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.

Ptolemy then, as we have seen, asked in marriage the hand of Cleopatra,
the sister of Alexander; but on her death 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.

Berenice's mildness and goodness of heart were useful in softening her
husband's severity. Once, when Ptolemy was unbending his mind at a game
of dice with her, one of his officers came up to his side, and began to
read over to him a list of criminals who had been condemned to death,
with their crimes, and to ask his pleasure on each.

[Illustration: 095.jpg BERENICE SOTER]

Ptolemy continued playing, and gave very little attention to the unhappy
tale; but Berenice's feelings overcame the softness of her character,
and she took the paper out of the officer's hand, and would not let him
finish reading it; saying it was very unbecoming in the king to treat
the matter so lightly, as if he thought no more of the loss of a life
than the loss of a throw.

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
royal position.

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 became
the wife of her brother Philadelphus. Argzeus, 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 regain