Ptolemy of Cyprus was the king of Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 c. 80-58 BC. He was the younger brother of Ptolemy XII Auletes

Ptolemy XII Auletes

Ptolemy Neos Dionysos Theos Philopator Theos Philadelphos , more commonly known as "Auletes" or "Nothos" , was an Egyptian king of Macedonian descent...

, king of Egypt

Ptolemaic Kingdom

The Ptolemaic Kingdom in and around Egypt began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic state stretching from...

, and, like him, an illegitimate son of Ptolemy IX Lathyros

Ptolemy IX Lathyros

Ptolemy IX Soter II or Lathyros was king of Egypt three times, from 116 BC to 110 BC, 109 BC to 107 BC and 88 BC to 81 BC, with intervening periods ruled by his brother, Ptolemy X Alexander....

. He appears to have been acknowledged king of Cyprus at the same time that his brother Auletes obtained the possession of the throne of Egypt, 80 BC. He neglected the precaution of obtaining confirmation of his sovereignty at Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, and made the additional error of offending Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher was a Roman politician known for his popularist tactics...

, by failing to ransom him when he had fallen into the hands of Cilicia

Cilicia

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

n pirates. When Clodius became tribune

Tribune

Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...

 (58 BC), he enacted a law to deprive Ptolemy of his kingdom, and reduce Cyprus to a Roman province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

. Cato

Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , commonly known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...

, who was entrusted with carrying out this decree, advised Ptolemy to submit, offering him his personal safety, with the office of high-priest at Paphos

Paphos

Paphos , sometimes referred to as Pafos, is a coastal city in the southwest of Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos and New Paphos. The currently inhabited city is New Paphos. It lies on the Mediterranean coast, about west of the...

and a generous pension. Ptolemy refused, and, wholly unprepared to resist Roman power and deciding to die a king, put an end to his own life, 58 BC.