Hellenic Net

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ Ptolemy Ceraunus (Greek: Πτολεμαῖος Κεραυνός Ptolemaios Keraunos; c. 319 BC – January/February 279 BC) was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty and briefly king of Macedon. As the son of Ptolemy I Soter, he was originally heir to the throne of Ptolemaic Egypt, but he was displaced in favour of his younger brother Ptolemy II Philadelphus. He fled to King Lysimachus of Thrace and Macedon where he was involved in court intrigue that led to the fall of that kingdom in 281 BC to Seleucus I, whom he then assassinated. He then seized the throne of Macedon, which he ruled for seventeen months before his death in battle against the Gauls in early 279 BC. His epithet Ceraunus is Greek for "Thunderbolt" and referred to his impatient, impetuous, and destructive character. The origin Ptolemy I the Savior was a descendant of Alexander the Great, who reigned in Egypt after the dissolution of the vast empire of the latter. He founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty and laid the foundations for i...

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ Alexander V of Macedonia (end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd century BC) from the Dynasty of the Antipatrides was the third and youngest son of Cassander and Thessalonica, half-sister of Alexander the Great. He ascended the throne in 297 BC, after the death of his brother Philip IV, who had succeeded Cassander, and co-reigned with his other brother, Antipater II until 294. When Antipater II assassinated their mother, because she believed that she was favoring Alexander V, the two brothers had a rift. Alexander V sought the help of Pyrrhus and Demetrius I the Besieger to help him return to the throne. To Pyrrhus he offered in exchange the coastal lands of Macedonia together with the Provinces of Ambrakia, Acarnania and Amfilochia. Pyrrhus occupied them together with the rest of the kingdom of Macedonia, which he handed over to Alexander V.. According to Plutarch, when Demetrius I the Besieger appeared in 294, the two brothers had already reconciled. Alexander V received Deme...