had them deposed and exiled but that only lasted about a year and Ptolemy VI and his sister/wife took the throne back and held it for 20 years without killing Ptolemy VIII so everything was cool. Following Ptolemy VI's death, Ptolemy VIII took Egypt, and his sister/wife Cleopatra II. Now, Ptolemy VIII was not one for sloppy seconds and it is believed that he only married Cleopatra II to be able to marry her daughter Cleopatra III (his daughter by marriage and neice by blood) who was estimated between 10 and 15 at the time, once she was old enough (this was 6 years later so in the 16-21 range and Ptolemy VIII was at least in his late 40's). Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III went on to have 5 children including Ptolemys IX and X, Cleopatra IV, Cleopatra Selene, and Tryphaena; you know she won't pop up again because her name is different. Aaaanyway, Cleopatra II got butthurt that her brother/husband married her daughter and didn't even have the decency to divorce her first, so she exiled Ptolemy VIII (6 years after the marriage to Cleopatra III though) and they made up again 15 years later so it's all G. In the mean time Egypt was ruled by Cleopatra II - the first Cleopatra to rule in her own right - who passed the throne to her daughter Cleopatra III when she died. Cleopatra III ruled jointly with her eldest son Ptolemy IX (chickpea) who, in grand ptolemaic fashion, married his sister Cleopatra IV. Clearly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of sisterfucking, Cleopatra III ordered Ptolemy IX to divorce his sister and instead marry … his sister Cleopatra Selene. FFS. Cleopatra IV saw the writing on the wall and fled to Cyprus, an other country entirely, and married Antiochus the IX (the pious, the Cyzican) - totally unrelated guy. He was Seleucid, not Ptolemaic. Although, come to think of it, Cleopatra I was a seleucid princess, and Antioch IX's mother was Cleopatra Thea, who was the sister Cleopatra III, meaning that Cleopatra IV was Antioch IX's first cousin. #winning. Keeping it in the family though, Antioch IX's brother, Antioch VIII (the hook nosed) was actually married to Tryphaena, Cleopatra IV's sister. By the basic properties of sisterfuckery this means that they too were first cousins. Long story short the two Antiochus had it out but it was all fine, but then Tryphaena wanted Cleopatra IV dead so she made that shit happen in the sanctuary of Daphne for added dramatic effect. Cliffhanger spin-off: Cleopatra Selene (the one Cleopatra III made Ptolemy IX divorce his OTHER sister for) goes on to marry I. SHIT. THEE. NAY. Antiochus VIII when Tryphaena died, Antiochus IX when VIII died, and then Antiochus X (also the pious, but not Cyzican) after that, who, as it turns out, may actually have been Cleopatra IV's son all along from her marriage to Antiochus VIII. So some nice aunt-banging there, Jon Snow would be proud. With him she popped out Antiochus the XIII so the line of sisterbanging wouldn't shrivel up. But all of this of course occurs after Cleopatra Selene's arranged marriage to her brother Ptolemy IX. For those keeping score, Ptolemy IX had five or six children, including Berenice III and two unnamed sons by Cleopatra Selene as well as Ptolemy XII (the flautist) and Ptolemy of Cyprus although they were likely by concubines. It is unknown whether he fathered Cleopatra V with a concubine or whether she was Ptolemy X's daughter with his niece Berenice III but more on that later. Now, Ptolemy IX is ousted by his mother in 110 BC in favour of his brother Ptolemy X who ALSO marries their mutual sister Cleopatra Selene. presumably this left Ptolemy IX with blue balls so a year later in 109 BC he deposed his brother and retook the throne sharing it with mummy dearest. Ptolemy X misses the way the throne feels on his ass so in 107 BC he rolls his brother yet again. Cleopatra III doesn't much seem to care who sits on the throne as long as it's in her lap, so Ptolemy X has her offed in 101 BC and ruled with his wife Bernice III, who was, of course, the daughter of his brother Ptolemy IX and their shared sister/wife Cleopatra Selene, so niece by both parents … that's gotta be a record somewhere. Ptolemy X winds up getting exiled 12 years after his matricide and comes back with a mercenary army, to pay for which he melted down Alexander the Great's golden sarcophagus. This proved so popular with the locals that he also set the record for fastest re-exile in history. He died in the desert and the throne went back to Ptolemy IX. For the score keepers: that's 3 turns for Ptolemy X and 4 turns for Ptolemy IX When Ptolemy IX died the family tree was looking a bit sparse and Berenice III, widow of Ptolemy X takes over. But it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of Egypt, must be in want of a brother/husband. Sadly, the brother pickings were slim so she settled for Ptolemy XI, her step-son and half-brother and first cousin through her ex-uncle/husband Ptolemy X's first marriage to her mother Cleopatra Selene (recap: this being Cleopatra Selene's second marriage of 5 - two of which were to her brothers, two to her first cousins, and one to the son of one of the aforementioned cousins and her sister) For the record, though, Berenice III did have brothers, but the only one to make it into the history books (and thus probably to make it to adulthood) was Ptolemy XII (the flautist). Sadly for Bernice III he married Cleopatra V, who was either Berenice III and Ptolemy X's daughter (making her Ptolemy XII's niece and first cousin) or Cleopatra V was Ptolemy IX's daughter making her Ptolemy XII's half-sister. Nevertheless, the gods do not look kindly on an absence of brother-ploughing and Berenice III was assassintated by her husband 19 days later. But the gods also don't look kindly on mother/sister/cousin murderers so he was lynched 17 days later. The next pharaoh on the throne was Ptolemy XII (the flautist) who MAY have been Cleopatra IV's son or Cleopatra Selene's or born to a random woman, but in any case was Ptolemy IX's child … or maybe Ptolemy X's. Decades of inbreeding resulted in this alcoholic fucktard to largely let Egypt fall to Roman influence to keep his ass on the throne but if a man's worth is to be measured in the bangable sisters he sires and inbred sons he puts on the throne then Ptolemy XII is truly an inbred god among men.

[@PeterEmrys]

Bravo and I hope you are enjoying the asylum you are in after typing that out

[@michalschroeder2187]

Wow

[@dapwproductions8630]

I- dear god this makes fucked up hentai seemed like a joke

[@ilikedinosaurs392]

Oh wow.. You know a lot about this

[@mrarmaggedon31415926]

@@ilikedinosaurs392 nope, wikipedia does - I just collated it

[@Moonstar79]

"She had a son with, uh, what was his name.... uh, Ptolemy!" You seriously forgot-

[@ciphergacha9100]

Hey be fair he was reciting the yakkos world of family trees

[@Hypn0sef]

I can actually (unfortunately) trace my ancestry to the Ptolemies and have it all mapped out on a family tree, it's pretty gross.

[@preuensgloria8725]

So you can trace back your family tree to ancient egypt? All the messed up incest aside, that's actually quite impressive

[@Hypn0sef]

thanks! it was a few years of genealogy work

[@kiddo6393]

Joe F Please tell me you don't have siblings

[@Hypn0sef]

just a niece ;)

[@Hypn0sef]

sorry i had to lol

[@nohbuddy1]

They couldn't just name them Bob or something

[@HUNdAntae]

...and there you go: Bob's your uncle(and your brother-husband).

[@Borderose]

Bob...unaga?

[@felbarashla]

I mean, they aren’t the only ones who did this. Look at Georgian England. It’s called that because they had King George I, King George II, King George III, and King George IV.

[@ophie71]

Bob l Bob ll Bob lll Bob lV and so on and so forth

[@shingshongshamalama]

I think the best bit is that there's just two random strangers also named Cleopatra who just fucking conveniently show up to marry into this clusterfuck of a family.

[@fabianhale845]

If you mean Kleopatra IV and V they were the sisters of Ptolemy IX and X.

[@kidagirl99]

I love that you can hear when Blue looks down at his notes and is just... baffled.

[@talos111]

"Lover of Father" Me: "so basically an Oedipus complex for the father? eugh." "known for killing is mother and brothers" Me: "NOT SURE IF THATS ANY BETTER"

[@ukaszkaminski4405]

"Two wives one king" the new sitcom

[@amehak1922]

Chips Master ditto

[@kevinsullivan3448]

A new musical, The King and I and my Daughter.

[@phastinemoon]

No, it’s the new Internet meme-gross out video

[@amehak1922]

Sounds much better than 2 Girls, One Cup. P/s if you don't know what that is, I strongly insist that you DON'T EVER look it up. Ignorance is bliss.

[@KTChamberlain]

Ah, the Ptolemies: One of the historical influences behind the Targaryens from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire aka Game of Thrones.

[@matthewmuir8884]

I thought he got the Targaryens from Ancient Egyptian monarchy as a whole. I mean, it was generations of stuff like this that brought about Akenaton: the Pharaoh that nearly killed Egypt, and whose statues depict him with a head shaped like an upside-down bowling pin.

[@fabianhale845]

+Matthew St. Cyr Akhenaten wasn't born out if incest.

[@matthewmuir8884]

Not directly, but there was incest a number of times in the generations prior to his if I recall correctly.

[@SantomPh]

the Ptolemies were carrying on Egyptian traditions so it counts. The Targaryen histories however read like a retelling of Ptolemy's families at times.

[@semiautothanoscar9612]

I thought they were Habsburgs

[@Joey-pb6ul]

So what I got from this was every male in egypt was called Ptolemy and every woman was called Cleopatra

[@khem127]

That was only the foreign Greco-Macedonian ruling class.

[@reneedailey1696]

This is specifically about the Greek Ptolemies who ruled Egypt.

[@Theturtleowl]

Even Zeus would be like: You have to draw the line somewhere.

[@robinchesterfield42]

.....eeehhhh...have you SEEN how inbred the Greek gods (actually, most pantheons) are? Not sure about that...There was an awful lot of brother-sister action and they were _all_ descended from a mother and her son, that being the only male that existed at the time. So...

[@Halinspark]

"Had an affair with either a brother and sister, or a husband and wife." Are we sure it wasn't both?

[@SingingSealRiana]

Unlikely, incest was not an ok thing in egypt in general, only fot the pharaoline decending from the gods

[@Shuru10]

This seems like Hamlet gone REALLY WRONG.

[@The_Nocturnal_Raven]

Shuru10 Your profile pic was my reaction to this... XD

[@willherondale6367]

Okay but Hamlet gone wrong is also just Hamlet

[@BeijingNoodle]

This reminds me of Galavant: " Out family tree only goes up! No branches!"

[@weldonwin]

Or Babylon 5 and the Centauri chamberlain saying "Well, when you trim the family tree down to a family bush, you can't hide as much under it"

[@robinchesterfield42]

@@weldonwin HA! That is _exactly_ the quote all this keeps reminding me of! XD

[@finna7824]

I love how not once did he say that incest was wrong, just that it was weird.

[@deadaccount2968]

Technically speaking, incest isn't "wrong", but it's not a good thing. It was also a different time, so there's that too.

[@daughter-of-loki1062]

Because that should be obvious.

[@louisdavidgaumont]

It's not the place of a historian to judge the values of ancient societies....

[@Hypn0sef]

he does a very fine job of separating himself from ethnocentrism, as all historians and anthropologists must attempt to do

[@deadaccount2968]

You're right, but I never said or implied that incest is only a brother/sister thing.

[@Formoka]

I'm surprised Blue was ever able to make other videos when his brain clearly died in this one.

[@michaelibrahim9275]

This seems like the kind of history you would explain to your friends when you’re drunk while simultaneously trying to keep their attention

[@fabianhale845]

14:30-14:43 This other woman named Cleopatra IV was actually Ptolemy IX's middle or older sister/wife. But before he was crowned king (or maybe shortly after), their mother divorced them and forced him to marry his youngest sister, Cleopatra Selene I, whom you identified here as Cleopatra V. Cleopatra IV fled and sought military help from their Seleucid relatives in Syria (namely Antiochus IX, her maternal cousin and eventual husband) and tried to invade Egypt, but she was killed by her older sister Cleopatra Tryphaena who was queen of Syria at the time. And Ptolemy IX doesn't die yet (14:40). As a matter of fact he outlived his brother Ptolemy X by eight years. Ptolemy IX was driven out of Egypt by his brother and mother, and afterwards, Cleopatra Selene was married off to their cousin (and Tryphaena’s widower) Antiochus VIII of Syria so Ptolemy X could marry Cleopatra Berenike III, who was the daughter of his brother, Ptolemy IX. Cleopatra III and Ptolemy X died (the former by the hand of the latter, who is then killed after fleeing a rebellion in Alexandria), and so Ptolemy IX returned to Egypt and co-ruled with his daughter. I understand how this is confusing.

[@starfyre59]

wat

[@jamiemohan2049]

Confusing but so interesting. Bunch of mad bastards who were so casual about their incest and murdering.😂😂😂😂😂

[@alexestler8521]

Were Petolomy and Cleopatra the only names in Egypt??? Some very unoriginal parents there.

[@fabianhale845]

There was also Arsinoe and Berenike.

[@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing]

Beats Ashley & Tyler. I'm looking at you, parents of millennials.

[@frenchguitarguy1091]

Actually these are Greek names, but I’m guessing that after all the incest the Ptolemaioi weren’t able to think of anything more creative

[@DavidbarZeus1]

@@frenchguitarguy1091 Then explain how Cleopatra VII was such a politically brilliant ruler, if you can

[@geofff.3343]

@@DavidbarZeus1 I'm just going to assume that there's a point where you can just incest through the stupid and come back around to smart. The genes are just like, "EFF IT! We're so scrambled we can't even function." but somehow you just keep recombining them until they just Todd Howard or something.

[@leoryff979]

Jeez, and people think the British Royal family had some messed up marriages.

[@weldonwin]

Where do you think they and all the other messed up royal dynasties get it from? Everyone from the middle ages on down had it in their heads that they had divine blood in them and that they had to keep that blood 'pure' so while they didn't (hardly ever ever EVER we swear) bang their own direct siblings or children, cousins were fair game.

[@weldonwin]

@Emily Barclay To quote Babylon 5 regarding the Centauri royal family and specifically the batshit insane Emperor Cartagia "When you prune the family tree down to a family bush, you can't hide much under it"

[@weldonwin]

@Emily Barclay And worse is when those abnormalities are considered prestigious, that having the aforementioned blood disease shows that one is related to a certain bloodline and so they ironically become a sign of "Good Breeding"

[@tairneanaich]

This is my area of study at uni right now I’m so happy you’ve found our cauldron of WEIRD- None of us is sane studying them at this point

[@VivaLaDnDLogs]

I feel like someone at some point should have said something.... You know, like, "DON'T MARRY YOUR STEPDAUGHTER, AKA YOUR NIECE AND HER MOTHER, AKA YOUR SISTER." But yeah, honestly, how *did* we get Cleopatra from this mess?

[@williamchamberlain2263]

The milkman

[@ToxicSunrise132]

She won the genetics lottery

[@graceneilitz7661]

Mistresses probably mothered some of the kids.

[@jasonbelstone3427]

"So... Where's the chart?" Oh, boy. Ooooh, boy.

[@CDexie]

The closest that we'll ever see Blue to drunk.

[@strangecontent9417]

Reunions must be crazy for this family

[@rymdalkis]

Just small family gatherings

[@aubreyackermann8432]

Imagine explaining who people are to the kids... "there's Ptolemy, Ptolemy, Ptolemy, Cleopatra, and Cleopatra! Cleopatra on the right is your first cousin, third cousin, aunt, step-mom, and sister! Her husband, the Ptolemy by the BBQ, is your father, half brother, cousin, uncle, grandfather, and - oh Ptolemy, look! It's Ptolemy! I haven't seen my father uncle cousin brother in years! Go say hi to uncle cousin Ptolemy while I go see cousin uncle Ptolemy!"

[@katinthegetto2916]

Hello Strange they are all dead by the end Except Cleopatra II

[@wesleypatterson2989]

"So are you my uncle or my dad?" "Yes!"

[@weldonwin]

"Hi, I'm cousin Narses, I'd like you to meet my sister and my wife" "There's only one woman there"

[@fenris5932]

As the old and weird saying goes: "One wife and you're happy, two and they'll hate each other, three and they'll hate you"

[@eliassartorius2674]

When you’re step father, uncle and husband to the same person

[@fabianhale845]

10:57 This image does depict Ptolemy VIII, but the female figures there are goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, not his wife and sister.. But the next image is of the king and his niece/wife and his sister/ex-wife.

[@caos1925]

my big question is how were they so unoriginal at names?

[@Yora21]

Have you looked at the list of the Kings of Denmark of the last 500 years?

[@SantomPh]

the Ptolemies believed that they had to pass on the names.

[@wadespencer3623]

Back then there were no last names (depending on region), so you just stuck with the same first one over and over so people knew what family you were from in an instant.

[@peccantis]

Greeks at those times had way different values. Especially with dynasties you pm only had a family name (hence all the Ptolemaioi) and if you lived to become relevant you'd be known by a nickname, hence "Ptolemaios, the fat one" and "Ptolemaios, the mother-loving one". Women were considered pm just autonomous incubators who could speak so no wonder half of them were called "father's glory" before marriage and after that often just "Missus So-and-so".

[@yanicmaurer6669]

Still more original than the romans. First boy gets the name of his father, second boy maybe the name of his grandfather and after that you just numbre them. Quintus means the fifth for example.

[@jamestown8398]

Alexander had an heir ... but one of his generals murdered the son in order to hold onto his own power.

[@nicholasroberts8378]

Jamestown Well in his defence it was nothing more than your average baby killing in a normal game of Crusader kings 2. Like Alexander's son wasn't even born when he died but he was killed in a war to see who would be his guardian I believe.

[@jamestown8398]

That still caused what should have been a long-lived empire to collapse overnight.

[@SantomPh]

Alexander held together his empire by force of will but with no real bureaucracy or delegation of power. The Persians he defeated ironically stood back up and emerged as the Seleucid, Parthians , Sassanids etc because they could go back to their established systems of governance. Alexander would have faced rebellions eventually from his subjects as he was a conqueror, not quite a ruler. His son would have faced the same issues and the empire would have collapsed eventually. The Diadochi fighting over the kingship would have been an inevitability in any case

[@jamestown8398]

Actually, Alexander WAS thinking about the long-term rulership of his Empire. He would often spare rulers he defeated and allow them to rule as governors under his Empire (there's some speculation that he was angry about Darius' murder for this very reason - because he wanted to offer Darius the same deal), he constructed several cities in his Empire (many of them were called Alexandria, and the one in Egypt is called that to this day), he adopted several local customs so he wouldn't be seen as a foreigner, and he planned on mixing the cultures of his subjects so they would be easier to rule over. If Alexander lived longer he could have brought these to fruition, and if his son had been allowed to rule then his dynasty could very well have ruled over a melting-pot Empire for a long time to come.

[@nicholasroberts8378]

Jamestown The only problem with Alexander is that he just never would stop with the conquest. After his failed invasion of India he was going to try to conquer the but he missed in the middle East, the Arabian peninsula, after he allowed a short break for the army BC they had kept asking him to stop. He did try to conquer Arabia earlier when he was marching back from Egypt but his army said no to marching into a desert.

[@sanityplusmilkshakes]

Cleopatra's inbreeding hit the limit and rolled back to zero.

[@WAMTAT]

The closest we got to cloning in the ancient world, any more inbred and they could start a bakery.

[@DDlambchop43]

*rimshot*

[@Borderose]

Ptolemy VIII sounds like the protagonist of a hentai manga.

[@calorinedarkness5232]

Hentai Doujin.

[@patrickbuckley7259]

Wait Philadelphia means, Love of ones sister... So... That mean the city of brotherly love... Um... You know what I am just gonna leave it at that... I am never gonna look at a Philly cheese stake the same again...

[@SantomPh]

it's a plural form of philo-adelphus , like Columbia is the feminine-plural of Columbus.

[@dropdead234]

Name a city after a bunch of weird sister-loving and/or brotherlovers, and you're gonna have a bad time. No wonder that whole city is messed up.....

[@trishapellis]

Supposedly (according to other commenters) the guy who founded the city, William Penn, just wanted a city where people got along and didn't squabble, especially over religion. The idea of 'brotherly love' would then be taken from the christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor'. I am not American nor a historian, so maybe check a history book, but I think that would salvage the situation somewhat. After all not every American statesman can be expected to know there was once a man given this nickname for loving his sister in the biblical sense.

[@hailghidorah2536]

@@trishapellis Yeah, it translates to brotherly love, which is more “love of thy homies” than “Ptolemy Time”. Also, wudder.

[@mawile3037]

@@trishapellis you are correct

[@stephenknizek2651]

Inbreeding leads to skipping Ptolemies, VI to VIII. 🤣

[@mrdredward129]

Ok emoji user.

[@JaelinBezel]

Ptolemy VII probably died as an infant from too much inbreeding.

[@vladalexan]

@@JaelinBezel and then they decided to make another VII

[@Randerson2409]

I have never heard a human voice so perfectly capture the feeling of "I'm running on 2 hours of sleep and I'm fairly confident this wouldn't make sense even if I wasn't!"

[@thaneofstuff7340]

I come back to this video every so often. I don't know why exactly, just Blue's general tone in this is great and everything is a mess, especially the family stuff. Great stuff.

[@cletusawreetus-awrightus2799]

The Ptolemies need a family sitcom.

[@chapablo]

Oynon Menkhu you could never air it. The Censors would flip out!

[@martonlerant5672]

They don't have a sitcom, but they have a series about them, produced by BBC, you can watch it here on youtube.

[@manuelvega6969]

"1 for each candle" really cracked me up, good call keeping it in

[@jancomestor4820]

Now we expect you to do the Seleucids next!

[@petermendez7654]

Jan Wouters YASSSSSS THERE IS WAY MORE INCEST

[@datdabdoe1417]

Yes yes yes yes

[@jamiemohan2049]

They and the Ptolemies are essentially the same family. Both closely related to each other.

[@samuelruby2760]

A Ptolemy marries a Hapsburg and history implodes.

[@tiatimeee7009]

Ok wow I’ve been re“watching“ this podcast/ramble/absolute masterpiece for all the 4 years since it’s been up (coincidentally pretty much my college time lol) and it is STILL one of my favourites - I can put it on in the background during literally Anything and it will make me feel better and coax a laugh without fail. It has helped me through countless bad brain days and honestly I think that deserves some kind of award. And the ramble makes it even better - somehow that’s very my-brain friendly.

[@Rose-thorn]

You know it's bad when the family tree can look like a timeline

[@inannaenigma9391]

I wonder if now would be a good time to bring up that TV series 'The Cleopatras'; it's like Days of Our Lives, only ancient, with incest, and terribly cheesy acting.

[@fruitygarlic3601]

As a certified Doolaholic -- a term synonymous with 'Eastern Caribbean national' -- I can confirm that DOOL _did_ have bad acting and incest at one point.

[@themadkipaerys6713]

I love that this is the only episode of the old OSPOD that hasn’t been put on the bad history playlist

[@aapjeStom]

This should be a new tv serie called, ptolemy: how i met your sister, daughter, wife, brother, son and husband

[@bunnyshoes893]

I absolutely love this video because this disorganized manic rant about something wild you just learned is exactly what I subject my friends to on a daily basis... it’s good to know I’m not alone in loving to rant about the most buck-wild parts of history! Also the lesson we learned today is: don’t make your gene pool a puddle

[@Caprineki]

"will not increase your knowledge of history at all, like AT ALL" Damn right it's entertaining.

[@Theturtleowl]

'In West-Philadelphia born and raised', sounds sooooo wrong right now.

[@jamesscannell7951]

It's great when Blue freestyles. You can always tell when he doesn't have a script and it's actually pretty good.

[@reyonXIII]

In light of recent controversial depictions of Cleopatra by Netflix, I can't believe I'm saying this, but there was ONE benefit to this incest-filled pretzel. The..."benefit" of all this incest and the occasional marriage to a Seleucid woman (i.e. still Hellenic in descent, or at least certainly not African) meant that there is no possible way Cleopatra was "Egyptian" in ethnicity, let alone African. So...good job, Ptolemaic incest-fueled insanity?

[@laureneras9523]

Blue is me when I learn something I HAVE TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE I too go a lil insane. I feel you Blue. Never change

[@themightyswindian]

Ptolomies VS Habsburgs: the Incestining

[@wankawanka3053]

Inception

[@trillionbones89]

are you reading this at gun point?

[@lolloblue9646]

Post-Alexander Egypt, everybody

[@kaip.2849]

I love that he just sounds so done the whole time.

[@bimbitashaikh8331]

my respect for THE Cleopatra just increased after this video cause she not only did she finally break this chain of incest but also gave us a rest from all the ptolemies . And honestly I never thought I'd want to hear the name Julius Ceasar, like, this much.

[@sydhenderson6753]

There were a couple of Berenices too.

[@thewoollyviking5928]

Why do I get the feeling that if we did travel back in time, the meeting of various pharaohs would be played off with banjos?

[@alexaurelian8024]

As a history buff I loved the way he condensed down the Ptolemies, it was really funny haha.

[@iankuentz1258]

12:30 How do you forget the names THERE ARE ONLY TWO CHOICES

[@An_Inconvenience]

Ptolemy: How many generations of incest are you on? Habsburg: Like maybe five or six my dude Ptolemy: You are like a baby, watch this. Ptolemy: 3 0 0 Y e a r s o f B r o t h e r s i s t e r I n b r e e d i n g

[@ladylunaginaofgames40]

It gets worse: Using Wiki, I found that there was a ton of mess that happened during the lives of Ptolemy IX and Ptolemy X. Cleo III wanted X on the throne, but Rome wanted a Pro-roman on the throne. Cleo III tried to take control of the situation by forcing IX to leave Cleo IV (one of his sisters) to his *Other* sister, Cleopatra Selene (which blue mistakes as Cleo V) because she liked Selene more. She eventually got rid of IX by convincing everyone that he plotted to kill her (a detail that will become super ironic in the future). Then X co-ruled with Cleo III and married Selene but this reign only last a year: See the fracture Roman kingdoms got into war with each other and while IX was serving in Judea, Cleo III (fearing IX would ally himself with the King of Syria against her) decided to fight in Syria which ended up being a bad call on her behalf. X was disposed of for unknown reasons (some said he fleed from his mother after seeing her cruelty while others said IX overthrew him) and was out of the picture for like, two years. Selene was basically a puppet in all this because after losing X, Cleo III tried to (and failed) to marry her off to a foreign king for alliance advantages. Now, back when Selene was with IX, they had a daughter who ironically isn't named Cleo: She went by the name of Berenice III. Selene would fall out of the picture and when X return to take back the throne, he kills both his mother and his grandmother Cleo II for no reason (see, told you it would be ironic). With Selene fallen out of favor, X chooses to marry his niece Berenice III and the two ruled for nearly 20 years before he is exiled AGAIN. He would return that same year with an army and famously tried to pay his new army by melting down Alexander the Great's sarcophagus (which was made of gold) and replace it with glass. No surprise to anyone that X was killed shortly afterword, letting IX return to the throne for 7 years before leaving the kingdom to his daughter (who ruled alone for 6 months before marrying her stepson Ptolemy XI, who would kill her 19 days later for no reason which is SAD cause everyone loved Berenice III and the people killed XI for it)

[@ladylunaginaofgames40]

Don't worry! the drama train stops right here because, after XI's big mistake, he was succeeded by Ptolemy XII who married the REAL Cleo V (origins unknown), was overthrown by her temporarily in which she ruled alongside her daughter Berenice IV and possibly her aunt Cleo VI for like, a year, as she would die and be succeeded by Berenice who lived for three more years before her father took the throne back (Oh wait, that's actually more drama). FINALLY, after all that, we get the Cleopatra we all love and know.

[@DiamandaHagan]

You can see the story from Ptolomy 6 and on in 'The Cleopatras', a BBC show from the ealry 80s. The whole series is on KZbin.

[@geodageo]

Targaryens: we marry our siblings, Ptolemeis: hold my beer

[@valor5080]

This whole video sounds like me when I try to explain the plot of whatever media I'm hyper fixating on to my friends with them having 0 prior knowledge about said media

[@McKamikazeHighlander]

Is it just me or does the music make this sound even funnier? lol

[@nathanracher2911]

Targaryens: Incest Ptolemies: Hold our wine.

[@SleonHikari]

Just out of curiosity, minus the ones related, why we're there so many women named cleopatra?

[@fabianhale845]

It was just a name passed down in the latter half of Ptolemaic history.

[@thedarklordreturns990]

becouse there is nothing better than naming all kids the same

[@derrickthewhite1]

If my look at wikipedia's graph of Cleopatra's family tree is correct, because they WERE related. Cleopatra is 100% the offspring of Ptolemy V and Cleopatra I, and no one does anything less incestuous than marry their niece. No cousins, no aunts. At least not that produced children leading into cleopatra. They are also all named Cleopatra and Ptolemy, with the exception of Bernice.

[@edwardnigma9756]

Why are there so many women named Maria in Spain and Ireland? Some names are just very popular. Although, apparently the name comes from the greek words "fame" and "father", considering the amount of incest involved in the family tree, this may have been intended.

[@Aforgamon]

It could have had something to do with Alexander the Great's sister (who also became Queen of Epirus through marriage) being named Cleopatra.

[@CamiloFHSC]

History is FUN

[@pike7090]

Camilo Fernández that's an understatement. it's great and fucking hilarious.

[@SamSphinx]

Back here since the whole Netflix Cleopatra debacle. Gonna have to link this whenever people start some ahistorical BS.

[@thomasscroggs4410]

Still one of my favorite videos. I love Blue's breakdown.

[@DarkFlareGC]

Broken Blue is still my favourite 😜 Even years later this video keeps popping up in the back of my mind to then share the insanity with everyone