LYSIMACHUS, son of Agathocles, a Thessalian in the service of Philip of Macedon, was born about 361 b.c. During Alexander’s campaigns he was one of his immediate bodyguard; he distinguished himself in India, and was appointed a trierarch when Alexander constructed his fleet on the Hydaspes. After the death of Alexander, Lysimachus was appointed to the government of Thrace and the district about the Chersonese. For a long time the Odrysians under their king Seuthes caused him so much trouble that he could take very little part in the struggles of the rival satraps; but in 316 he joined the alliance which Cassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucus made against Antigonus. In 309 he founded Lysimachia in a commanding situation on the neck connecting the Chersonese with the mainland. He followed the example of Antigonus in taking the title of king. When in 302 the second alliance between Cassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucus was made, Lysimachus, reinforced by troops from Cassander, entered Asia Minor, where he met with little resistance. On the approach of Antigonus he retired into winter quarters near Heraclea, marrying its widowed queen Amastris, a Persian princess. Seleucus joined him in 301, and the decisive battle was fought in the plain of Ipsus; Antigonus was slain, and his dominions divided among the victors, Lysimachus receiving the greater part of Asia Minor. Feeling that Seleucus was becoming dangerously great, he now allied himself with Ptolemy, marrying his daughter Λrsinoe. Amastris returned tυ Heraclea. During the absence of Antigonus’s son Demetrius in Greece, Lysimachus seized his towns in Asia Minor and rebuilt Ephesus, calling it Arsinoe. He tried to carry his power beyond the Danube, but was defeated and taken prisoner by the Getae, who, however, set him free on ...amicable terms. After Demetrius had entered Macedon to help Alexander against his brother Antipater, and by murdering the former had gained possession of the whole country, he invaded Thrace, but had to retire in consequence of a rising in Boeotia, and an attack from Pyrrhus of Epirus. In 287 Lysimachus and Pyrrhus invaded Macedon. Demetrius marched against Pyrrhus, thinking the Macedonians would not fight against Lysimachus, one of Alexander’s companions in arms; but his army went over to Pyrrhus, and he was obliged to fly. Lysimachus claimed a share of the kingdom and received it. Demetrius, crossing into Asia Minor, seized Caria and Lydia, but Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus by an Odrysian princess, was sent against him, and forced him to retreat into the territory of Seleucus, who obliged him to surrender. Lysimachus attacked Pyrrhus and Demetrius’s son Antigonus, now his ally, and forced Pyrrhus to give up part of Thessaly and the whole of Macedon. Amastris had been murdered by her two sons, and Lysimachus resolved to avenge her; he got them into his hands on pretence of friendship and put them to death. On his return Arsinoe asked the gift of Heraclea, and he granted her request, though he had promised to free the city. In 284 Arsinoe, desirous of gaining the succession for her sons in preference to Agathocles, intrigued against him with the help of her brother Ptolemy Ceraunus; they accused him of conspiring with Seleucus to seize the throne, and he was put to death. To remove the disquietude of the Egyptian court, Agathocles being the husband of Ptolemy’s daughter Lysandra, Lysimachus married his daughter Arsinoe to the young Ptolemy Philadelphus. The widow of Agathocles fled to Seleucus, and war between the latter and Lysimachus soon followed. In 281 the decisive battle took place at the plain of Corus, the exact situation of which is doubtful; Lysimachus was killed; after some days his body was found on the field watched by a faithful dog.
Lysimachus was a man of distinguished bravery and great personal strength; on one occasion he had killed a lion single-handed, though at the cost of fearful wounds. He did not rise to political importance till after the battle of Ipsus. Tenacious and insatiate, lie framed schemes of aggrandisement till his death, and in pursuit of the schemes his craft suggested, he was ready to sacrifice even his own family.
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