Kings and Queens of the Ancient World

Revealed by DNA testing in 2010 to be the father of Tutankhamun (by one of his sisters)		Akhenaten
Born 356 BC, son of Philip II of Macedon; succeeded his father in 336 BC; married Roxana of Bactria (mother of his posthumous son and successor, Alexander IV) ~ 327 BC, and Stateria of Persia (daughter of Darius III) in 324 BC – both survived him; died suddenly and mysteriously after being taken ill during a banquet at Babylon, 323 BC		Alexander the Great
King of the Huns AD 434–453, known as "the Scourge of God"; died two years after his attempt to conquer Roman Gaul (modern France) ended in defeat by a coalition between the Romans and the Visigoths, at the Battle of Châlons		Attila (the Hun)
King of the Franks from AD 768, crowned by Pope Leo III in 800 as Emperor of the Romans (the first Holy Roman Emperor); son of Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, by inheritance and conquest he united most of Western Europe by 804 when the Saxons came under his control; died in 814, aged 72		Charlemagne
The last King of Lydia (the Western part of Asia Minor), from 560 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC – renowned for his wealth		Croesus
Founder of the Persian (Achaemenid) empire in the 6th century BC		Cyrus the Great
King of Persia 521–485 BC, under whom the Achaemenid Empire reached its greatest extent; his attempt to subjugate Greece culminated in defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490BC; father of Xerxes I		Darius I (the Great)
Nickname of Eric Haraldsson – King of Norway 931–3, and King of Northumbria 947–8 and 952–4		Eric Bloodaxe
6th king of Babylon, 1792–1750 BC: gave his name to one of the oldest surviving codes of law, and one of the oldest documents that has been translated into modern languages		Hammurabi
Wife of King Priam of Troy		Hecuba
Byzantine emperor, AD 610–40: introduced Greek as the official language of the Byzantine Empire		Heraclius
Alexander the Great was King (336–323 BC) of		Macedon
12th–century BC ruler of Babylonia – his death led to the fall of the Chaldean empire 30 years later		Nebuchadrezzar (sic) I
Ruler of Babylonia 605–562 BC – mentioned in the Book of Daniel – conquered Aram and Judah (two later rulers also took the name Nebuchadnezzar, III and IV)		Nebuchadnezzar II
Wife of Akhenaten: her modern fame derives from an iconic bust found in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose – now in the Neues Museum, Berlin		Nefertiti
King of Macedon, 359–336 BC: conquered the Greek city states, and formed them into a league whose forces could be united against Persia; assassinated by one of his bodyguards, for unknown reasons, while planning this expedition, and succeeded by his son Alexander (the Great); his tomb was discovered at Vergina, in northern Greece, in 1978		Philip II of Macedon
General of Alexander the Great, and possibly his half–brother: took control of Egypt following Alexander's death in 323 BC, becoming king in 304; founder of the dynasty that ruled Egypt until 30 BC, ending with the death of Cleopatra		Ptolemy I
Last of the Ptolemys: son of Cleopatra and (supposedly) Julus Caesar; ruled jointly with his mother from the age of three; she was grooming him to succeed her, but he was executed by Octavian less than three weeks after her suicide, which followed Octavian's victory over her and Mark Antony		Ptolemy XV (a.k.a. Caesarion)
King of the Neo–Assyrian Empire, 705–681 BC: crushed Hezekiah, King of Judah, in 701 BC, but failed to take Jerusalem (as described in the Bible – 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah); sacked Babylon in 689 BC; his attack on Jerusalem is described in a famous poem by Lord Byron, first published in 1815; his name means "the God of the Moon has destroyed the brothers"		Sennacherib
Egyptian pharaoh who built the temple of Abu Simbel		Rameses II
King of the Ostrogoths: invaded Italy in AD 488 and ruled it from 493 to 526		Theoderic the Great
King of Persia, 485–465 BC – succeeded his father Darius I (the Great)		Xerxes

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Kings and Queens of the Ancient World