Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
Marcus Junianus Justinus
Book XXIV
§1. DURING the course of these proceedings in Sicily, the kings, Ptolemy Ceraunus and Antigonus, quarrelling and going to war with one another in Greece, almost all the cities of that country, under the Spartans as leaders, encouraged as it were by the opportunity thus offered to entertain hopes of recovering their liberty, and sending to each other ambassadors by whom leagues might be formed to unite them, broke out into hostilities; and, that they might not seem to commence war with Antigonus, under whose dominion they were, they attacked his allies the Aetolians, making it a pretext for war with them, that they had taken possession of the Cirrhaean plain, which by the unanimous consent of Greece had been dedicated to Apollo. For their general in this war they selected Areus, who, drawing together an army, laid waste the towns and corn-fields lying in the plain, and burnt whatever he was unable to carry off. When the shepherds of the Aetolians beheld this destruction from their mountains, about five hundred of them assembling together, attacked the enemy as they were dispersed, and knew not what was the number of their assailants (for the sudden alarm, and the smoke of the fires, prevented them from ascertaining), and having killed about nine thousand of the depredators, put the rest to flight. And when the Spartans afterwards renewed the war, many of the states refused them their support, thinking that they sought dominion for themselves, and not liberty for Greece.
In the meantime the war between the princes that contended for the throne of Macedonia was concluded, for Ptolemy, having routed Antigonus and made himself master of the whole country, arranged a peace with Antiochus, and contracted an affinity with Pyrrhus by giving him his daughter in marriage.
§2. Having thus freed himself from the fear of foreign enemies, he turned his impious and unprincipled mind to the perpetration of wickedness at home, and contrived a plot against his sister Arsinoe, to deprive her sons of life, and herself of the possession of the city of Cassandrea. His first stratagem was to pretend love to his sister, and to seek her hand in marriage, for he was unable to come at his sister’s sons, whose throne he had usurped, otherwise than by counterfeiting affection for their mother. But the criminal intentions of Ptolemy were understood by his sister. As she expressed distrust of him, therefore, he assured her that “he wished to share the kingdom with her children, against whom he had not taken arms because he wished to wrest the kingdom from them, but that he might have it in his power to present them with a portion of it. She might therefore send a person to receive an oath from him, in whose presence he would bind himself, before the gods of their country, by whatever execrations she pleased.” Arsinoe, not knowing what to do, was afraid that if she sent any one, she would be deceived by a false oath, and that, if she did not send, she would provoke her brother’s fury and cruelty. Fearing, therefore, less for herself than her children, whom she thought she might protect by the marriage, she sent Dion, one of her friends, to him. Ptolemy, after conducting him into the most sacred temple of Jupiter, held in high veneration from of old among the Macedonians, took hold of the altar, and, touching the images and couches of the gods, vowed, with unheard-of and most solemn imprecations, that “he sought a marriage with his sister in true sincerity, and that he would give her the title of Queen, nor would, to her dishonour, have any other wife, or any other children than her sons.” Arsinoe, being thus filled with hope, and relieved from apprehensions, held a conference with her brother in person, and as his looks and flattering glances promised no less sincerity than his oath, she agreed to marry him, though her son Lysimachus exclaimed that “there was treachery at the bottom.”
§3. The nuptials were celebrated with great magnificence and general rejoicings. Ptolemy, before the assembled army, placed a diadem on his sister’s head, and saluted her with the title of Queen. Arsinoe, overjoyed at the name, as having regained what she had lost by the death of Lysimachus her former husband, invited Ptolemy to her city Cassandrea; to get possession of which city the plot was laid. Going thither before her husband, she appointed a festival in the city against his arrival, ordering the houses, temples, and all other places, to be magnificently decorated, altars and victims to be everywhere kept in readiness, and her sons, Lysimachus who was sixteen years old, and Philip three years younger, both remarkable for their comeliness, to go to meet him with crowns on their heads. Ptolemy, to conceal his treachery, caressing them with eagerness, and beyond the warmth of real affection, persisted for a long time in kissing them. But as soon as he arrived at the gate, he ordered the citadel to be seized, and the boys to be slain. They, fleeing to their mother, were slain upon her lap, as she was embracing them; while Arsinoe exclaimed, “What monstrous crime had she committed, either in marrying or since her marriage?” She several times offered herself to the assassins in the room of her children, and, embracing them, covered their bodies with her own, endeavouring to receive the wounds intended for them. At last, deprived even of the dead bodies of her sons, she was dragged out of the city, with her garments torn and her hair dishevelled, and with only two attendants, and went to live in exile in Samothracia; sorrowing the more, that she was not allowed to die with her children. But the crimes of Ptolemy were not unpunished; for soon after (the immortal gods inflicting vengeance on him for so many perjuries, and such cruel murders), he was driven from his throne and taken prisoner by the Gauls, and lost his life, as he had merited, by the sword.
§4. The Gauls, when the land that had produced them was unable, from their excessive increase of population, to contain them, sent out three hundred thousand men, as a sacred spring, to seek new settlements. Of these adventurers part settled in Italy, and took and burnt the city of Rome; and part penetrated into the remotest parts of Illyricum under the direction of a flight of birds (for the Gauls are skilled in augury beyond other nations) making their way amidst great slaughter of the barbarous tribes, and fixed their abode in Pannonia. They were a savage, bold, and warlike nation, and were the first after Hercules (to whom that undertaking procured great admiration for his valour, and a belief in his immortality), to pass the unconquered heights of the Alps, and places uninhabitable from excess of cold. After having subdued the Pannonians, they carried on various wars with their neighbours for many years. Success encouraging them, they betook themselves, in separate bands, some to Greece, and some to Macedonia, laying waste all before them with the sword. Such indeed was the terror of the Gallic name, that even kings, before they were attacked, purchased peace from them with large sums of money. Ptolemy alone, the king of Macedonia, heard of the approach of the Gauls without alarm, and, hurried on by the madness that distracted him for his unnatural crimes, went out to meet them with a few undisciplined troops, as if wars could be dispatched with as little difficulty as murders. An embassy from the Dardanians, offering him twenty thousand armed men, for his assistance, he spurned, adding insulting language, and saying that “the Macedonians were in a sad condition if, after having subdued the whole east without assistance, they now required aid from the Dardanians to defend their country; and that he had for soldiers the sons of those who had served under Alexander the Great, and had been victorious throughout the world.” This answer being repeated to the Dardanian prince, he observed that “the famous kingdom of Macedonia would soon fall a sacrifice to the rashness of a raw youth.”
§5. The Gauls, under the command of Belgius, sent deputies to Ptolemy to sound the disposition of the Macedonians, offering him peace if he liked to purchase it; but Ptolemy boasted to his courtiers that the Gauls sued for peace from fear of war. Nor was his manner less vaunting before the ambassadors than before his own adherents, saying that “he would grant peace only on condition that they would give their chiefs as hostages, and deliver up their arms; for he would put no trust in them until they were disarmed.” The deputies bringing back this answer, the Gauls laughed, and exclaimed throughout their camp, that “he would soon see whether they had offered peace from regard for themselves or for him.” Some days after a battle was fought, and the Macedonians were defeated and cut to pieces. Ptolemy, after receiving several wounds, was taken, and his head, cut off and stuck on a lance, was carried round the whole army to strike terror into the enemy. Flight saved a few of the Macedonians; the rest were either taken or slain.
When the news of this event was spread through all Macedonia, the gates of the city were shut, and all places filled with mourning. Sometimes they lamented their bereavement, from the loss of their children; sometimes they were seized with dread, lest their cities should be destroyed; and at other times they called on the names of their kings, Alexander and Philippus, as deities, to protect them; saying that “under them they were not only secure, but conquerors of the world;” and begging that “they would guard their country, whose fame they had raised to heaven by the glory of their exploits, and give assistance to the afflicted, whom the insanity and rashness of Ptolemy had ruined.” While all were thus in despair, Sosthenes, one of the Macedonian chiefs, thinking that nothing would be effected by prayers, assembled such as were of age for war, repulsed the Gauls in the midst of their exultation at their victory, and saved Macedonia from devastation. For these great services, he, though of humble extraction, was chosen before many nobles that aspired to the throne of Macedonia. But though he was saluted as king by the army, he made the soldiers take an oath to him, not as king, but as general.
§6. In the meantime Brennus, under whose command a part of the Gauls had made an irruption into Greece, having heard of the success of their countrymen, who, under the leadership of Belgius, had defeated the Macedonians, and being indignant that so rich a booty, consisting of the spoils of the east, had been so lightly abandoned, assembled an army of a hundred and fifty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse, and suddenly invaded Macedonia. As he was laying waste the fields and villages, Sosthenes met him with his army of Macedonians in full array, but being few in number, and in some consternation, they were easily overcome by the more numerous and powerful Gauls; and the defeated Macedonians retiring within the walls of their cities, the victorious Brennus, meeting with no opposition, ravaged the lands throughout the whole of Macedonia. Soon after, as if the spoils of mortals were too mean for him, he turned his thoughts to the temples of the immortal gods, saying, with a profane jest, that “the gods, being rich, ought to be liberal to men.” He suddenly, therefore, directed his march towards Delphi, regarding plunder more than religion, and caring for gold more than for the wrath of the deities, “who,” he said, “stood in no need of riches, as being accustomed rather to bestow them on mortals.”
The temple of Apollo at Delphi is situate on Mount Parnassus, on a rock steep on all sides. A concourse of people, who, collecting from the parts around, through veneration for the majesty of the god, settled on the rock, formed a city there. Thus, not walls, but precipices, not defences formed by the hand, but by nature, protect the temple and the city; so that it is utterly uncertain whether the strength of the place, or the influence of the deity residing in it, attracts more admiration. The central part of the rock falls back in the shape of an amphitheatre; and, in consequence, if ever shouts are raised, or if the noise of trumpets is mingled with them, the sound, from the rocks echoing and re-echoing to one another, is heard many times repeated, and louder than it was made at first. This effect, on those who are ignorant of its cause, and are struck with wonder at it, produces a greater awe of the power of the god. In the winding of the rock, about half way up the hill, there is a small plain, and in it a deep fissure in the ground, which is open for giving oracles; for a cold exhalation, driven upwards by some force, as it were by a wind, produces in the minds of the priestesses a certain madness, and compels them, filled with the influence of the god, to give answers to such as consult them. Hence many rich presents of kings and nations are to be seen there, which, by their magnificence, testify the grateful feelings of those that have paid their vows, and their belief in the oracles given by the deity.
§7. Brennus, when he came within sight of the temple, deliberated for some time, whether he should at once make an attempt upon it, or should allow his soldiers, wearied with their march, a night to refresh themselves. The captains of the Emanus and Thessalorus, who had joined him for a share in the booty, advised that “no delay should be made,” while the enemy were unprovided for defence, and the alarm at their coming still fresh; that in the interval of a night, the courage of the enemy would perhaps revive, and assistance come to them; and that the approaches, which were now open, might be blocked up. But the common soldiers, when, after a long endurance of scarcity, they found a country abounding with wine and other provisions, had dispersed themselves over the fields, rejoicing as much at the plenty as if they had gained a victory, and leaving their standards deserted, wandered about to seize on everything like conquerors. This conduct gave some respite to the Delphians. At the first report that the Gauls were approaching, the countrypeople are said to have been prohibited by the oracle from carrying away their corn and wine from their houses. The salutariness of this prohibition was not understood, until, through this abundance of wine and other provisions being thrown in the way of the Gauls, as a stop to their progress, reinforcements from their neighbours had time to collect. The Delphians, accordingly, supported by the strength of their allies, secured their city before the Gauls, who clung to the wine-skins, on which they had seized, could be recalled to their standards. Brennus had sixty-five thousand infantry, selected from his whole army; of the Delphians there were not more than four thousand; in utter contempt of whom, Brennus, to rouse the courage of his men, pointed to the vast quantity of spoil before them, declaring that the statues, and four-horse chariots, of which a great number were visible at a distance, were made of solid gold, and would prove greater prices when they came to be weighed than they were in appearance.
§8. The Gauls, animated by these assertions, and disordered, at the same time, with the wine which they had drunk the day before, rushed to battle without any fear of danger. The Delphians, on the other hand, placing more confidence in the god than in their own strength, resisted the enemy with contempt, and, from the top of the hill, repelled the Gauls as they climbed up, partly with pieces of rock, and partly with their weapons. Amidst this contest between the two, the priests of all the temples, as well as the priestesses themselves, with their hair loose, and with their decorations and fillets, rushed, trembling and frantic, into the front ranks of the combatants, exclaiming that “the god was come; that they had seen him leap down into his temple through the opening roof; that, while they were all humbly imploring aid of the deity, a youth of extraordinary beauty, far above that of mortals, and two armed virgins, coming from the neighbouring temples of Diana and Minerva, met them; that they had not only perceived them with their eyes, but had heard also the sound of a bow and the rattling of arms;” and they therefore conjured them with the strongest entreaties, “not to delay, when the gods were leading them on, to spread slaughter among the enemy, and to share the victory with the powers of heaven.” Incited by these exhortations, they all rushed eagerly to the field of battle, where they themselves also soon perceived the presence of the divinity; for a part of the mountain, broken off by an earthquake, overwhelmed a host of the Gauls and some of the densest bodies of the enemy were scattered abroad, not without wounds, and fell to the earth. A tempest then followed, which destroyed, with hail and cold, those that were suffering from bodily injuries. The general Brennus himself, unable to endure the pain of his wounds, ended his life with a dagger. The other general, after punishing the advisers of the war, made off from Greece with all expedition, accompanied with ten thousand wounded men. But neither was fortune more favourable to those who fled; for in their terror, they passed no night under shelter, and no day without hardship and danger; and continual rains, snow congealed by the frost, famine, fatigue, and, what was the greatest evil, the constant want of sleep, consumed the wretched remains of the unfortunate army. The nations and people too, through whom they marched, pursued their stragglers, if to spoil them. Hence it happened that, of so great an army which, little before, presuming on its strength, contended even against the gods, not a man was left to be a memorial of its destruction.
Book XXV
§1. AFTER peace was made between the two kings, Antigonus and Antiochus, a new enemy suddenly started up against Antigonus as he was returning to Macedonia. The Gauls, who had been left behind by their general Brennus, when he marched into Greece, to defend the borders of their country, armed fifteen thousand foot and three thousand horse (that they alone might not seem idle), and having routed the forces of the Getae and Triballi, and preparing to invade Macedonia, sent ambassadors to Antigonus to offer him peace if he would pay for it, and to play the part of spies, at the same time, in his camp. Antigonus, with royal munificence, invited them to a banquet, and entertained them with a sumptuous display of luxuries. But the Gauls were so struck with the vast quantity of gold and silver set before them, and so tempted with the richness of such a spoil, that they returned more inclined to war than they had come. The king had also ordered his elephants to be shown them, as monsters unknown to those barbarians, and his ships laden with stores to be displayed; little thinking that he was thus exciting the cupidity of those to seize his treasures, whom he sought to strike with terror by the ostentation of his strength. The ambassadors, returning to their countrymen, and exaggerating every thing excessively, set forth at once the wealth and unsuspiciousness of the king; saying that “his camp was filled with gold and silver, but secured neither by rampart nor trench, and that the Macedonians, as if they had sufficient protection in their wealth, neglected all military duties, apparently thinking that, as they had plenty of gold, they had no use for steel.”
§2. By this statement, the desires of a covetous people were sufficiently stimulated to take possession of such spoil. The example of Belgius, too, had its influence with them, who, a little before, had cut to pieces the army of the Macedonians and their king. Being all of one mind, therefore, they attacked the king’s camp by night; but he, foreseeing the storm that threatened him, had given notice to his soldiers to remove all their baggage, and to conceal themselves noiselessly in a neighbouring wood; and the camp was only saved because it was deserted. The Gauls, when they found it destitute not only of defenders, but of sentinels, suspecting that there was not a flight, but some stratagem on the part of the enemy, were for some time afraid to enter the gates. At last, leaving the defences entire and untouched, and more like men come to explore than to plunder, they took possession of the camp; and then, carrying off what they found, they directed their course towards the coast. Here, as they were incautiously plundering the vessels, and fearing no attack, they were cut down by the sailors, and a part of the army that had fled thither with their wives and children; and such was the slaughter among them that the report of this victory procured Antigonus peace, not only from the Gauls, but from his other barbarous neighbours.
The nation of the Gauls, however, was at that time so prolific, that they filled all Asia as with one swarm. The kings of the east then carried on no wars without a mercenary army of Gauls; nor, if they were driven from their thrones, did they seek protection with any other people than the Gauls. Such indeed was the terror of the Gallic name, and the unvaried good fortune of their arms, that princes thought they could neither maintain their power in security, nor recover it if lost, without the assistance of Gallic valour. Hence, being called by the king of Bithynia to his aid, and having gained him the victory over his enemies, they shared his kingdom with him, and called their part of it Gallograecia.
§3. During these transactions in Asia, Pyrrhus, having been defeated by the Carthaginians in a sea-fight on the coast of Sicily, sent ambassadors to Antigonus king of Macedonia, to ask for a supply of troops, saying that, “unless he sent him some, he should be obliged to return to his kingdom, and to seek that enlargement of his dominions from him, which he had wished to gain from the Romans.” The ambassadors bringing word that his request was refused, he pretended to be suddenly obliged to depart, but concealed his reasons for doing so. Meanwhile he directed his allies to prepare for war, and committed the citadel of Tarentum to the guardianship of his son Helenus and his friend Milo. Returning to Epirus, he immediately invaded Macedonia; Antigonus met him with an army, but was defeated in battle, and put to flight. Pyrrhus then allowed the Macedonians to surrender on terms; and as if, by the acquisition of Macedonia, he had made up for his loss of Sicily and Italy, he sent for his son and his friend, whom he had left at Tarentum. Antigonus, divesting himself at once of all the marks of royalty, repaired with a few horsemen, that attended him in his flight, to Thessalonica, there to watch what would follow on the loss of his throne, and to renew the war with a hired army of Gauls. But being utterly defeated, a second time, by Ptolemy the son of Pyrrhus, he fled with only seven followers, and no longer indulged hopes of recovering his kingdom, but sought only hiding places for safety and solitary ways for flight.
§4. Pyrrhus, being raised to such a height of royal power, and not content with what had once been the object of his wishes, began to contemplate the subjugation of Greece and Asia. He had no greater delight in ruling than in warfare; nor was any power able to withstand him, wheresoever he directed his attack. But irresistible as he was deemed in conquering kingdoms, he also easily lost those which he subdued and acquired, so much better did he manage to gain dominion than to keep it.
Having led his army into the Peloponnesus, he was met by embassies from the Athenians, Achaeans, and Messenians; and all Greece, indeed, struck with admiration at his name, and at the glory of his achievements against the Romans and Carthaginians, was eagerly looking for his arrival. His first contest was with the Spartans, in which, being resisted with greater spirit by the women than by the men, he lost his son Ptolemy and the flower of his army; for, when he proceeded to attack the city, such a number of women assembled to defend their birth-place, that he retreated, overcome not more by bravery on their part than by shame on his own.
As for his son Ptolemy, he is said to have been so brave and enterprising that he took the city of Corcyra with only sixty men. In a naval engagement, too, he is reported to have leaped from a boat, with seven men, into a fifty-oared galley, and to have taken and kept possession of it. At the attack on Sparta he rode into the very middle of the city, and was there slain in a crowd that gathered around him. When his body was carried to his father, he exclaimed, it is said, “that he had not been killed so soon as he had feared, or his own rashness deserved.”
§5. Pyrrhus, on being repulsed by the Spartans, marched to Argos, where, while he was endeavouring to capture Antigonus, who was shut up in the city, and was fighting furiously among the thickest of the assailants, he was struck with a stone from the walls, and killed. His head was carried to Antigonus, who, using his victory with moderation, sent back his son Helenus, who surrendered to him with several Epirots, into his own country, and gave him the bones of his father, not having yet received the rites of burial, to carry home with him.
It is pretty generally stated by authors, that no king, either of that or the former age, was to be compared to Pyrrhus; and that there has seldom been seen, either among princes, or other illustrious men, a man of more upright life or of stricter justice; and that he had such knowledge of the military art, that though he fought against such great princes as Lysimachus, Demetrius, and Antigonus, he was never conquered. In his wars too with the Illyrians, Sicilians, Romans, and Carthaginians, he never came off inferior, but generally victorious; and he rendered his country, which was before but mean and obscure, renowned throughout the world by the fame of his exploits and the glory of his name.
Book XXVI
§1. AFTER the death of Pyrrhus, there were great warlike commotions, not only in Macedonia, but in Asia and Greece; for the Peloponnesians were betrayed into the power of Antigonus; and while partly concern, partly exultation, prevailed variously among the inhabitants, as any city had either expected aid from Pyrrhus or conceived apprehensions of him, they either entered into alliance with Antigonus, or, impelled by mutual animosity, plunged into hostilities with one another Amidst these tumults in the disturbed provinces, the sovereignty over the city of the Epeans was usurped by an eminent man named Aristotimus; and when many of the leading persons had been slain by him, and more driven into banishment, and the Aetolians sent ambassadors to ask him “to give up the wives and children of the exiles,” he at first refused, but afterwards, as if relenting, he gave all the married women leave to go to their husbands, and fixed a day for their departure. They, as being about to spend their lives in banishment with their husbands, were going to carry all their most valuable property with them; but, when they assembled at one of the gates of the city, intending to go forth in a body, they were despoiled of all that they had, and confined in the public prison, the infants having been first killed in the arms of their mothers, and the young women carried off for violation. The people being all amazed at such cruel tyranny, Hellanicus, the chief of them, an old man and without children, and consequently having no fear either for life or offspring, assembled the most faithful of his friends in his house, and encouraged them to attempt the delivery of their country. But as they hesitated to remove a public evil at their own private risk, and demanded time for deliberation, Hellanicus, calling for his attendants, ordered the doors to be locked, and a message to be carried to the tyrant, requesting him “to send officers to seize a band of conspirators in Hellanicus’s house;” and he told all of them, with reproaches, that “since he could not be the deliverer of his country, he would at least take revenge for the abandonment of its cause.” Being thus placed between two perils, they chose the more honourable course, and conspired to kill the tyrant; and thus Aristotimus was cut off in the fifth month after he had usurped the government.
§2. In the meantime Antigonus, being harassed with wars, of varied aspect, from the Spartans and King Ptolemy, and perceiving that a new enemy, an army from Gallograecia, was coming upon him, left a few troops as a semblance of a camp, to amuse his other assailants, and proceeded with all the rest of his force against the Gauls; who, becoming aware of his approach, as they were preparing for battle, sacrificed victims to take presages for the event; and as, from the entrails, great slaughter and destruction of them all was portended, they were moved, not to fear, but to fury, and thinking that the anger of the gods might be appeased by the slaughter of their kindred, butchered their wives and children, commencing hostilities with the murder of their own people; for such rage had possessed their savage breasts, that they did not spare even that tender age which an enemy would have spared, but made deadly war on their own children and their children’s mothers, in defence of whom wars are wont to be undertaken. As if, therefore, they had purchased life and victory by their barbarity, they rushed, stained as they were with the fresh blood of their relatives, into the field of battle, but with success no better than their auspices: for, as they were fighting, the furies, the avengers of murder, overwhelmed them sooner than the enemy, and the ghosts of the slain rising up before their eyes, they were all cut off with utter destruction. Such was the havoc among them, that the gods seemed to have conspired with men to annihilate an army of murderers.
In consequence of the result of this battle, Ptolemy and the Spartans, avoiding the victorious army of the enemy, retreated to safer ground; and Antigonus, when he heard of their departure, turned his arms against the Athenians, while the ardour of his men was yet fresh from their recent victory. But during the time that he was thus engaged, Alexander, king of Epirus, longing to avenge the death of his father Pyrrhus, laid waste the frontiers of Macedonia. Antigonus returned from Greece to give him battle, but being deserted by his men, who went over to the enemy, he lost both the throne of Macedonia and his army. His son Demetrius, however, though but a boy, collecting an army in the absence of his father, not only recovered Macedonia, which had been lost, but drove Alexander from the throne of Epirus, Such was the fickleness of the soldiers, or the mutability of fortune, that kings were seen one day in the character of sovereigns, and the next in that of exiles.
§3. Alexander, after fleeing, on his expulsion, to the Acarnanians, was restored to his throne, with not less eagerness on the part of the Epirots than exertion on the part of his allies. About the same time died Magas, king of Cyrene, who, before he fell sick, had betrothed his only daughter Berenice to his brother Ptolemy’s son, in order to end all disputes with him. But after the death of the king, Arsinoë, the mother of the girl, resolving to break off a marriage which had been contracted against her will, sent for Demetrius, the brother of King Antigonus, from Macedonia, to marry the damsel, and occupy the throne of Cyrene. Nor did Demetrius delay to comply with her wishes. But having speedily arrived, by the aid of a favourable wind, at Cyrene, he began, from the very first, through presuming on his handsome person (with which he had already made too much impression on his mother-in-law), to conduct himself haughtily and overbearingly both to the royal family and the army. He also transferred his desire to please from the daughter to the mother; a fact which was first suspected by the damsel, and at last drew odium upon him from the people and the army. The affections of all, therefore, being set on the son of Ptolemy, a conspiracy was formed against Demetrius, and assassins were sent to kill him, when he was gone to bed with his mother-in-law. Arsinoë, hearing the voice of her daughter, standing at the door, and desiring them “to spare her mother,” covered her paramour a while with her own person. He was however slain, and Berenice, by his death, both took revenge for the licentiousness of her mother, without violation of her duty to her, and, in choosing a husband, followed the judgment of her father.
Marcus Junianus Justinus. Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus. translated, with notes, by the Rev. John Selby Watson. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Convent Garden (1853).