Lysimachus

Son of Agathocles of Pella, born c. 360 BC, of Thessalian or southern Macedonian extraction. Royal Bodyguard (somatophylax) of Alexander from the early Asian campaigns; received Thrace as his satrapy at the Babylon settlement of 323 (Diod. 18.3) and spent the next twenty-five years subduing the Odrysian and Getic kingdoms of the lower Danube before he could intervene in the central Diadochic struggles. Founded Lysimacheia on the Thracian Chersonese in 309 (Diod. 20.29.1) as the new royal capital commanding the Hellespont and the Pontic grain-route. Took the royal title 306 with the other Diadochi. Joined the coalition against Antigonus at Ipsus 301 with substantial forces; took the territorial settlement that gave him western Asia Minor and Anatolia north to the Black Sea, which he ruled from a second royal seat at Sardis. The court at Sardis broke 283 when his queen Arsinoe (Ptolemy I's daughter, his third wife from 300) had his eldest son and heir Agathocles executed on the charge of conspiracy; Agathocles's widow Lysandra fled to Seleucus and asked for war. Killed at Corupedium in central Lydia in February 281, struck by a javelin from Malacon a man of Heraclea serving with Seleucus (Memnon FGrHist 434 F8 §5; Paus. 1.10). About eighty at his death — the last surviving full bodyguard of Alexander except Seleucus, who would be killed five months later.

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