The Historians' History of the World 04

It is not difficult to understand that, under the Amphictyonic pretext, the Spartans again obtained the assistance of the allies, and recovered the supremacy. Sparta had the supreme command of the army. Areus (or as the Latins call him, Areas), who was then king of Sparta, as well as his son Acrotatus, was very different from the earlier Spartan kings. In his reign Sparta again became a state of some importance, not through his power but through his name, and perhaps more particularly through his good fortune. The war was carried on with Egyptian money; with it Areus raised the armies which he commanded, and the wars continued for a long time. Egypt assisted with her fleet, but gave no land forces, which were furnished by Areus.

This war forms the beginning of another interference of Egypt in the affairs of Greece, for since the time when Demetrius Poliorcetes removed the garrisons of Ptolemy Soter from Corinth and Sicyon, the Egyptian kings do not seem to have interfered in the affairs of Greece. This new interference tore Greece to pieces, and owing to the subsidies which Sparta received, the power of that state rose again.

PTOLEMY CERAUNUS IN MACEDONIA

After the Amphictyonic War, Justin passes on to Ptolemy Ceraunus and the affairs of Macedonia. He reigned two years, or one year and a half, and during that period he committed crime upon crime. His sister Arsinoe, the widow of Lysimachus, was living with two sons at Cassandrea; the Macedonian princesses had such towns as places in which they resided as widows, and in which, in case of a change of dynasty, they might be safe against any hostile machinations. Cassandrea quickly rose to prosperity, and its possession had an immense charm for her brother. If Arsinoe had placed herself under the protection of Ptolemy Philadelphus, her step-brother, the latter would have had a very strong place in Macedonia, where his fleet might have been stationed, and her sons might then have placed themselves at the head of the malcontents in Macedonia, and have come forward as pretenders. The simplest way for Ptolemy Ceraunus now was to cause his sister and her sons to be murdered, and the question as to whether this should be done or not could not excite any scruples, according to the principles of that time; the only doubt was, how it should be done.

Greek Jug

In order to carry out his plan, Ptolemy sued for the hand of his own sister, according to the notions of the family of the Lagidæ, who had adopted the Egyptian views about marriage with a sister. Arsinoe was at first very timid, and her eldest son, though still a child, foresaw what was to come, and warned his mother, saying that the whole was a treacherous scheme. But Arsinoe was a silly woman, who allowed herself to be deceived by the prospect of becoming a queen, just as afterwards Nicæa allowed herself to be gained over by Antigonus Gonatas. She confided in him, opened the gates of the fortress, and admitted him into the town. But now the clouds vanished from her eyes, and she discovered too late what his intentions were. Ptolemy treacherously took possession of the gates of the town, and the first thing he did was to murder the two boys before the eyes of their mother; Arsinoe herself was stripped of all her ornaments (for the avarice of those men was as great as their other vices), and ignominiously sent to Samothrace. She afterwards returned to Egypt, where she spent the remainder of her life. The history of that period reveals to us an interesting but horrible spectacle; it is by no means as monotonous or as unimportant as we are easily tempted to imagine.

This crime of Ptolemy Ceraunus was soon followed by its punishment—the arrival of the Gauls as previously described.

Ptolemy drew his forces together, but foolishly declined the auxiliaries offered to him by the Dardanians, and thoughtlessly ventured upon a battle, the result of which was the same as that of the battle on the Allia. No army could resist the vehemence of the Celts, without having been previously accustomed to their appearance and their horrid war cries, and without having learned to sustain the shock with which the intoxicated and infuriated Celts rushed to battle. Familiarity with these things alone rendered resistance possible. Ptolemy, with all his crimes, was an able warrior; he fought bravely, until being severely wounded, he fell into the hands of the Gauls who murdered him.

ANARCHY IN MACEDONIA

[280-277 B.C.]