09 - Pyrrhus by Jacob Abbott

Dive into the fascinating history of Pyrrhus, the formidable king of Epirus from 336 to 321 BC. Renowned as a brilliant soldier and conqueror, he left his mark on both Macedon and Italy, giving rise to the term Pyrrhic victory that echoes through history. Join Deon Gines as he unravels the legacy of this extraordinary leader.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of Paris by Jacob Abbott. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain recording by Dion Jins, Salt
Lake City, Utah. The Family of Lysimachus b. C. Two
eighty four to two seventy three. The reader will perhaps

(00:22):
recollect that when Pearis withdrew from Macedon before he embarked
on his celebrated expedition into Italy, the enemy before he
was compelled to retire was Lysimachus. Lissimacchus continued to reign
in Macedon for some time after Peirus had gone, until

(00:46):
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

(01:07):
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

(01:28):
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.

(01:53):
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

(02:16):
counterplans 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

(02:38):
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

(03:01):
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

(03:21):
the innumerable forms and faces 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

(03:44):
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 arising under them
are disturbed or modified or confused by conquests and revolutions,

(04:08):
and thus they often become so hopelessly involved that no
human sagacity 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

(04:32):
supreme power, the representatives namely of the Bourbon, the Orleans,
and the Napoleon dynasties. Each one of the great parties
rests the claim, which they severally advance in behalf of
their respective candidates more or less exclusively on rights derived

(04:53):
from their hereditary relationship to former rulers of the kingdom.
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

(05:18):
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

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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,

(06:02):
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

(06:23):
is strikingly illustrated in the events which occurred in Macedon
during the absence of Paris 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 Paris was driven

(06:46):
from Macedon by Lysimachus, previous to his going into Italy,
Lisimachus was far advanced in age. He was, in fact,
at this time nearly seventy years old. He commenced his
military career during the lifetime of Alexander the Great, having

(07:07):
been one of the Great Conqueror's 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,

(07:31):
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

(07:55):
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 effected a useful and in respect to the animal.
By giving him a living man to seize and devour,

(08:17):
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

(08:40):
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 favorsama Weacus continued in

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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

(09:24):
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 Amastris. She was

(09:48):
a widow at the time of her marriage with Lisimachus
and had two sons. After being married to her for
some time, Lisimachus 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

(10:10):
were not of age, and Amastres 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

(10:32):
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

(10:55):
the sons of Amastras prisoners, and put them to death
without mercy, in retribution for their atrocious crime. At the
time when Lysimachus put away his wife Amstris, he married Arseno,
an Egyptian princess, the daughter in fact of Ptolemy, the

(11:16):
son of Lagus, who was at this time the king
of Egypt. How far Lysimachus was governed in his repudiation
of Amstris 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

(11:39):
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

(12:02):
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 Arsenal with Lysimachus, and
of another marriage which subsequently occurred, and which will be
spoken of presently. The quarrel was transferred, in all its bitterness,

(12:26):
to the family of Lyssamachus, 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 Eurydicy, at the time of
her marriage, went with her husband into Egypt, she was

(12:49):
accompanied by her cousin Berenice, 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

(13:12):
in similar cases, on far less conspicuous theaters of action,
rivals and enemies. Baronice gained the affections of Ptolemy, and
at length he married her. Arseno, whom Lissimachus married, was
the daughter of Ptolemy and Baronice. They had also a son,

(13:33):
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 Ptolemaic line. But
besides these descendants of Baronice, there was another set of

(13:57):
children in Ptolemy's family, namely those by Eurydicy. Eurydice had
a son and a daughter. The name of the son
was Ptolemy Serranus, that of the daughter was Lessandra. There was,
of course a standing and bitter feud always raging between
these two branches of the royal household. The two wives,

(14:21):
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

(14:45):
by the two parties in their efforts to thwart and
circumvent each other. As Arsenal, the wife of Lysimachus, was
the daughter of Baronice, it might have been expected that
the influence of barone party would prevail in Lysimachus's court.
This would doubtless have been the case. Had it not

(15:07):
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 Lyssandra,

(15:27):
Eurydyce's daughter. Thus, in the court and family of Lysimachus,
Baronese had a representative in the person of her daughter Arsenal,
the wife of the king himself, while Eurydice also had
one in the person of her daughter Lyssandra, the wife
of the king's son. Of course, the whole virulence of

(15:50):
the quarrel was spread from Egypt to Macedon, and the
household of Lysimachus was distracted by the dissensions of Arsenal
and Lessandra, 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 Arsenal, since

(16:13):
she was the wife of the king himself, while Lyssandra
was only the wife of his son. Still, the position
and the influence of Lessandra 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,

(16:36):
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

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upon Lyssandra's husband only served to excite the rivalry and
hatred of Arseneau the more she and Lessandra 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. Arsenaux, of course,

(17:21):
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, Arsenaux succeeded in convincing Lisamachus that Agathocles

(17:43):
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, Samachus was induced
to believe it. He ordered Agathocles to be seized and

(18:06):
put into prison, and then a short time afterward he
caused him to be poisoned. Lessandra 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 Serranus, who was with her. At this time,

(18:29):
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

(18:51):
of Seleusus, King of Syria. Seleusus was another of the
generals of Alexander, the only one in fact, besides Lysimachus,
who now survived. He had, of course, like Lyssimachus, attained
to a very advanced period of life, being at this

(19:11):
time more than seventy five 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, Seleusis was pleased with the

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pretext afforded him by the coming of Lessandra, for embarking
in new wars. Lessandra was in a short time followed
in her flight by many of the nobles and chieftains
of Macedon who had espoused her cause. Lisimachus, in fact
had driven them away by these severe measures which he

(19:55):
had adopted against them. These men assembled at the court
of Seleusis, and there, with Lyssander and Ptolemy Serranus, they
began to form plans for invading the dominions of Lysimachus
and avenging the cruel death of Agathocles. Seleusus was very

(20:15):
easily induced to enter into these plans, and war was declared.
Lysimachus did not wait for his enemies to invade his dominions.
He organized an army, crossed the Hellspont and marched to
meet Seleusis in Asia Minor. The armies met in Phrygia,

(20:36):
a desperate battle was fought, Lissimachus was conquered and slain.
Seleusus now determined to cross the Hellspont himself and advancing
into Thrace and Macedon to annex those kingdoms to his
own domains. Ptolemy Serranus accompanied him. This Ptolemy, it will

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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

(21:18):
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's Serranus began to conceive, therefore, that he was entitled

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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, er Ptolemy Sirranus had lived for
a long time in Macedon at the court of Lysimachus,

(22:07):
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

(22:27):
which his father was disposed to accord to Berenice and
to her children over his mother, Eurydice and him. In fact,
it was said that one reason which led his father
to give Berenice's family the precedence over that of Eurydicy,
and to propose that her son, rather than Ptolemy Sirranus,

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should succeed him, was the violent and uncontrollable spirit which
Sirranus displayed at any rate. Siranus 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 Lysimachus, and had taken some active part in public affairs.

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When Agathocles was poisoned, he fled with Lessandra to Seleusis,
and when the preparations were made by Seleusus for war
with Lysimachus, he probably regarded himself as in some sense
the leader of the expedition, he considered Seleusis as his ally,

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going with him to aid him in the attempt to
recover the kingdom of his ancestors. Seleusus, however, had no
such design. He by no means considered himself as engaged
in prosecuting an expedition for the benefit of Sirranus. His
plan was the enlargement of his own dominion. For Sirranus,

(24:01):
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. Siranis, when he found what the state
of the case really was, being wholly unscrupulous in respect

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to the means that he employed for the attainment of
his ends, determined to kill Seleusis on the first opportunity.
Seleusus 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

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from the danger of Sirhanus's meditated treachery. At length, he
arrived at a certain town, which they told him was
called Argos. He seemed alarmed on him hearing this name,
and when they inquired the reason, he said that he
had been warned by an oracle at some former period

(25:09):
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

(25:31):
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,

(25:53):
overtaken by his fate before he could affect his resolution.
Ptolemy Serranus, 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. Seleusis

(26:13):
immediately fell down and died. Ptolemy Serranus 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

(26:33):
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
Serranus boldly set aside. He endeavored to secure all those
who were friendly to the ancient house of Antipater by

(26:55):
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 Seleusis, the man by
whom Lysimachus had been destroyed. He relied, however, after all,

(27:19):
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

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rivals and enemies in the field against him. The three
principal ones were Antiochus, Antigonus, and Puris. Antiochus was the
son of Seleusus. He maintained that his father had fairly
conquered the Kingdom of Macedon and had acquired the right
to reign over it, that Ptolemy Serranus, by assassinating Seleusis,

(28:07):
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

(28:30):
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. Peirus was the third claimant.
He had held Macedon by conquest immediately before the reign

(28:53):
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

(29:14):
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

(29:37):
keep it. This question, Ptolemy Serranus 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 Sirranas remained master of the kingdom. Triumph

(30:00):
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 Paris, he agreed, in consideration of being
allowed peaceably to retain possession of his kingdom, to furnish

(30:23):
a certain amount of military aid to strengthen the hands
of Paris 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.

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There was, however, one difficulty still remaining. Arsenal, the widow
of Lyssamachus, still lived. It was Arsenal, it will be recollected,
whose jealousy of her half sister Lessandra had caused the
death of Agathocles and the flight of Lessandra, and which
had led to the expedition of Seleusis and the subsequent

(31:10):
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

(31:32):
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

(31:52):
take place in the aspect of public affairs. Serranus, of
course saw in her a very formamdable and dangerous opponent,
and after having triumphed over Antigonus and concluded his peace
with Antiochus and with Paris, he advanced toward Cassandria. Revolving

(32:13):
in his mind the question by what means he could
best manage to get Arsenal 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
Arsenal proposing that instead of quarreling for the kingdom, they

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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. Arsenal very readily acceded
to this proposal. It is true that she was the

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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. Arsena accordingly
gave her consent to the proposal and opened the gates
of the city to Sirranus and his troops. Sirranus immediately

(33:20):
put her two sons to death. Arseno herself fled from
the city. Very probably Sirranus 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

(33:43):
naturally attach to Sirranus's proceedings. At any rate, Arsenax escaped and,
after various wanderings, found her way back to her former
home in her father's court at Alexandria. The heart of
Sirranus was now filled with exultation and pride. All his
schemes had proved successful, and he found himself at last

(34:08):
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 baroniese saying that he now acquiesced

(34:30):
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,

(34:53):
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 afterwards settled in what is now France,
and gave their name to that country. At the period, however,

(35:15):
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

(35:35):
regarded by Serranus. Now, however, a deputation suddenly appeared at
Sirranus'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. Serranus, in the pride of
his newly established power, treated this proposal with derision. He

(36:00):
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

(36:23):
prepared for war. Serranus assembled all the forces that he
could command, marched northward to meet his enemy, and a
great battle was fought between the two armies. Serranus commanded
in person in this conflict, he rode into the field
at the head of his troops, mounted on an elephant.

(36:45):
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 gulls who were fighting around
him immediately seized him. Without any hesitation or delay. They

(37:06):
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 Gulls found

(37:27):
themselves masters of the field. The death of Ptolemy Serranus 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

(37:47):
the Gauls made dreadful havoc in all the northern portions
of Macedon. Antigonus at last succeeded in gaining the advantage
and obtained a sort of nomina possession of the throne,
which he held until the time when Peirus returned to
Epirus from Italy. Pirus, being informed of this state of things,

(38:11):
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