daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt, succeeded her father before his death. This banished prince having implored the assistance of the Romans, was restored by Pompey. Berenice, to support herself on the throne, allured a prince named Seleucus, who was descended from the kings of Syria, and admitted him to share her nuptial bed and her power. But she soon became weary of Seleucus, and put him to death; after which she cast her eye on Archelaus, who was induced Berenice to marry her, and put himself at the head of her troops. But these were repulsed by the Romans; Archelaus was killed in battle; and Ptolemy, returning to Alexandria, put his rebellious daughter to death.

Berenice, wife of Ptolemy Evergetes, king of Egypt, cut off her hair in pursuance of a vow, and consecrated it in the temple of Venus. But this deposit having been afterwards lost, Conon the mathematician, in compliment to the queen, declared that her locks had been conveyed to heaven, and composed the seven stars near the tail of the bull, called to this day Coma Berenices.

Berenice, daughter of Costobarus, and of Salome, sister of Herod the Great, was first married to Aristobulus, son of the same Herod and Mariamne. But the cruel father having put his son to death, his niece married a second time; became again a widow, whether or not by similar means it is not said; and having repaired to Rome, she got into favour with Augustus, at the same time insinuating herself into the good graces of Antonia, the wife of Drusus, which in the end proved of great service to Agrippa.

Berenice, grand-daughter of the preceding, and daughter of Agrippa I, king of Judæa, acquired an unchaste celebrity on account of her amours. She was betrothed to one Marcus, but he died before the marriage was consummated. Soon after she married his uncle Herod, who, at the desire of Agrippa, his brother and father-in-law, was created king of Chalcis by the emperor Claudius. She lost her husband in the eighth year of the emperor Claudius; and in her widowhood it was rumoured that she committed incest with her brother Agrippa. To put a stop to this report, she offered herself in marriage to Polemon, king of Cilicia, provided he would change his religion. He accepted her offer, was circumcised, and married her. But Berenice soon left him to follow her own ways; and he abandoned Judaism to return to his former religion. She stood always well with her brother Agrippa, and seconded him in his design of preventing the desolation of Judæa. This artful intrigante got Titus into her snares; but the murmurs of the Roman people opposing an obstacle to the marriage she had contemplated, there remained nothing for her but the title of mistress or concubine of the emperor. During the seventeenth century the French stage resounded with the amours of Titus and Berenice.

Ancient Geography, the name of several cities, particularly of a celebrated seaport in the Sinus Arabicus; now Suez.