The Historians' History of the World 04

Ptolemy’s first children were by Thais the noted courtesan, but they were not thought legitimate. Leontiscus, the eldest, we afterwards hear of, fighting bravely against Demetrius; of the second, named Lagus after his grandfather, we hear nothing. He then married Eurydice the daughter of Antipater, by whom he had several children. The eldest son, Ptolemy, was named Ceraunus, “the thunderbolt,” and was banished by his father from Alexandria. In his distress he fled to Seleucus, by whom he was kindly received; but after the death of Ptolemy Soter he basely plotted against Seleucus and put him to death. He then defeated in battle Antigonus the son of Demetrius, and got possession of Macedonia for a short time. He married his half-sister Arsinoe, and put her children to death; he was soon afterwards put to death himself by the Gauls, who were either fighting against him or were mercenaries in his own army. His Macedonian coins, with the name of Ptolemy Ceraunus, prove that he took the name himself, and that it was not a nickname given to him for his ungovernable temper, as has been sometimes thought.

Another son of Ptolemy and Eurydice was put to death by Ptolemy Philadelphus, for plotting against his throne, to which, as the elder brother, he might have thought himself the best entitled. Their daughter Lysandra married Agathocles the son of Lysimachus; but when Agathocles was put to death by his father, she fled to Egypt with her children, and put herself under Ptolemy’s care. Next he married Berenice, a lady who had come into Egypt with Eurydice, and had formed part of her household. She was the widow of a man named Philip; and she had by her first husband a son named Magas, whom Ptolemy made governor of Cyrene, and a daughter, Antigone, whom Ptolemy gave in marriage to Pyrrhus, when that young king was living in Alexandria as hostage for Demetrius.

With Berenice Ptolemy spent the rest of his years without anything to trouble the happiness of his family. He saw their elder son Ptolemy, whom we must call by the name which he took late in life, Philadelphus, grow up everything that he could wish him to be; and, moved alike by his love for the mother and by the good qualities of the son, he chose him as his successor on the throne, instead of his eldest son Ptolemy Ceraunus, who had shown, by every act in his life, his unfitness for the trust. His daughter Arsinoe married Lysimachus in his old age, and urged him against his son Agathocles, the husband of her own sister. She afterwards married her half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus; and lastly we shall see her the wife of her brother Philadelphus. Argæus, the youngest son of Ptolemy, was put to death by Philadelphus, on a charge of treason. Of his youngest daughter Philotera we know nothing, except that her brother Philadelphus afterwards named a city on the coast of the Red Sea after her.

After the last battle with Demetrius, Ptolemy had regained the island of Cyprus and Cœle-Syria, including Judea; and his throne became stronger as his life drew to an end.

His last public act, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, was ordered by the same forbearance which had governed every part of his life. Feeling the weight of years press heavily upon him, that he was less able than formerly to bear the duties of his office, and wishing to see his son firmly seated on the throne, he laid aside his diadem and his title, and without consulting either the army or the capital, proclaimed Ptolemy, his son by Berenice, king, and contented himself with the modest rank of somatophylax, or satrap, to his successor.

PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS

[285-245 B.C.]

One of the chief troubles in the reign of Philadelphus was the revolt of Cyrene. The government of that part of Africa had been entrusted to Magas, the half-brother of the king, a son of Berenice by her former husband. Berenice, who had been successful in setting aside Ceraunus to make room for her son Philadelphus on the throne of Egypt, has even been said to have favoured the rebellious and ungrateful efforts of her elder son Magas to make himself king of Cyrene.

After the war between the brothers had lasted some years, Magas made an offer of peace, which was to be sealed by betrothing his only child Berenice to the son of Philadelphus. To this offer Philadelphus yielded; as by the death of Magas, who was already worn out by luxury and disease, Cyrene would then fall to his own son. Magas, indeed, died before the marriage took place; but, notwithstanding the efforts made by his widow to break the agreement, the treaty was kept, and on this marriage Cyrene again formed part of the kingdom of Egypt.

But the black spot upon the character of Philadelphus, which all the blaze of science and letters by which he was surrounded cannot make us overlook, is the death of two of his brothers.