Pausanias Analysis

The one called Philometor is the eighth descendant from Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and received this title in mockery. For we know of no king who was so deeply hated by his own mother. Although he was the eldest of her sons, his mother refused to summon him to the throne. Earlier, she had even arranged that his father send him away to Cyprus. As regards Cleopatra's hostility toward her son, other causes are mentioned, and especially that she expected greater obedience from Alexander, the youngest of her children. For this reason, she sought to persuade the Egyptians to accept Alexander as king.

When the populace opposed her, she dispatched Alexander again to Cyprus, in name as a general, but in fact aiming through him to inspire greater dread in Ptolemy. Eventually, having deliberately wounded those eunuchs she considered most loyal, she brought them before the people, claiming that she herself had been plotted against by Ptolemy and that her eunuchs too had suffered similarly at his hands. The Alexandrians rushed forward intending to kill Ptolemy, but since he anticipated them by embarking on a ship, they proclaimed Alexander, who had arrived from Cyprus, their king.

Justice overtook Cleopatra for the exile of Ptolemy when she was put to death by Alexander, whom she herself had set up as king over the Egyptians. When the plot was revealed, and Alexander fled in fear of the citizens, Ptolemy thus returned and gained Egypt a second time. He made war on the Thebans who had revolted; having forced their surrender in the third year after their revolt, he reduced them utterly, so that no remembrance at all was left to the Thebans of their past prosperity, which had previously advanced to such a degree that in wealth they surpassed even the richest among the Greeks—the temple at Delphi and the Orchomenians. Shortly after these things, deserved fate overtook Ptolemy himself. As for the Athenians, who had received from him many great kindnesses and numerous favors undeserving of particular mention, they set up bronze statues honoring both him and Berenice, who alone of his children was legitimate.

After the Egyptians are placed Philip and Alexander, son of Philip. They indeed possessed achievements far greater than to be mentioned merely as a side matter in another account. The honors and gifts conferred upon the Egyptians were motivated by genuine respect and gratitude for their benefactions, but those accorded to Philip and Alexander were due rather to the people's flattery toward them. For similarly, Lysimachus was honored not so much from goodwill as from a sense of his immediate usefulness.

This Lysimachus was by descent a Macedonian and a bodyguard of Alexander. Once, in anger, Alexander had confined him in a chamber with a lion, but later found that Lysimachus had overpowered the beast. Henceforth Alexander continually admired him greatly, and honored him equally with the most distinguished Macedonians. After Alexander's death, Lysimachus became king of those Thracians neighboring Macedonia, whom Alexander and, before him, Philip had subdued; these, however, comprised but a small portion of Thrace. Now the Thracians as a whole are more numerous than any other people except the Celts, if compared nation for nation, and for this reason no one before the Romans had completely subjugated the entire Thracian race. But now all Thrace is subject to Rome, and even among the Celts they willingly neglect those parts which they deem worthless because of the severe cold and poor soil, controlling only the lands that seem valuable enough for possession.

At that time Lysimachus first went to war against the Odrysians, inhabitants of the surrounding region, and subsequently marched against Dromichaetes and the Getae. When he fought against men who were not inexperienced in warfare, who also greatly outnumbered him, Lysimachus himself, having reached the extremity of danger, narrowly escaped; but his son Agathocles, who was accompanying him on campaign, was then captured by the Getae—for the first time. Later, having stumbled again in battles, Lysimachus took seriously the captivity of his son and came to terms of peace with Dromichaetes. He relinquished to the Getan ruler the territories of his realm beyond the Danube, and was largely compelled by necessity to give his daughter to him in marriage. Others claim that it was not Agathocles but Lysimachus himself who was captured, and that he returned safely home when Agathocles intervened with the Getan ruler on his behalf. Upon returning, Lysimachus arranged for Agathocles to take as wife Lysandra, the daughter of Ptolemy son of Lagus and Eurydice.

He crossed by ship into Asia and overthrew the dominion of Antigonus. He also gathered together the city of the Ephesians, extending it down to the sea, and brought inhabitants from Lebedus and Colophon, abandoning their original cities, so much so that Phoenix, a poet of iambic verse from Colophon, lamented its capture. Hermesianax, however, who composed elegiac poetry, was, I think, no longer alive; otherwise he, too, would certainly have mourned for Colophon's fall. Lysimachus also entered into war against Pyrrhus, the son of Aeacides; having awaited the latter's departure from Epirus—since Pyrrhus was usually engaged in wandering expeditions elsewhere—Lysimachus then ravaged the rest of Epirus and even approached the tombs of its kings.

From this point onward I myself find the account untrustworthy. However, Hieronymus of Cardia wrote that Lysimachus destroyed the tombs of the dead and cast their bones away. Now this Hieronymus generally has the reputation of writing hostile accounts against kings except Antigonus, whom he favors undeservedly. Concerning his statements about the tombs of the Epirotes, he is obviously inventing a slander, claiming that a Macedonian would defile the tombs of the dead. Surely even Lysimachus himself well knew that these men were ancestors not only of Pyrrhus but also of Alexander, for Alexander too was an Epirote through his mother and from the Aeacid family. Furthermore, the later alliance between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus itself demonstrates clearly that, despite their warfare, no irreconcilable enmity ever arose between them. Hieronymus presumably had other complaints against Lysimachus as well, but primarily he held it against him that he destroyed the Cardian city and founded Lysimacheia on the isthmus of the Thracian Chersonese in its place.