FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   >>  
eraunus, they began to form plans for invading the dominions of Lysimachus, and avenging the cruel death of Agathocles. Seleucus was very easily induced to enter into these plans, and war was declared. Lysimachus did not wait for his enemies to invade his dominions; he organized an army, crossed the Hellespont, and marched to meet Seleucus in Asia Minor. The armies met in Phrygia. A desperate battle was fought. Lysimachus was conquered and slain. Seleucus now determined to cross the Hellespont himself, and, advancing into Thrace and Macedon, to annex those kingdoms to his own domains. Ptolemy Ceraunus accompanied him. This Ptolemy, it will be recollected, was the son of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, by his wife Eurydice; and, at first view, it might seem that he could have no claim whatever himself to the crown of Macedon. But Eurydice, his mother, was the daughter of Antipater, the general to whom Macedon had been assigned on the original division of the empire after Alexander's death. Antipater had reigned over the kingdom for a long time with great splendor and renown, and his name and memory were still held in great veneration by all the Macedonians. Ptolemy Ceraunus began to conceive, therefore, that he was entitled to succeed to the kingdom as the grandson and heir of the monarch who was Alexander's immediate successor, and whose claims were consequently, as he contended, entitled to take precedence of all others. Moreover, Ptolemy Ceraunus had lived for a long time in Macedon, at the court of Lysimachus, having fled there from Egypt on account of the quarrels in which he was involved in his father's family. He was a man of a very reckless and desperate character, and, while a young man in his father's court, he had shown himself very ill able to brook the preference which his father was disposed to accord to Berenice and to her children over his mother Eurydice and him. In fact, it was said that one reason which led his father to give Berenice's family the precedence over that of Eurydice, and to propose that _her_ son rather than Ptolemy Ceraunus should succeed him, was the violent and uncontrollable spirit which Ceraunus displayed. At any rate, Ceraunus quarreled openly with his father, and went to Macedon to join his sister there. He had subsequently spent some considerable time at the court of Lysimachus, and had taken some active part in public affairs. When Agathocles was poisoned, he fled with Lysandra to
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   >>  



Top keywords:

Ptolemy

 

Ceraunus

 
Macedon
 

Lysimachus

 

father

 
Eurydice
 

Seleucus

 
mother
 
desperate
 

precedence


Antipater
 

Berenice

 

family

 

Hellespont

 

kingdom

 

Agathocles

 

Alexander

 

entitled

 

succeed

 
dominions

grandson
 

monarch

 

involved

 
Moreover
 
claims
 

contended

 

successor

 
account
 

quarrels

 

preference


quarreled
 

openly

 

uncontrollable

 
spirit
 

displayed

 

sister

 

subsequently

 

affairs

 

poisoned

 
Lysandra

public

 
considerable
 

active

 
violent
 
disposed
 

accord

 
character
 

children

 

propose

 
reason