 Chapter 7 of Pyrrhus by Jacob Abbott, the Sicilian Campaign, BC 291-276. The fact has already been mentioned that one of the wives whom Pyrrhus had married after the death of Antigone, the Egyptian princess, was Lanassa, the daughter of Agathocles, the king of Sicily. Agathocles was a tyrannical monster of the worst description. His army was little better than an organized band of robbers, at the head of which he went forth on marauding and plundering expeditions among all the nations that were within his reach. He made these predatory excursions sometimes into Italy, sometimes into the Carthaginian territories on the African coast, and sometimes among the islands of the Mediterranean Sea. In these campaigns he met with a great variety of adventures and experienced every possible fate that the fortune of war could bring. Sometimes he was triumphant over all who opposed him and became intoxicated with prosperity and success. At other times, through his insane and reckless folly, he would involve himself in the most desperate difficulties, and was frequently compelled to give up everything and to fly alone in absolute destitution from the field of his attempted exploits to save his life. On one such occasion he abandoned an army in Africa which he had taken there on one of his predatory enterprises, and flying secretly from the camp he made his escape with a small number of attendants leaving the army to its fate. His flight was so sudden on this occasion that he left his two sons behind in the hands and at the mercy of the soldiers. The soldiers as soon as they found out that Agathocles had gone and left them were so enraged against him that they put his sons to death on the spot and then surrendered in a body to the enemy. Agathocles, when the tidings of this transaction came to him in Sicily, was enraged against the soldiers in his turn and in order to revenge himself upon them, he immediately sought out from among the population of the country their wives and children, their brothers and sisters, and all who were in any way related to them. These innocent representatives of the absent offenders he ordered to be seized and slain and their bodies to be cast into the sea toward Africa as an expression of revengeful triumph and defiance. So great was the slaughter on this occasion that the waters of the sea were dyed with blood to a great distance from the shore. Of course such cruelty as this could not be practiced without awakening on the part of those who suffered from it as spirit of hatred and revenge, plots and conspiracies without number were formed against the tyrant's life and in his later years he lived in continual apprehension and distress. His fate, however, was still more striking as an illustration of the manner in which the old age of ambitious and unprincipled men is often embittered by the ingratitude and wickedness of their children. Agathocles had a grandson named Archegathus who, if all the accounts are true, brought the old king's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. The story is too shocking to be fully believed, but it is said that this grandson first murdered Agathocles' son and heir, his own uncle, in order that he might himself succeed to the throne, his own father, who would have been the next heir being dead. Then not being willing to wait until the old king himself should die, he began to form plots against his life and against the lives of the remaining members of the family. Although several of Agathocles' sons were dead, having been destroyed by violence or having fallen in war, he had a wife named Texena and two children still remaining alive. The king was so anxious in respect to these children on account of Archegathus that he determined to send them with their mother to Egypt in order to place them beyond the reach of their merciless nephew. Texena was very unwilling to consent to such a measure for herself and her sons. The proposed retiring into Egypt was little better than going into exile, and she was, moreover, extremely reluctant to leave her husband alone in Syracuse, exposed to the machinations and plots which his unnatural grandson might form against him. She, however, finally submitted to the hard necessity and went away, bidding her husband farewell with many tears. Very soon after her departure her husband died. The story that is told of the manner of his death is this. There was in his court a man named Menon, whom Agathocles had taken captive when a youth and ever since retained in his court. Though originally a captive taken in war, Menon had been made a favorite with Agathocles and had been raised to a high position in his service. The indulgence, however, and the favoritism with which he had been regarded, were not such as to awaken any sentiments of gratitude in Menon's mind or to establish any true and faithful friendship between him and his master. And Archegathus, the grandson, found means of inducing him to undertake to poison the king. As all the ordinary modes of administering poison were precluded by the vigilance and strictness with which the usual avenues of approach to the king were guarded, Menon contrived to accomplish his end by poisoning a quill which the king was subsequently to use as a toothpick. The poison was insinuated thus into the teeth and gums of the victim, where it soon took effect, producing dreadful ulceration and intolerable pain. The infection of the venom after a short time pervaded the whole system of the sufferer and brought him to the brink of the grave, and at last finding that he was speechless and apparently insensible, his ruthless murderers, fearing perhaps that he might revive again, hurried him to the funeral pile before life was extinct, and the fire finished the work that the poison had begun. The declaration of scripture, they that take the sword shall perish by the sword, is illustrated and confirmed by the history of almost every ancient tyrant. We find that they almost all come at last to some terrible end. The man who usurps a throne by violence seems, in all ages and among all nations, very sure to be expelled from it by greater violence after a brief period of power, and he who poisons or assassinates a precedent rival whom he wishes to supplant is almost invariably cut off by the poison or the dagger of a following one who wishes to supplant him. The death of Agathocles took place about nine years before the campaign of Pyrrhus in Italy as described in the last chapter, and during that period the Kingdom of Sicily had been in a very distracted state. Maynon immediately after the poisoning of the King fled to the camp of Archegathus who was at that time in command of an army at a distance from the city. Here in a short time he contrived to assassinate Archegathus and to seize the supreme power. It was not long, however, before new claimants and competitors for possession of the throne appeared, and new wars broke out, in the course of which Maynon was deposed at length in the midst of the contests and commotions that prevailed. Two of the leading generals of the Sicilian army conceived the idea of bringing forward Pyrrhus's son by Lennosa as the heir to the crown. This prince was, of course, the grandson of the old King Agathocles, and as there was no other descendant of the royal line at hand who could be made the representative of the ancient monarchy, it was thought by the generals above referred to that the only measure which afforded any hope of restoring peace to the country was to send an embassy to Pyrrhus and invite him to come and place his young son upon the throne. The name of Lennosa's son was Alexander. He was a boy, perhaps at this time, about twelve years old. At the same time that Pyrrhus received the invitation to go to Sicily, a message came to him from certain parties in Greece informing him that on account of some revolutions which had taken place there a very favorable opportunity was afforded him to secure for himself the throne of that country and urging him to come and make the attempt. Pyrrhus was for some time quite undecided which of these two proposals to accept. The prize offered him in Greece was more tempting, but the expedition into Sicily seemed to promise more certain success. While revolving the question in his mind which conquest he should first undertake, he complained of the tantalizing cruelty of fortune in offering him two such tempting prizes at the same time so as to compel him to forgo either the one or the other. At length he decided to go first to Sicily. It was said that one reason which influenced his mind very strongly in making this decision was the fact that Sicily was so near the coast of Africa and the Sicilians being involved in wars with the Carthaginians, he thought that if successful in his operations in Sicily the way would be open for him to make an expedition into Africa, in which case he did not doubt but that he should be able soon to overturn the Carthaginian power and add all the northern coasts of Africa to his dominions. His empire would thus embrace Epirus, the whole southern part of Italy, Sicily and the coasts of Africa. He could afterward he thought easily add Greece and then his dominions would include all the wealthy and populous countries surrounding the most important part of the Mediterranean Sea. His government would thus become a naval power of the first class and any further extension of his sway which he might subsequently desire could easily be accomplished. In a word, Epirus decided first to proceed to Sicily and to postpone for a brief period his designs on Greece. He accordingly proceeded to withdraw his troops from the interior of the country in Italy and concentrate them in and around Tarentum. He began to make naval preparations too on a very extensive scale. The port of Tarentum soon presented a very busy scene, the work of building and repairing ships, of fabricating sails and rigging, of constructing and arming galleys, of disciplining and training crews, of laying in stores of food and of implements of war, went on with great activity and engaged universal attention. The Tarentines themselves stood by while all these preparations were going on rather as spectators of the scene than as active participants. Epirus had taken the absolute command of their city and government and was exercising supreme power as if he were the acknowledged sovereign of the country. He had been invited to come over from his own kingdom to help the Tarentines, not to govern them. But he had seized the sovereign power, justifying the seizure as is usual with military men under similar circumstances by the necessity of the case. There must be order and submission to authority in the city, he said, or we can make no progress in subduing our enemies. The Tarentines had thus been induced to submit to his assumption of power, convinced perhaps partly by his reasoning and at all events silenced by the display of force by which it was accompanied, and they had consoled themselves under a condition of things which they could not prevent by considering that it was better to yield to a temporary foreign domination than to be wholly overwhelmed as there was every probability before Epirus came to them that they would be by their domestic foes. When, however, they found that Epirus was intending to withdraw from them and to go to Sicily without having really effected their deliverance from the danger which threatened them, they at first remonstrated against the design. They wished him to remain and finish the work which he had begun. The Romans had been checked, but they had not been subdued. Epirus ought not, they said, to go away and leave them until their independence and freedom had been fully established. They remonstrated with him against his design, but their remonstrances proved wholly unavailing. When at length the Tarentines found that Epirus was determined to go to Sicily, they then desired that he should withdraw his troops from their country altogether and leave them to themselves. This, however, Epirus refused to do. He had no intention of relinquishing the power which he had acquired in Italy, and he accordingly began to make preparations for leaving a strong garrison in Tarentum to maintain his government there. He organized a sort of regency in the city and set apart a sufficient force from his army to maintain it in power during his absence. When this was done he began to make preparations for transporting the rest of his force to Sicily by sea. He determined to send Sinnaeus forward first, according to his usual custom, to make the preliminary arrangements in Sicily. Sinnaeus consequently left Tarentum with a small squadron of ships and galleys, and after a short voyage arrived safely at Syracuse. He found the leading powers in that city ready to welcome Epirus as soon as he should arrive and make the young Alexander King. Sinnaeus completed and closed the arrangements for this purpose, and then sent messengers to various other cities on the northern side of the island, making known to them the design which had been formed of raising an air of King Agathocles to the throne and asking their cooperation in it. He managed these negotiations with so much prudence and skill that nearly all that part of the island, which was in the hands of the Sicilians, readily acceded to the plan, and the people were everywhere prepared to welcome Epirus and the young Prince as soon as they should arrive. Sicily, as will be seen by referring to the map, is of a triangular form. It was only the southern portion which was at this time in the hands of the Sicilians. There were two foreign and hostile powers in possession, respectively, of the northeastern and northwestern portions. In the northeastern corner of the island was the city of Massana, the Messina of modern days. In the time of Epirus's expedition, Massana was the seat and stronghold of a war-like nation called the Mamertines, who had come over from Italy across the straits of Massana some years before, and having made themselves masters of that portion of the island, had since held their ground there, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Sicilians to expel them. The Mamertines had originally come into Sicily. It was said, as Epirus had gone into Italy, by invitation. Agathocles sent for them to come and aid him in some of his wars. After the object for which they had been sent for had been accomplished, Agathocles dismissed his auxiliaries, and they set out on their return. They proceeded through the northeastern part of the island to Massana, where they were to embark for Italy. Though they had rendered Agathocles very efficient aid in his campaigns, they had also occasioned him an infinite deal of trouble by their turbulent and ungovernable spirit. And now, as they were withdrawing from the island, the inhabitants of the country through which they passed on the way regarded them everywhere with terror and dread. The people of Massana, anxious to avoid a quarrel with them, and disposed to facilitate their peaceable departure from the land by every means in their power, received them into the city, and hospitably entertained them there. Instead, however, of quietly withdrawing from the city in proper time, as the Massanians had expected them to do, they rose suddenly and unexpectedly upon the people at a concerted signal, took possession of the city, massacred without mercy all the men, seized the women and children, and then each one establishing himself in the household that choice or chance assigned him, married the wife, and adopted the children whose husband and father he had murdered. The result was the most complete and extraordinary overturning that the history of the world can afford. It was a political, a social, and a domestic revolution all in one. This event took place many years before the time of Pyrrhus's expedition, and though during the interval the Sicilians had made many efforts to dispossess the intruders and to recover possession of Massana, they had not been able to accomplish the work. The Mamertines maintained their ground in Massana, and from that city, as their fortress and stronghold, they extended their power over a considerable portion of the surrounding country. This territory of the Mamertines was in the northeastern part of the island. In the northwestern part, on the other hand, there was a large province in the hands of the Carthaginians. Their chief city was Erics, though there was another important city and port called Lilibeum, which was situated to the southward of Erics on the seashore. Here the Carthaginians were accustomed to land, their reinforcements and stores, and by means of the ready and direct communication which they could thus keep up with Carthage itself, they were enabled to resist all the efforts which the Sicilians had made to dispossess them. There were thus three objects to be accomplished by Pyrrhus in Sicily before his dominion over the island could be complete. Namely, the Sicilians themselves in the southern and central parts of the island were to be conciliated and combined and induced to give up their intestine quarrels and to acknowledge the young Alexander as the king of the island, and then the Mamertines on the northeast part and the Carthaginians in the northwest were to be conquered and expelled. The work was done so far as related to the Sicilians themselves, mainly by Cineus. His dexterous negotiations healed in a great measure the quarrels which prevailed among the people and prepared the way for welcoming Pyrrhus and the young prince as soon as they should appear. In respect to the Carthaginians and the Mamertines, nothing of course could be attempted until the fleets and armies should arrive. At length the preparations for the sailing of the expedition from Tarentum were completed. The fleet consisted of two hundred sail. The immense squadron, every vessel of which was crowded with armed men, left the harbor of Tarentum, watched by a hundred thousand spectators who had assembled to witness its departure and slowly made its way along the Italian shores while its arrival at Syracuse was the object of universal expectation and interest in that city. When at length the fleet appeared in view, entering its port of destination, the whole population of the city and of the surrounding country flocked to the shores to witness the spectacle. Through the efforts which had been made by Cineus and in consequence of the measures which he had adopted, all ranks and classes of men were ready to welcome Pyrrhus as an expected deliverer. In the name of the young prince, his son, he was to re-establish the ancient monarchy, restore peace and harmony to the land, and expel the hated foreign enemies that infested the confines of it. Accordingly, when the fleet arrived and Pyrrhus and his troops landed from it, they were received by the whole population with loud and tumultuous acclamations. After the festivities and rejoicings which were instituted to celebrate Pyrrhus' arrival were concluded, the young Alexander was proclaimed king and a government was instituted in his name, Pyrrhus himself, of course, being invested with all actual power. Pyrrhus then took the field and on mustering his forces, he found himself at the head of thirty or forty thousand men. He first proceeded to attack the Carthaginians. He marched to the part of the island which they held and gave them battle in the most vigorous and determined manner. They retreated to their cities and shut themselves up closely within the walls. Pyrrhus advanced to attack them. He determined to carry Eryx, which was the strongest of the Carthaginian cities by storm, instead of waiting for the slow operations of an ordinary siege. The troops were accordingly ordered to advance at once to the walls and they're mounting by means of innumerable ladders to the parapets above. They were to force their way in over the defenses of the city in spite of all opposition. Of course such a service as this is of all the duties ever required of the soldier the most dangerous possible. The towers and parapets above which the assailants undertake to scale are covered with armed men who throng to the part of the wall against which the attack is to be directed and stand there ready with spears, javelins, rocks, and every other conceivable missile to hurl upon the heads of the besiegers coming up the ladders. Pyrrhus however whatever may have been his faults in other respects seems to have been very little inclined at any time to order his soldiers to encounter any danger which he was not willing himself to share. He took the head of the column in the storming of Eryx and was the first to mount the ladders. Previous however to advancing for the attack he performed a grand religious ceremony in which he implored the assistance of the god Hercules in the encounter which was about to take place and made a solemn vow that if Hercules would assist him in the conflict so as to enable him to display before these Sicilians such strength and valor and to perform such feats as should be worthy of his name, his ancestry, and his past history he would immediately after the battle institute on the spot a course of festivals and sacrifices of the most imposing and magnificent character in honor of the god. This vow being made the trumpet sounded and the storming party went forward, Pyrrhus at the head of it. In mounting the ladder he defended himself with his shield from the missiles thrown down upon him from above until he reached the top of the wall and there by means of his prodigious strength and desperate and reckless bravery he soon gained ground for those that followed him and established a position there both for himself and for them having cut down one after another those who attempted to oppose him until he had surrounded himself with a sort of parapet formed of the bodies of the dead in the meantime the whole line of ladders extending along the wall were crowded with men all forcing their way upward against the resistance which the besieged opposed to them from above while thousands of troops drawn up below as near as possible to the scene of conflict were throwing a shower of darts arrows javelins spears and other missiles to aid the storming party by driving away the besieged from the top of the wall by these means those who were mounting the ladders were so much aided in their efforts that they soon succeeded in gaining possession of the wall and thus made themselves masters of the city pierce then in fulfillment of his vow instituted a great celebration and devoted several days to games spectacles shows and public rejoicings of all kinds intended to express his devout gratitude to Hercules for the divine assistance which the god had vouchsafed to him in the assault by which the city had been carried by the result of this battle and of some other military operations which we can not hear particularly describe the Carthaginians were driven from the open field and compelled to shut themselves up in their strongholds or retire to the fastnesses of the mountains where they found places of refuge and defense from which Pyrrhus could not at once dislodge them accordingly leaving things at present as they were in the Carthaginian or western part of the island he proceeded to attack the Mamertines in the eastern part he was equally successful here by means of the tact and skill which he exercised in his military arrangements and maneuvers and by the desperate bravery and impetuosity which he displayed in battle he conquered wherever he came he captured and destroyed many of the strongholds of the Mamertines drove them entirely out of the open country and shut them up in Massana thus the island was almost wholly restored to the possession of the Sicilians while yet the foreign intruders though checked and restrained were not after all really expelled the Carthaginians sent messengers to him proposing terms of peace their intention was in these proposals to retain their province in Sicily as heretofore and to agree with Pyrrhus in respect to a boundary each party being required by the proposed treaty to confine themselves within their respective limits as thus ascertained Pyrrhus however replied that he could entertain no such proposals he answered them precisely as the Romans had answered him on a similar occasion saying that he should insist upon their first retiring from Sicily altogether as a preliminary step to any negotiations whatever the Carthaginians would not exceed to this demand and so the negotiations were suspended still the Carthaginians were so securely posted in their strongholds that Pyrrhus supposed the work of dislodging them by force would be a slow and tedious and perhaps doubtful undertaking his bold and restless spirit accordingly conceived the design of leaving them as they were and going on in the prosecution of his original design by organizing a grand expedition for the invasion of Africa in fact he thought this would be the most effectual means of getting the Carthaginians out of Sicily since he anticipated that if he were to land in Africa and threaten Carthage itself the authorities there would be compelled to recall all their forces from foreign lands to defend their own homes and firesides at the capital he determined therefore to equip his fleet for a voyage across the Mediterranean without any delay he had ships enough but he was in want of mariners in order to supply this want he began to impress the Sicilians into his service they were very reluctant to engage in it partly from natural aversion to so distant and dangerous and enterprise and partly because they were unwilling that Pyrrhus should leave the island himself until their foreign foes were entirely expelled as soon as you have gone they said the Carthaginians and the Mamertines will come out from their hiding places and retreats and the country will be immediately involved in all the difficulties from which you have been endeavoring to deliver us all your labor will have been lost and we shall sink perhaps into a more deplorable condition than ever it was evident that these representations were true but Pyrrhus could not be induced to pay any heed to them he was determined on carrying into effect his design of a descent upon the coast of Africa he accordingly pressed forward his preparations in a more arbitrary and reckless spirit than ever he became austere imperious and tyrannical in his measures he arrested some of the leading generals and ministers of state men who had been his firmest friends and through whose agency it was that he had been invited into Sicily but whom he now suspected of being unfriendly to his designs one of these men he put to death in the meantime he pressed forward his preparations compelling men to join his army and to embark on board his fleet and resorting to other harsh and extreme measures which the people might perhaps have submitted to from one of their own hereditary sovereigns but which were altogether intolerable when imposed upon them by a foreign adventurer who had come to their island by their invitation to accomplish a prescribed and definite duty in a word before Pyrrhus was ready to embark on his African campaign a general rebellion broke out all over Sicily against his authority some of the people joined the memetines some the carthaginians in a word the whole country was in an uproar and Pyrrhus had the mortification of seeing the great fabric of power which as he imagined he had been so successfully rearing come tumbling suddenly on all sides to the ground as the reader will have learned long before this time it was not the nature of Pyrrhus to remain on the spot and grapple with difficulties like these if there were any new enterprise to be undertaken or any desperate battle to be fought on a sudden emergency Pyrrhus was always ready and eager for action and almost sure of success but he had no qualities whatever to fit him for the exigencies of such a crisis as this he had ardor and impetuosity but no perseverance or decision he could fight but he could not plan he was recklessly and desperately brave in encountering physical danger but when involved in difficulties and embarrassments his only resource was to fly accordingly it was soon announced in Sicily that Pyrrhus had determined to postpone his plan of proceeding to Africa and was going back to Tarentum once he came he had received intelligence from Tarentum he said that required his immediate return to that city this was probably true for he had left things in such a condition at Tarentum that he was doubtless continually receiving such intelligence from that quarter whether he received any special or extraordinary summons from Tarentum just at this time is extremely uncertain he however pretended that such a message had come and under this pretense he sheltered himself in his intended departure so as just to escape the imputation of being actually driven away his enemies however did not intend to allow him to depart in peace the Carthaginians being apprised of his design sent a fleet to watch the coast and intercept him while the Mamertines crossing the strait marched to the place on the coast of Italy where they expected he would land intending to attack him as soon as he should set foot upon the shore both these plans were successful the Carthaginians attacked his fleet and destroyed many of his ships Pyrrhus himself barely succeeded in making his escape with a small number of vessels and reaching the shore here as soon as he gained the land he was confronted by the Mamertines who had reached the place before him with 10 000 men Pyrrhus soon collected from the ships that reached the land a force so formidable that the Mamertines did not dare to attack him in a body but they blocked up the passes through which the way to Tarentum lay and endeavored in every way to intercept and harass him in his march they killed two of his elephants and cut off many separate detachments of men and finally deranged all his plans and threw his whole army into confusion Pyrrhus at length determined to force his enemies to battle accordingly as soon as a favorable opportunity occurred he pushed forward at the head of a strong force and attacked the Mamertines in a sudden and most impetuous manner a terrible conflict ensued in which Pyrrhus as usual exposed himself personally in the most desperate manner in fact the various disappointments and vexations which he had endured had aroused him to a state of great exasperation against his tormenting enemies he pushed forward into the hottest part of the battle his prodigious muscular strength enabling him to beat down and destroy for a time all who attempted to oppose him at last however he received a terrible wound in the head which for the moment entirely disabled him he was rescued from his peril by his friends though stunned and fainting under the blow and was born off from the scene of conflict with the blood flowing down his face and neck a frightful spectacle on being carried to a place of safety within his own ranks he soon revived and it was found that he was not dangerously hurt the enemy however full of rage and hatred came up as near as they dared to the spot where Pyrrhus had been carried and stood there calling out to him to come back if he was still alive and filling the air with taunting and insulting cries and vociferations of challenge and defiance Pyrrhus endured this mockery for a few moments as well as he could but was finally goaded by it into a perfect frenzy of rage he seized his weapons pushed his friends and attendants aside and in spite of all their remonstrances and all their efforts to restrain him he rushed forth and assailed his enemies with greater fury than ever breathless as he was from his former efforts and covered with blood and gore he exhibited a shocking spectacle to all who beheld him the champion of the mammurteens the one who had been foremost in challenging Pyrrhus to return came up to meet him with his weapon upraised Pyrrhus parried the blow and then suddenly bringing down his own sword upon the top of his antagonist head he cut the man down as the story is told from head to foot making so complete a division that one half of the body fell over to one side and the other half to the other it is difficult perhaps to assign limits to the degree of physical strength which the human arm is capable of exerting this fact however of cleaving the body of a man by a blow from a sword was regarded in ancient times as just on the line of absolute impossibility and was considered consequently as the highest personal exploit which a soldier could perform it was attributed at different times to several different warriors though it is not believed in modern days that the feat was ever really performed but whatever may have been the fate of the mammurteen champion under Pyrrhus's sword the army itself met with such a discomforture in the battle that they gave Pyrrhus no further trouble but retiring from the field left him to pursue his march to torrentum for the remainder of the way in peace he arrived there at last with a force in numbers about equal to that with which he had left torrentum for Sicily the whole object however of his expedition had totally failed the enterprise in fact like almost all the undertakings which Pyrrhus engaged in though brilliantly and triumphantly successful in the beginning came only to disappointment and disaster in the end end of chapter seven chapter eight of pyrrhus by jacob abbot this libravox recording is in the public domain recording by dion gines salt lake city utah the retreat from italy bc 276 to 274 the force with which pyrrhus returned to torrentum was very nearly as large as that which he had taken away but was composed of very different materials the greeks from epirus whom he had brought over with him in the first instance from his native land had gradually disappeared from the ranks of his army many of them had been killed in battle and still greater numbers had been carried off by exposure and fatigue and by the thousand other casualties incident to such a service as that in which they were engaged their places had been supplied from time to time by new enlistments or by impressment and conscription of course these new recruits were not bound to their commander by any ties of attachment or regard they were mostly mercenaries that is men hired to fight and willing to fight in any cause or for any commander provided they would be paid in a word pyrrhus's fellow countrymen of epirus had disappeared and the ranks of his army were filled up with unprincipled and destitute wretches who felt no interest in his cause no pride in his success no concern for his honor they adhered to him only for the sake of the pay and the indulgences of a soldier's life and for their occasional hopes of plunder besides the condition of his army pyrrhus found the situation of his affairs in other respects very critical on his arrival at torrentum the romans had made great progress during his absence in subjugating the whole country to their sway cities and towns which had been under his dominion when he went to sicily had been taken by the romans or had gone over to them of their own accord the government which he had established at torrentum was thus curtailed of power and shut in in respect to territory and he felt himself compelled immediately to take the field in order to recover his lost ground he adopted vigorous measures immediately to reinforce his army and to obtain the necessary supplies his treasury was exhausted in order to replenish it he dispatched ambassadors to his various allies to borrow money he knew of course that a large portion of his army would abandon him immediately so soon as they should find that he was unable to pay them he was therefore quite uneasy for a time in respect to the state of his finances and he instructed his ambassadors to press the urgency of his wants upon his allies in a very earnest manner he did not however wait for the result of these measures but immediately commenced active operations in the field one of his first exploits was the recapture of locre a city situated on the southern shore of italy as will be seen by the map this city had been in his possession before he went to sicily but it had gone over to the romans during his absence locre was a very considerable town and the recovery of it from the romans was considered quite an important gain the place derived its consequence in some considerable degree from a celebrated temple which stood there it was the temple of prosperina the goddess of death this temple was magnificent in its structure and it was enriched with very costly and valuable treasures it not only gave distinction to the town in which it stood but on account of an extraordinary train of circumstances which occurred in connection with it it became the occasion of one of the most important incidents in paris's history prosperina as has already been intimated was the goddess of death it is very difficult for us at the present day to understand and appreciate the conceptions which the greeks and romans in ancient times entertained of the supernatural beings which they worshiped those strange creations in which we see historic truth poetic fancy and a sublime superstition so singularly blended to aid us in rightly understanding this subject we must remember that in those days the boundaries of what was known as actual reality were very uncertain and vague only a very small portion either of the visible world or of the domain of science and philosophy had then been explored and in the thoughts and conceptions of every man the natural and the true passed by insensible gradations on every hand into the monstrous and the supernatural there being no principles of any kind established in men's minds to mark the boundaries where the true and the possible must end and all beyond be impossible and absurd the knowledge therefore that men derived from the observation of such truths and such objects as were immediately around them passed by insensible gradations into the regions of fancy and romance and all was believed together they saw lions and elephants in the lands which were near and which they knew and they believed in the centaurs the mermaids the hippogriffs and the dragons which they imagined inhabiting regions more remote they saw heroes and chieftains in the plains and in the valleys below and they had no reason to disbelieve in the existence of gods and demigods upon the summits of the blue and beautiful mountains above where for ought they knew there might lie boundless territories of murder and loveliness wholly inaccessible to man in the same manner beneath the earth somewhere they knew not where they're lay as they imagined extended regions destined to receive the spirits of the dead with approaches leading to it through mysterious grottoes and caverns from above prosperina was the goddess of death and the queen of these lower abodes various stories were told of her origin and history the one most characteristic and most minutely detailed is this she was the daughter of jupiter and series she was very beautiful and in order to protect her from the impunity of lovers her mother sent her under the care of an attendant named calligina to a cavern in sicily and concealed her there the mouth of the cavern was guarded by dragons pluto who was the god of the inferior regions asked her of jupiter her father for his wife jupiter consented and sent venus to entice her out of her cavern that pluto might obtain her venus attended by manurva and diana proceeded to the cavern where prosperina was concealed the three goddesses contrived some means to keep the dragons that guarded the cavern away and then easily persuaded the maiden to come out to take a walk prosperina was charmed with the verter and beauty which she found around her on the surface of the ground strongly contrasted as they were with the gloom and desolation of her cavern she was attended by nymphs and zeffers in her walk and in their company she rambled along admiring the beauty and enjoying the fragrance of the flowers some of the flowers which most attracted her attention were produced on the spot by the miraculous power of jupiter who caused them to spring up in wonderful luxuriance and splendor the more effectually to charm the senses of the maiden whom they were enticing away at length suddenly the earth opened and pluto appeared coming up from below in a golden chariot drawn by immortal steeds and seizing prosperina he carried her down to his own abodes series the mother of prosperina was greatly distressed when she learned the fate of her daughter she immediately went to jupiter and implored him to restore prosperina to the upper world jupiter on the other hand urged series to consent to her remaining as the wife of pluto the mother however would not yield and finally her tears and entreaties so far prevailed over jupiter as to induce him to give permission to series to bring prosperina back provided that she had not tasted of any food that grew in the regions below series accordingly went in search of her daughter she found unfortunately that prosperina in walking through the alicean fields with pluto had unconsciously eaten a pomegranate which she had taken from a tree that was growing there she was consequently precluded from availing herself of jupiter's permission to return to olympus finally however jupiter consented that she should divide her time between the inferior and the superior regions spending six months with pluto below and six months with her mother above and she did so prosperina was looked upon by all mankind with feelings of great veneration and awe as the goddess and queen of death and she was worshiped in many places with solemn and imposing ceremonies there was moreover in the minds of men a certain mystical significance in the mode of life which she led in thus dividing her time by regular alternations between the lower and upper worlds that seemed to them to denote and typify the principle of vegetation which may be regarded as in a certain sense alternately a principle of life and death in as much as for six months in the year it appears in the form of living and growing plants rising above the ground and covering the earth with verter and beauty and then for the six months that remain it withdraws from the view and exists only in the form of inert and apparently lifeless roots and seeds concealed in hidden recesses beneath the ground prosperina was thus considered the type and emblem of vegetation and she was accordingly worshiped in some sense as the goddess of resuscitation and life as well as of death and the grave one of the principal temples which had been built in honor of prosperina was situated as has already been said at locree and ceremonies and festivals were celebrated here at stated intervals with great pomp and parade this temple had become very wealthy two immense treasures having been collected in it consisting of gold and silver vessels precious stones and rich and splendid paraphernalia of every kind the gifts and offerings which had been made from time to time by princes and kings who had attended the festivals when pires had reconquered locree from the romans and this temple with all its treasures fell into his power some of his advisors suggested that since he was in such urgent need of money and all his other plans for supplying himself had hitherto failed he should take possession of these treasures they might it was argued be considered in some sense as public property and as the locreans had revolted from him in his absence and now had been reconquered and knew he was entitled to regard these riches as the spoils of victory purists determined to follow this advice he took possession of the richest and most valuable of the articles which the temple contained and putting them on board ships which he sent to locree for the purpose he undertook to transport them to torrentum he intended to convert them there into money in order to obtain funds to supply the wants of his army the ships however on their passage along the coast encountered a terrible storm and were nearly all wrecked and destroyed the mariners who had navigated the vessels were drowned while yet the sacred treasures were saved and that too as it would seem by some supernatural agency since the same surges which overwhelmed and destroyed the sacrilegious ships and semen washed the cases in which the holy treasures had been packed up upon the beach and there the messengers of purists found them scattered among the rocks and on the sand at various points along the shore purists was greatly terrified at this disaster he conceived that it was a judgment of heaven inflicted upon him through the influence and agency of prosperina as a punishment for his impious presumption into spoiling her shrine he carefully collected all that the sea had saved and sent everything back to locree he instituted solemn services there in honor of prosperina to express his penitence for his faults and to give us still more decisive proof of his desire to appease her anger he put to death the counselors who had advised him to take the treasures notwithstanding all these attempts to atone for his offense purists could not dispel from his mind the gloomy impression which had been made upon it by the idea that he had incurred the direct displeasure of heaven he did not believe that the anger of prosperina was ever fully appeased and whenever misfortunes and calamities befell him in his subsequent career he attributed them to the displeasure of the goddess of death who as he believed followed him everywhere and was intent on effecting his ruin it was now late in the season and the military operations both of pyrrhus and of the romans were in a great measure suspended until spring pyrrhus spent the interval in making arrangements for taking the field as soon as the winter should be over he had however many difficulties to contend with his financial embarrassment still continued his efforts to procure funds were only very partially successful the people too in all the region about torrentum were he found holy alienated from him they had not forgiven him for having left them to go to sicily and in consequence of this abandonment of their cause they had lost much of their confidence in him as their protector while everything like enthusiasm in his service was wholly gone through these and other causes he encountered innumerable impediments in executing his plans and his mind was harassed with continual disappointment and anxiety such however was still his resolution and energy that when the season arrived for taking the field he had a considerable force in readiness and he marched out of torrentum at the head of it to go and meet the romans the romans themselves on the other hand had raised a very large force and had sent it forward in two divisions under the command of the two consuls these two divisions took different routes one passing to the north through the province of samnium and the other to the south through locania both however leading toward torrentum pierce divided his forces also into two parts one body of troops he sent northwardly into samnium to meet the northern division of the roman army while with the other he advanced himself by the more southern route to meet the roman consul who was coming through locania the name of this consul was curious dentotus pierce advanced into locania the roman general when he found that his enemy was coming thought it most prudent to send for the other division of his army namely the one which was marching through samnium and to wait until it should arrive before giving pierce battle he accordingly dispatched the necessary orders to lentulus who commanded the northern division and in the meantime entrenched himself in a strong encampment at a place called benaventum pierce entered locania and advanced toward benaventum and after ascertaining the state of the case in respect to the situation of the camp and the plans of curious he paused at some distance from the roman position in order to consider what it was best for him to do he finally came to the conclusion that it was very important that his conflict with the romans under curious should take place before lentulus should arrive to reinforce them and so he determined to advance rapidly and fall upon and surprise them in their entrenchments before they were aware of his approach this plan he accordingly attempted to execute he advanced in the ordinary manner and by the public roads of the country until he began to draw near to benaventum at the close of the day he encamped as usual but instead of waiting in his camp until the following day and then marching on in his accustomed manner he procured guides to lead his troops around by a circuitous path among the mountains with a view of coming down suddenly and unexpectedly upon the camp of the romans from the hills very early in the morning and immense number of torches were provided to furnish light for the soldiers in traversing the dark forests and gloomy ravines through which their pathway lay notwithstanding all the precautions which had been taken the difficulties of the route were so great that the progress of the troops was very much impeded the track was everywhere encumbered with bushes rocks fallen trees and swampy tracks of ground so that the soldiers made way very slowly great numbers of the torches failed in the course of the night some getting extinguished by accident and others going out from exhaustion of fuel by these means great numbers of the troops were left in the dark and after groping about for a time in devious and uncertain paths became hopelessly lost in the forest notwithstanding all these difficulties and discouragements however the main body of the army pressed resolutely on and just about daybreak the van came out upon the heights above the roman encampment as soon as a sufficient number were assembled they were at once marshalled in battle array and descending from the mountains they made a furious onset upon the entrenchments of the enemy the romans were taken holy by surprise and their camp became immediately a scene of the wildest confusion the men started up everywhere out of their sleep and seized their arms they were soon in a situation to make a very effectual resistance to the attack of their enemies they first beat the assailants back from the points where they were endeavoring to gain admission and then encouraged by their success they sallied forth from their entrenchments and became assailants in their turn the greeks were soon overpowered and forced to retire altogether from the ground a great many were killed and some elephants which pierce had contrived by some means to bring up to the spot were taken the romans were of course greatly elated at this victory in fact so much was curious gratified and pleased with this success and so great was the confidence with which it inspired him that he determined to wait no longer for lunchless but to march out at once and give pierce battle he accordingly brought forth his troops and drew them up on a plane near his encampment posting them in such a way as to gain a certain advantage for himself in the nature of the ground which he had chosen while yet since there was nothing but the open field between himself and his enemy the movement was a fair and regular challenge to battle pierce accepted this challenge by bringing up his forces to the field and the conflict began as soon as the combatants were fairly engaged one of the wings of pierce's army began to give way the other wing on the contrary which was the one that pierce himself personally commanded was victorious pierce himself led his soldiers on and he inspired them with so much strength and energy by his own reckless daring that all those portions of the roman army which were opposed to them were beaten and driven back into the camp this success however was not wholly owing to the personal prowess of pierce it was due in a great measure to the power of the elephants for they fought in that part of the field as the romans were almost wholly unaccustomed to the warfare of elephants they knew not how to resist them and the huge bees bore down all before them wherever they moved in this crisis curious ordered a fresh body of troops to advance it was a core of reserve which he had stationed near the camp under orders to hold themselves in readiness there to come forward and act at any moment and at any part of the field wherever their services might be required these troops were now summoned to advance and attack the elephants they accordingly came rushing on brandishing their swords in one hand and bearing burning torches with which they had been provided for the occasion in the other the torches they threw at the elephants as soon as they came near in order to terrify them and make them unmanageable and then with their swords they attacked the keepers and drivers of the beasts and the men who fought in connection with them the success of this onset was so great that the elephants soon became unmanageable they even broke into the phalanx and threw the ranks of it into confusion overturning and trampling upon the men and falling themselves upon the slain under the wounds which the spears inflicted upon them a remarkable incident is said to have occurred in the midst of this scene of confusion and terror which strikingly illustrates the strength of the maternal instinct even among brutes it happened that there was a young elephant and also its mother in the same division of pyrrhus's army the former though young was sufficiently grown to serve as an elephant of war and as it happened its post on the field of battle was not very far from that of its mother in the course of the battle the young elephant was wounded and it uttered immediately a piercing cry of pain and terror the mother heard the cry and recognized the voice that uttered it through all the den and uproar of the battle she immediately became wholly ungovernable and breaking away from the control of her keepers she rushed forward trampling down everything in her way to rescue and protect her offspring this incident occurred at the commencement of the attack which the roman reserve made upon the elephants and contributed very essentially to the panic and confusion which followed in the end pyrrhus was entirely defeated he was compelled to abandon his camp and to retire toward torrentum the romans immediately advanced flushed with victory and carrying all before them pyrrhus retreated faster and faster his numbers continually diminishing as he fled until at last when he reached torrentum he had only a few horsemen in his train he sent off the most urgent requests to his friends and allies in greece to furnish him aid the help however did not come and pyrrhus in order to keep the small remnant that still adhered to him together resorted to the desperate expedient of forging letters from his friends promising speedy and abundant supplies and showing these letters to his officers to prevent them from being wholly discouraged and abandoning his cause this miserable contrivance however even if successful could only afford a momentary relief pyrrhus soon found that all hope and possibility of retrieving his fortunes in italy had entirely disappeared and that no alternative was left to him but to abandon the ground so pretending to wonder why his allies did not send forward the succors which they had promised in their letters and saying that since they were so dilatory and remiss he must go himself and bring them but promising that he would immediately return he set sail from torrentum and crossing the sea went home to his own kingdom he arrived safely in a pyrrhus after an absence of six years end of chapter eight chapter nine of pyrrhus by jacob abbot this libra vox recording is in the public domain recording by dion gines subtlake city utah the family of lisimachus bc 284 to 273 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 lisimachus lisimachus 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 counter plans 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 error 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 are rising under them are disturbed or modified or confused by conquests and revolutions and thus they often become so hopelessly involved that no human suggestivity can classify or arrange them the case of France at the present time 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 rest 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 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 70 years old he commenced his military career during the lifetime of Alexander the great having been one of the great conquerors 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 affected a useful and 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 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 Amostris 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 Amostris 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 Amostris prisoners and put them to death without mercy in retribution for their atrocious crime at the time when Lysimachus put away his wife Amostris he married Arseno an Egyptian princess the daughter in fact of Ptolemy the son of Lagos who was at this time the king of Egypt how far Lysimachus was governed in his repudiation of Amostris by this influence of Arseno'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 Arseno 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 Baranis 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 theaters of action rivals and enemies Baranis gained the affections of Ptolemy and at length he married her Arseno whom Lysimachus married was the daughter of Ptolemy and Baranis 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 Ptolemy line but besides these descendants of Baranis 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 Saronis 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 counter schemes which were resorted to by the two parties in their efforts to thwart and circumvent each other as Arseno the wife of Lysimachus was the daughter of Baranis yet might have been expected that the influence of Baranis'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 Euridice's daughter thus in the court and family of Lysimachus Baranis had a representative in the person of her daughter Arseno the wife of the king himself while Euridice 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 Arseno and Lysandra and by the attempts which each made to affect the destruction of the other of course in this contest the advantage was on the side of Arseno 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 Arseno 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 Arseno 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 Arseno succeeded in convincing Lysamakas 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 Lysamakas 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 Saronis 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 Seleusus king of Syria Seleusus was another of the generals of Alexander the only one in fact besides Lysamakas who now survived he had of course like Lysamakas attained to a very advanced period of life being at this time more than 75 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 Seleusus 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 Lysamakas in fact had driven them away by these severe measures which he had adopted against them these men assembled at the court of Seleusus and there with Lysander and Ptolemy Seranas they began to form plans for invading the dominions of Lysamakas and avenging the cruel death of Agathocles Seleususus was very easily induced to enter into these plans and war was declared Lysamakas did not wait for his enemies to invade his dominions he organized an army crossed the hell's pond and marched to meet Seleusus in Asia Minor the armies met in Phrygia a desperate battle was fought Lysamakas was conquered and slain Seleusus now determined to cross the hell's pond himself and advancing into Thrace and Macedon to annex those kingdoms to his own domains Ptolemy Seranas 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 Seranas 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 Seranas had lived for a long time in Macedon at the court of Lysamakas 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 Baranis and to her children over his mother Eurydice and him in fact it was said that one reason which led his father to give Baranis's family the precedence over that of Eurydice and to propose that her son rather than Ptolemy Seranas should succeed him was the violent and uncontrollable spirit which Seranas displayed at any rate Seranas 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 Lysamakas and had taken some active part in public affairs when Agathoc Cleese was poisoned he fled with Lysandra to Seleuces and when the preparations were made by Seleuces for war with Lysamakas he probably regarded himself as in some sense the leader of the expedition he considered Seleuces as his ally going with him to aid him in the attempt to recover the kingdom of his ancestors Seleuces however had no such design he by no means considered himself as engaged in prosecuting an expedition for the benefit of Seranas his plan was the enlargement of his own dominion and as for Seranas 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 principle in the momentous transactions which were taking place Seranas 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 Seleuces on the first opportunity Seleuces 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 Seranas'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 affect his resolution Ptolemy Seranas 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 Solusus immediately fell down and died Ptolemy Seranas 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 Seranas 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 Solusus 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 Solusus he maintained that his father had fairly conquered the kingdom of Macedon and had acquired the right to reign over it that Ptolemy Seronus by assassinating Solusus 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 Seronus 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 Seronus 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 everything was settled there was however one difficulty still remaining Arseno the widow of Lysimachus still lived it was Arseno 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 Salusus 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 Serranus 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 Arsino 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 Arsino 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 Arsino very readily acceded to this proposal it is true that she was the half sister of Serranus but this relationship was no bar to a matrimonial union according to the ideas that prevailed in the courts of kings in those days Arsino accordingly gave her consent to the proposal and opened the gates of the city to Serranus and his troops Serranus immediately put her two sons to death Arsino herself fled from the city very probably Serranus 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 Serranus's proceedings at any rate Arsino escaped and after various wanderings found her way back to her former home in her father's court at Alexandria the heart of Serranus was now filled with exaltation 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 Baranis 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 Saronis now however a deputation suddenly appeared at Saronis'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 Saronis in the pride of his newly established power treated this proposal with derision he directed the ambassadors 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 Saronis assembled all the forces that he could command marched northward to meet his enemy and a great battle was fought between the two armies Saronis commanded in person in this conflict he wrote 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 through his rider to the ground the gals 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 gals found themselves masters of the field the death of Ptolemy Saronis 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 gals 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 end of chapter nine