THE FAMILY OF LYSIMACHUS.
B.C. 284-273
Some account of the family of Lysimachus.--Remarks on the principle
of hereditary succession.--Difficulties that often
occur.--Examples.--Return to the history of Macedon.--Stories of
Lysimachus's strength and courage.--Put in a dungeon with a
lion.--Amastris and her two sons.--Arsinoe.--Feud in Ptolemy's
family.--Origin of the quarrel.--Account of the family.--Ptolemy
Ceraunus.--Transfer of the quarrel from Egypt to
Macedon.--Lysandra.--Envy and hatred of Arsinoe.--Lysandra's husband
imprisoned.--Danger of her children.--Lysandra's flight.--An army
raised.--Desperate battle.--Ptolemy Ceraunus.--His reckless and
desperate character.--Alliance of Ceraunus with Seleucus.--His
plans.--Ceraunus's meditated treachery.--Argos.--Ceraunus proceeds
to Macedon.--His rivals and enemies.--Their various claims.--The
first contest was with Antigonus.--Arsinoe and her children.--Their
retreat to Cassandria.--Ceraunus proposes marriage to
Arsinoe.--Ceraunus finds himself in great prosperity.--Invasion
threatened.--Ceraunus prepares to defend himself.--Ceraunus thrown
to the ground and killed.--Consequences of the death of Ceraunus.
The reader will perhaps recollect that when Pyrrhus withdrew from
Macedon, before he embarked on his celebrated expedition into Italy,
the enemy before he was compelled to retire was Lysimachus. Lysimachus
continued to reign in Macedon for some time after Pyrrhus had gone,
until, finally, he was himself overthrown, under circumstances of a
very remarkable character. In fact, his whole history affords a
striking illustration of the nature of the results which often
followed, in ancient times, from the system of government which then
almost universally prevailed--a system in which the supreme power was
considered as rightfully belonging to some sovereign who derived it
from his ancestors by hereditary descent, and who, in the exercise of
it, was entirely above all sense of responsibility to the subjects of
his dominion.
It has sometimes been said by writers on the theory of civil
government that the principle of hereditary sovereignty in the
government of a nation has a decided advantage over any elective mode
of designating the chief magistrate, on account of its _certainty_. If
the system is such that, on the death of a monarch, the supreme power
descends to his eldest son, the succession is determined at once,
without debate or delay. If, on the other hand, an election is to take
place, there must be a contest. Parties are formed; plans and
counterplans are laid; a protracted and heated controversy ensues; and
when, finally, the voting is ended, there is sometimes doubt and
uncertainty in ascertaining the true result, and very often an angry
and obstinate refusal to acquiesce in it when it is determined. Thus
the principle of hereditary descent seems simple, clear, and liable to
no uncertainty or doubt, while that of popular election tends to lead
the country subject to it into endless disputes, and often ultimately
to civil war.
But though this may be in _theory_ the operation of the two systems,
in actual practice it has been found that the hereditary principle has
very little advantage over any other in respect to the avoidance of
uncertainty and dispute. Among the innumerable forms and phases which
the principle of hereditary descent assumes in actual life, the cases
in which one acknowledged and unquestioned sovereign of a country
dies, and leaves one acknowledged and unquestioned heir, are
comparatively few. The relationships existing among the various
branches of a family are often extremely intricate and complicated.
Sometimes they become variously entangled with each other by
intermarriages; sometimes the claims arising under them are disturbed,
or modified, or confused by conquests and revolutions; and thus they
often become so hopelessly involved that no human sagacity can
classify or arrange them. The case of France at the present time[L] is
a striking illustration of this difficulty, there being in that
country no less than three sets of claimants who regard themselves
entitled to the supreme power--the representatives, namely, of the
Bourbon, the Orleans, and the Napoleon dynasties. Each one of the
great parties rests the claim which they severally advance in behalf
of their respective candidates more or less exclusively on rights
derived from their hereditary relationship to former rulers of the
kingdom, and there is no possible mode of settling the question
between them but by the test of power. Even if all concerned were
disposed to determine the controversy by a peaceful appeal to the
principles of the law of descent, as relating to the transmission of
governmental power, no principles could be found that would apply to
the case; or, rather, so numerous are the principles that would be
required to be taken into the account, and so involved and complicated
are the facts to which they must be applied, that any distinct
solution of the question on theoretical grounds would be utterly
impossible. There is, and there can be, no means of solving such a
question but power.
[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.
Of course, in this contest, the advantage was on the side of Arsinoe,
since she was the wife of the king himself, while Lysandra was only
the wife of his son. Still, the position and the influence of
Lysandra were very high. Agathocles was a prince of great
consideration and honor. He had been very successful in his military
campaigns, had won many battles, and had greatly extended the dominion
and power of his father. He was a great favorite, in fact, both with
the army and with the people, all of whom looked up to him as the hope
and the pride of the kingdom.
Of course, the bestowal of all this fame and honor upon Lysandra's
husband only served to excite the rivalry and hatred of Arsinoe the
more. She and Lysandra were sisters, or, rather, half-sisters--being
daughters of the same father. They were, however, on this very
account, natural enemies to each other, for their mothers were rivals.
Arsinoe, of course, was continually devising means to curtail the
growing importance and greatness of Agathocles. Agathocles himself, on
the other hand, would naturally make every effort to thwart and
counteract her designs. In the end, Arsinoe succeeded in convincing
Lysimachus that Agathocles was plotting a conspiracy against him, and
was intending to take the kingdom into his own hands. This may have
been true. Whether it was true or false, however, can now never be
known. At all events, Lysimachus was induced to believe it. He ordered
Agathocles to be seized and put into prison, and then, a short time
afterward, he caused him to be poisoned. Lysandra was overwhelmed with
consternation and sorrow at this event. She was, moreover, greatly
alarmed for herself and for her children, and also for her brother,
Ptolemy Ceraunus, who was with her at this time. It was obvious that
there could be no longer any safety for her in Macedon, and so, taking
with her her children, her brother, and a few friends who adhered to
her cause, she made her escape from Macedon and went to Asia. Here she
cast herself upon the protection of Seleucus, king of Syria.
Seleucus was another of the generals of Alexander--the only one, in
fact, besides Lysimachus, who now survived. He had, of course, like
Lysimachus, attained to a very advanced period of life, being at this
time more than seventy-five years old. These veterans might have been
supposed to have lived long enough to have laid aside their ancient
rivalries, and to have been willing to spend their few remaining years
in peace. But it was far otherwise in fact. Seleucus was pleased with
the pretext afforded him, by the coming of Lysandra, for embarking in
new wars. Lysandra was, in a short time, followed in her flight by
many of the nobles and chieftains of Macedon, who had espoused her
cause. Lysimachus, in fact, had driven them away by the severe
measures which he had adopted against them. These men assembled at the
court of Seleucus, and there, with Lysander and Ptolemy Ceraunus, 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 Seleucus; and
when the preparations were made by Seleucus for war with Lysimachus,
he probably regarded himself as in some sense the leader of the
expedition. He considered Seleucus as his ally, going with him to aid
him in the attempt to recover the kingdom of his ancestors.
Seleucus, however, had no such design. He by no means considered
himself as engaged in prosecuting an expedition for the benefit of
Ceraunus. _His_ plan was the enlargement of his own dominion; and as
for Ceraunus, he regarded him only as an adventurer following in his
train--a useful auxiliary, perhaps, but by no means entitled to be
considered as a principal in the momentous transactions which were
taking place. Ceraunus, when he found what the state of the case
really was, being wholly unscrupulous in respect to the means that he
employed for the attainment of his ends, determined to kill Seleucus
on the first opportunity.
Seleucus seems to have had no suspicion of this design, for he
advanced into Thrace, on his way to Macedon, without fear, and without
taking any precautions to guard himself from the danger of Ceraunus's
meditated treachery. At length he arrived at a certain town which they
told him was called Argos. He seemed alarmed on hearing this name,
and, when they inquired the reason, he said that he had been warned by
an oracle, at some former period of his life, to beware of Argos, as a
place that was destined to be for him the scene of some mysterious and
dreadful danger. He had supposed that another Argos was alluded to in
this warning, namely, an Argos in Greece. He had not known before of
the existence of any Argos in Thrace. If he had been aware of it, he
would have ordered his march so as to have avoided it altogether; and
now, in consequence of the anxious forebodings that were excited by
the name, he determined to withdraw from the place without delay. He
was, however, overtaken by his fate before he could effect his
resolution. Ptolemy Ceraunus, watching a favorable opportunity which
occurred while he was at Argos, came stealthily up behind the aged
king, and stabbed him in the back with a dagger. Seleucus immediately
fell down and died.
Ptolemy Ceraunus forthwith organized a body of adherents and proceeded
to Macedon, where he assumed the diadem, and caused himself to be
proclaimed king. He found the country distracted by dissensions, many
parties having been formed, from time to time, in the course of the
preceding reigns, each of which was now disposed to come forward with
its candidates and its claims. All these Ptolemy Ceraunus boldly set
aside. He endeavored to secure all those who were friendly to the
ancient house of Antipater by saying that he was Antipater's grandson
and heir; and, on the other hand, to conciliate the partisans of
Lysimachus, by saying that he was Lysimachus's avenger. This was in
one sense true, for he had murdered Seleucus, the man by whom
Lysimachus had been destroyed. He relied, however, after all, for the
means of sustaining himself in his new position, not on his reasons,
but on his troops; and he accordingly advanced into the country more
as a conqueror coming to subjugate a nation by force, than as a
prince succeeding peacefully to an hereditary crown.
He soon had many rivals and enemies in the field against him. The
three principal ones were Antiochus, Antigonus, and Pyrrhus. Antiochus
was the son of Seleucus. He maintained that his father had fairly
conquered the kingdom of Macedon, and had acquired the right to reign
over it; that Ptolemy Ceraunus, by assassinating Seleucus, had not
divested him of any of his rights, but that they all descended
unimpaired to his son, and that he himself, therefore, was the true
king of Macedon. Antigonus was the son of Demetrius, who had reigned
in Macedon at a former period, before Lysimachus had invaded and
conquered the kingdom. Antigonus therefore maintained that his right
was superior to that of Ptolemy, for his father had been the
acknowledged sovereign of the country at a period subsequent to that
of the reign of Antipater. Pyrrhus was the third claimant. He had held
Macedon by conquest immediately before the reign of Lysimachus, and
now, since Lysimachus had been deposed, his rights, as he alleged,
revived. In a word, there were four competitors for the throne, each
urging claims compounded of rights of conquest and of inheritance, so
complicated and so involved, one with the other, as to render all
attempts at a peaceable adjudication of them absolutely hopeless.
There could be no possible way of determining who was best entitled to
the throne in such a case. The only question, therefore, that remained
was, who was best able to take and keep it.
This question Ptolemy Ceraunus had first to try with Antigonus, who
came to invade the country with a fleet and an army from Greece. After
a very short but violent contest, Antigonus was defeated, both by sea
and by land, and Ceraunus remained master of the kingdom. This triumph
greatly strengthened his power in respect to the other competitors.
He, in fact, contrived to settle the question with them by treaty, in
which they acknowledged him as king. In the case of Pyrrhus, he
agreed, in consideration of being allowed peaceably to retain
possession of his kingdom, to furnish a certain amount of military aid
to strengthen the hands of Pyrrhus in the wars in which he was then
engaged in Italy and Sicily. The force which he thus furnished
consisted of five thousand foot, four thousand horse, and fifty
elephants.
Thus it would seem that every thing was settled. There was, however,
one difficulty still remaining. Arsinoe, the widow of Lysimachus,
still lived. It was Arsinoe, it will be recollected, whose jealousy of
her half-sister, Lysandra, had caused the death of Agathocles and the
flight of Lysandra, and which had led to the expedition of Seleucus,
and the subsequent revolution in Macedon. When her husband was killed,
she, instead of submitting at once to the change of government, shut
herself up in Cassandria, a rich and well-defended city. She had her
sons with her, who, as the children of Lysimachus, were heirs to the
throne. She was well aware that she had, for the time being, no means
at her command for supporting the claims of her children, but she was
fully determined not to relinquish them, but to defend herself and her
children in the city of Cassandria, as well as she was able, until
some change should take place in the aspect of public affairs.
Ceraunus, of course, saw in her a very formidable and dangerous
opponent; and, after having triumphed over Antigonus, and concluded
his peace with Antiochus and with Pyrrhus, he advanced toward
Cassandria, revolving in his mind the question by what means he could
best manage to get Arsinoe and her children into his power.
He concluded to try the effect of cunning and treachery before
resorting to force. He accordingly sent a message to Arsinoe,
proposing that, instead of quarreling for the kingdom, they should
unite their claims, and asking her, for this purpose, to become his
wife. He would marry her, he said, and adopt her children as his own,
and thus the whole question would be amicably settled.
Arsinoe very readily acceded to this proposal. It is true that she was
the half-sister of Ceraunus; but this relationship was no bar to a
matrimonial union, according to the ideas that prevailed in the courts
of kings in those days. Arsinoe, accordingly, gave her consent to the
proposal, and opened the gates of the city to Ceraunus and his troops.
Ceraunus immediately put her two sons to death. Arsinoe herself fled
from the city. Very probably Ceraunus allowed her to escape, since, as
she herself had no claim to the throne, any open violence offered to
her would have been a gratuitous crime, which would have increased,
unnecessarily, the odium that would naturally attach to Ceraunus's
proceedings. At any rate, Arsinoe escaped, and, after various
wanderings, found her way back to her former home in her father's
court at Alexandria.
The heart of Ceraunus was now filled with exultation and pride. All
his schemes had proved successful, and he found himself, at last, in
secure possession, as he thought, of a powerful and wealthy kingdom.
He wrote home to his brother in Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelphus--by whom,
as the reader will recollect, he had been supplanted there, in
consequence of his father's preference for the children of
Berenice--saying that he now acquiesced in that disposition of the
kingdom of Egypt, since he had acquired for himself a better kingdom
in Macedon. He proceeded to complete the organization of his
government. He recruited his armies; he fortified his towns; and began
to consider himself as firmly established on his throne. All his
dreams, however, of security and peace, were soon brought to a very
sudden termination.
There was a race of half-civilized people on the banks of the Danube
called Gauls. Some tribes of this nation afterward settled in what is
now France, and gave their name to that country. At the period,
however, of the events which we are here relating, the chief seat of
their dominion was a region on the banks of the Danube, north of
Macedon and Thrace. Here they had been for some time concentrating
their forces and gradually increasing in power, although their
movements had been very little regarded by Ceraunus. Now, however, a
deputation suddenly appeared at Ceraunus's capital, to say that they
were prepared for an invasion of his dominions, and asking him how
much money he would give for peace. Ceraunus, in the pride of his
newly-established power, treated this proposal with derision. He
directed the embassadors to go back and say that, far from wishing to
purchase peace, he would not _allow_ peace to them, unless they
immediately sent him all their principal generals, as hostages for
their good behavior. Of course, after such an interchange of messages
as this, both parties immediately prepared for war.
Ceraunus assembled all the forces that he could command, marched
northward to meet his enemy, and a great battle was fought between the
two armies. Ceraunus commanded in person in this conflict. He rode
into the field at the head of his troops, mounted on an elephant. In
the course of the action he was wounded, and the elephant on which he
rode becoming infuriated at the same time, perhaps from being wounded
himself too, threw his rider to the ground. The Gauls who were
fighting around him immediately seized him. Without any hesitation or
delay they cut off his head, and, raising it on the point of a pike,
they bore it about the field in triumph. This spectacle so appalled
and intimidated the army of the Macedonians, that the ranks were soon
broken, and the troops, giving way, fled in all directions, and the
Gauls found themselves masters of the field.
[Illustration: THE FALLEN ELEPHANT.]
The death of Ptolemy Ceraunus was, of course, the signal for all the
old claimants to the throne to come forward with their several
pretensions anew. A protracted period of dissension and misrule
ensued, during which the Gauls made dreadful havoc in all the northern
portions of Macedon. Antigonus at last succeeded in gaining the
advantage, and obtained a sort of nominal possession of the throne,
which he held until the time when Pyrrhus returned to Epirus from
Italy. Pyrrhus, being informed of this state of things, could not
resist the desire which he felt of making an incursion into Macedon,
and seizing for himself the prize for which rivals, no better entitled
to it than he, were so fiercely contending.