Arsin'oë

Arsin'oë, daughter of Ptolemy I., king of Egypt, born 316 B.C., married at sixteen the aged Lysimachus, king of Thrace, whose eldest son, Agathocles, had already wedded Lysandra, her half-sister. Desirous of securing the throne for her own children, Arsinoe prevailed on her husband to put Agathocles to death; whereupon Lysandra fled with her children to Seleucus in Asia, and induced him to declare war against her unnatural father-in-law. Lysimachus was slain, and Seleucus seized the kingdom. Arsinoe now sought refuge in Macedonia, which, however, was also taken possession of by Seleucus; but on his assassination, a few months later, by Ptolemy Ceraunus, her half-brother, she received a hypocritical offer of marriage from the usurper, who wanted to destroy her two sons lest they should prove formidable rivals to his ambition. She consented to the union, and opened the gates of the town in which she had taken refuge, but her children were butchered before her eyes. She then fled to Egypt, where, in 279, she married her own brother, Ptolemy II. Philadelphus.—There was a city of Arsin'oë in Middle Egypt, formerly called Crocodilopolis; another near the head of what is now the Gulf of Suez; and three of the same name in Cyprus.