page_title: Apama II
section_title: Queen of Cyrene
hierarchical_section_title: Apama II / Life / Queen of Cyrene
caption_attribution_description: Berenike II on a coin of Ptolemy III (246-221 BC).
context_page_description: Apama II, sometimes known as Apame II was a Syrian Greek princess of the Seleucid Empire and through marriage was a queen of Cyrenaica.
context_section_description: Around 275 BC, Apama married her maternal third cousin the Greek King Magas of Cyrene. The maternal grandmothers of Apama and Magas were paternal first cousins. The fathers of their grandmothers were brothers. 
  Apama is sometimes known as Arsinoe. After she married Magas, there is a possibility Apama changed her name to Arsinoe, which was a more familiar Ptolemaic name. Apama was related to the Ptolemaic dynasty through marriage and was a distant relative of Eurydice of Egypt and Berenice I of Egypt, who were among the various wives of Ptolemy I Soter.
  Although her marriage to Magas was a dynastic one, Antiochus I arranged this marriage to occur as a part of a political alliance between him and Magas to invade Egypt. Through her marriage to Magas, Apama became Queen of Cyrenaica. In Cyrenaica, there is a surviving honorific inscription dedicated to Apama, as a monarch and wife of Magas. 
  After 270 BC, Apama bore Magas a daughter called Berenice II, who would be their only known child. In 250 BC, Magas and Apama had betrothed Berenice II to her paternal cousin and Ptolemaic prince Ptolemy III Euergetes. Magas and the father of Ptolemy III, were maternal half brothers.
caption: Berenice II, daughter of Apama II, on a coin from the ring of Ptolemy III.
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