Ptolemy’s first children were by Thais, the noted courtesan, but they were not thought legitimate.  Leontiscus, the eldest, we afterwards hear of fighting bravely against Demetrius; of the second, named Lagus after his grandfather, we hear nothing.

He then married Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater, by whom he had several children.  The eldest son, Ptolemy, was named Ceraunus, the Thunderer, and was banished by his father from Alexandria.  In his distress he fled to Seleucus, by whom he was kindly received; but after the death of Ptolemy Soter he basely plotted against Seleucus and put him to death.  He then defeated in battle Antigonus, the son of Demetrius, and got possession of Macedonia for a short time.  He married his half-sister Arsinoe, and put her children to death; and was soon afterwards put to death himself by the Gauls, who were either fighting against him or were mercenaries in his own army.  Another son of Ptolemy and Eurydice was put to death by Ptolemy Philadelphus, for plotting against his throne, to which, as the elder brother, he might have thought himself the best entitled.  Their daughter Lysander married Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus; but when Agathocles was put to death by his father, she fled to Egypt with her children, and put herself under Ptolemy’s care.

Ptolemy then, as we have seen, asked in marriage the hand of Cleopatra, the sister of Alexander; but on her death he married Berenice, a lady who had come into Egypt with Eurydice, and had formed part of her household.  She was the widow of a man named Philip; and she had by her first husband a son named Magas, whom Ptolemy made governor of Cyrene, and a daughter, Antigone, whom Ptolemy gave in marriage to Pyrrhus when that young king was living in Alexandria as hostage for Demetrius.

Berenice’s mildness and goodness of heart were useful in softening her husband’s severity.  Once, when Ptolemy was unbending his mind at a game of dice with her, one of his officers came up to his side, and began to read over to him a list of criminals who had been condemned to death, with their crimes, and to ask his pleasure on each.

[Illustration:  095.jpg BERENICE SOTER]

Ptolemy continued playing, and gave very little attention to the unhappy tale; but Berenice’s feelings overcame the softness of her character, and she took the paper out of the officer’s hand, and would not let him finish reading it; saying it was very unbecoming in the king to treat the matter so lightly, as if he thought no more of the loss of a life than the loss of a throw.

With Berenice Ptolemy spent the rest of his years without anything to trouble the happiness of his family.  He saw their elder son, Ptolemy, whom we must call by the name which he took late in life, Philadelphus, grow up everything that he could wish him to be; and, moved alike by his love for the mother and by the good qualities of the son, he chose him as his successor on the throne, instead of his eldest son, Ptolemy Ceraunus, who had shown, by every act in his life, his unfitness for the royal position.