The night, however, passed off without any violence; but at daybreak the murmurs became louder, and the thousands in the palace yard called for the young king.  By that time the Greek soldiers joined the mob, and then the guards within were no longer to be feared.  The gates were soon burst open, and the palace searched.  The mob rushed through the halls and lobbies, and, learning where the king had fled, hastened to the underground passage.  It was guarded by three doors of iron grating; but, when the first was beaten in, Aristomenes was sent out to offer terms of surrender.  Agathocles was willing to give up the young king, his misused power, his ill-gotten wealth and estates; he asked only for his life.  But this was sternly refused, and a shout was raised to kill the messenger; and Aristomenes, the best of the ministers, whose only fault was the being a friend of Agathocles, and the having named his little daughter Agathoclea, would certainly have been killed upon the spot if somebody had not reminded them that they wanted to send back an answer.

Agathocles, seeing that he could hold out no longer, then gave up the little king, who was set upon a horse, and led away to the stadium amid the shouts of the crowd.  There they seated him on the throne, and, while he was crying at being surrounded by strange faces, the mob loudly called for revenge on the guilty ministers.  Sosibius, the somatophylax, the son of the former general of that name, seeing no other way of stopping the fury of the mob and the child’s sobs, asked him if the enemies of his mother and of his throne should be given up to the people.  The child of course answered “yes,” without understanding what was meant; and on that they let Sosibius take him to his own house to be out of the uproar.  Agathocles was soon led out bound, and was stabbed by those who two days before would have felt honoured by a look from him.  Agathoclea and her sister were then brought out, and lastly OEnanthe, their mother was dragged away from the altar of Ceres and Proserpine.  Some bit them, some struck them with sticks, some tore their eyes out; her body was torn to pieces, and her limbs scattered among the crowd; to such lengths of madness and angry cruelty was the Alexandrian mob sometimes driven.

In the meanwhile some of the women called to mind that Philammon, who had been employed in the murder of Arsinoe, had within those three days come to Alexandria, and they made a rush at his house.  The doors quickly gave way before their blows, and he was killed upon the spot by clubs and stones; his little son was strangled by these raging mothers, and his wife dragged naked into the street, and there torn to pieces.  Thus died Agathocles and all his family; and the care of the young king then fell to Sosibius, and to Aristomenes, who had already gained a high character for wisdom and firmness.