[Footnote L: January, 1852.]
In fact, the history of the smaller monarchies of ancient times is comprised, sometimes for centuries almost exclusively, in narratives of the intrigues, the contentions, and the bloody wars of rival families, and rival branches of the same family, in asserting their respective claims as inheritors to the possession of power. This truth is strikingly illustrated in the events which occurred in Macedon during the absence of Pyrrhus in Italy and Sicily, in connection with the family of Lysimachus, and his successor in power there. These events we shall now proceed to relate in their order.
At the time when Pyrrhus was driven from Macedon by Lysimachus, previous to his going into Italy, Lysimachus was far advanced in age. He was, in fact, at this time nearly seventy years old. He commenced his military career during the lifetime of Alexander the Great, having been one of the great conqueror's most distinguished generals. Many stories were told, in his early life, of his personal strength and valor. On one occasion, as was said, when hunting in Syria, he encountered a lion of immense size single-handed, and, after a very desperate and obstinate conflict, he succeeded in killing him, though not without receiving severe wounds himself in the contest. Another story was, that at one time, having displeased Alexander, he was condemned to suffer death, and that, too, in a very cruel and horrible manner. He was to be thrown into a lion's den. This was a mode of execution not uncommon in ancient times. It answered a double purpose; it not only served for a terrible punishment in respect to the man, but it also effected a useful end in respect to the animal. By giving him a living man to seize and devour, the savage ferocity of the beast was stimulated and increased, and thus he was rendered more valuable for the purposes and uses for which he was retained. In the case of Lysimachus, however, both these objects failed. As soon as he was put into the dungeon where the lion was awaiting him, he attacked the beast, and, though unarmed, he succeeded in destroying him. Alexander admired so much the desperate strength and courage evinced by this exploit, that he pardoned the criminal and restored him to favor.
Lysimachus continued in the service of Alexander as long as that monarch lived; and when, at the death of Alexander, the empire was divided among the leading generals, the kingdom of Thrace, which adjoins Macedon on the east,[M] was assigned to him as his portion. He is commonly designated, therefore, in history, as the King of Thrace; though in the subsequent part of his life he obtained possession also, by conquest, of the kingdom of Macedon. He married, in succession, several wives, and experienced through them a great variety of domestic troubles. His second wife was a Sicilian princess named Amastris. She was a widow at the time of her marriage with Lysimachus, and had two sons. After being married to her for some time, Lysimachus repudiated and abandoned her, and she returned to Sicily with her two sons, and lived in a certain city which belonged to them there. The young men were not of age, and Amastris accordingly assumed the government of the city in their name. They, however, quarreled with their mother, and finally drowned her, in order to remove her out of their way. Lysimachus, though he might justly have considered himself as in some sense the cause of this catastrophe, since, by deserting his wife and withdrawing his protection from her, he compelled her to return to Sicily and put herself in the power of her unnatural sons, was still very indignant at the event, and, fitting out an expedition, he went to Sicily, captured the city, took the sons of Amastris prisoners, and put them to death without mercy, in retribution for their atrocious crime.
[Footnote M: See map.]
At the time when Lysimachus put away his wife, Amastris, he married Arsinoe, an Egyptian princess, the daughter, in fact, of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, who was at this time the king of Egypt. How far Lysimachus was governed, in his repudiation of Amastris, by the influence of Arsinoe's personal attractions in winning his heart away from his fidelity to his legitimate wife, and how far, on the other hand, he was alienated from her by her own misconduct or the violence of her temper, is not now known. At any rate, the Sicilian wife, as has been stated, was dismissed and sent home, and the Egyptian princess came into her place.
The small degree of domestic peace and comfort which Lysimachus had hitherto enjoyed was far from being improved by this change. The family of Ptolemy was distracted by a deadly feud, and, by means of the marriage of Arsinoe with Lysimachus, and of another marriage which subsequently occurred, and which will be spoken of presently, the quarrel was transferred, in all its bitterness, to the family of Lysimachus, where it produced the most dreadful results.
The origin of the quarrel in the household of Ptolemy was this: Ptolemy married, for his first wife, Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater. When Eurydice, at the time of her marriage, went with her husband into Egypt, she was accompanied by her cousin Berenice, a young and beautiful widow, whom she invited to go with her as her companion and friend. A great change, however, soon took place in the relations which they sustained to each other. From being very affectionate and confidential friends, they became, as often happens in similar cases, on far less conspicuous theatres of action, rivals and enemies. Berenice gained the affections of Ptolemy, and at length he married her. Arsinoe, whom Lysimachus married, was the daughter of Ptolemy and Berenice. They had also a son who was named Ptolemy, and who, at the death of his father, succeeded him on the throne. This son subsequently became renowned in history under the name of Ptolemy Philadelphus. He was the second monarch of the Ptolemaic line.
But, besides these descendants of Berenice, there was another set of children in Ptolemy's family-namely, those by Eurydice. Eurydice had a son and a daughter. The name of the son was Ptolemy Ceraunus; that of the daughter was Lysandra. There was, of course, a standing and bitter feud always raging between these two branches of the royal household. The two wives, though they had once been friends, now, of course, hated each other with perfect hatred. Each had her own circle of partisans and adherents, and the court was distracted for many years with the intrigues, the plots, the dissensions, and the endless schemes and counterschemes which were resorted to by the two parties in their efforts to thwart and circumvent each other. As Arsinoe, the wife of Lysimachus, was the daughter of Berenice, it might have been expected that the influence of Berenice's party would prevail in Lysimachus's court. This would doubtless have been the case, had it not been that unfortunately there was another alliance formed between the two families which complicated the connection, and led, in the end, to the most deplorable results. This other alliance was the marriage of Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus, with Lysandra, Eurydice's daughter. Thus, in the court and family of Lysimachus, Berenice had a representative in the person of her daughter Arsinoe, the wife of the king himself; while Eurydice, also, had one in the person of her daughter Lysandra, the wife of the king's son. Of course, the whole virulence of the quarrel was spread from Egypt to Macedon, and the household of Lysimachus was distracted by the dissensions of Arsinoe and Lysandra, and by the attempts which each made to effect the destruction of the other.