received, he had the villainy to conspire against his benefactor; whom he assassinated, as we have already mentioned.

He had reigned twenty years, from the battle of Ipsus, when the title of king was secured to him; and thirty-one, if the commencement of his reign be fixed twelve years after the death of Alexander, when he became master of Asia; from which time the era of the Seleucidæ commences.

m A late dissertation of Monsieur de la Nauze gives him a reign of more than fifty years, by adding to it the nineteen years of his son Antiochus Soter. The author pretends, that Seleucus Nicator did not entirely divest himself of the government; but began with making a partition of his dominions; and that he afterwards reunited them, even in the lifetime of his son. He has produced probable reasons in favour of his opinion; but as I never engage in contests of this nature, I shall confine myself to the chronology of Usher, which has been my usual guide, and which assigns, with Father Petau and Monsieur Vaillant, thirty-one years to the reign of Seleucus Nicator.

This prince had extraordinary qualities; and without mentioning his military accomplishments, it may be justly said, that he distinguished himself among the other kings, by his great love of justice, a benevolence, clemency, and a peculiar regard to religion, that endeared him to the people. He had likewise a taste for polite literature, and made it a circumstance of pleasure and glory to himself, to send back to the Athenians the library of which Xerxes had dispossessed them, and which he found in Persia. He also accompanied that present with the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, whom the Athenians honoured as their deliverers,

m Tom. VII. des Mem. de l'Academie des Inscrip. & Belles Lettres,

The friends of Lysimachus, with those who had served under that prince, at first considered Ceraunus as the avenger of his death; and acknowledged him for their king, but his conduct soon caused them to change their sentiments.

"He did not expect to possess the dominions of Lysimachus in peace, while his sister Arsinoe and the children she had by Lysimachus were living; for which reason he determined to rid himself at once of them and the apprehensions they gave him. The greatest crimes cost the ambitious no remorse. Ceraunus feigned a passion for his sister, and seemed desirous of espousing her; and as these incestuous inarriages were frequent and allowable in Egypt, Arsinoe, who was well acquainted with the natural disposition of her brother, protracted, as much as possible, the conclusion of that affair, the consequences of which she feared would be fatal to herself and children. But the more she delayed and concealed her repugnance by plausible pretexts, the more warmly he pressed her to gratify his passion; and in order to remove all suspicion, he repaired to that temple, which the Macedonians held in the greatest veneration, and there, in the presence of one of her intimate friends, whom she had sent to him, he called the tutelar gods of the country to witness, embracing their statues at the same time, and protesting, with the most dreadful oaths and imprecations, that his views, with respect to the marriage he solicited, were perfectly pure and in

nocent.

Arsinoe placed but little confidence in these promises, though they were uttered before the altars, and had been ratified with the awful seal of religion; but she was apprehensive, at the same time, that persisting in an obstinate refusal, would be fatal to her children, for whose welfare she was more solici

* Justin. 1. xxiv. c. 2—4.

tous than her own. She, therefore, consented at last, and the nuptials were celebrated with the greatest magnificence, and with all the indications of the most unaffected joy and tenderness. Ceraunus placed the diadem on the head of his sister, and declared her queen, in the presence of the whole army. Arsinoe felt a real joy, when she beheld herself so gloriously re-established, in the privileges of which she had been divested by the death of Lysimachus, her first husband; and she invited her new spouse to reside with her in her own city of Cassandria, to which she first repaired herself, in order to make the necessary preparations for his arrival. The temples, on that occasion, with all the public places and private houses were magnificently adorned, and nothing was to be seen but altars and victims ready for sacrifice. The two sons of Arsinoe, Lysimachus, who was then sixteen years of age, and Philip, who was thirteen, both princes of admirable beauty and majestic mien, advanced to meet the King, with crowns on their heads, it being a day of so much solemnity and joy. Ceraunus threw his arms round their necks, and embraced them with as much tenderness as could well be expressed by the fondest of fathers.

The comic part ended here, and was presently succeeded by a bloody tragedy. As soon as he entered the city, he seized the citadel, and ordered the two brothers to be murdered. Those unfortunate princes fled for refuge to the Queen, who clasped them in her arms, and vainly endeavoured, by covering them with her body, to save them from the daggers of their murderers, who killed them in the bosom of their mother. Instead of being allowed the sad consolation of rendering them the last offices, she was first dragged out of the city, with her robes all rent, and her hair dishevelled, and then banished into Samothrace, with only two female servants to attend her, mournfully considering her surviving

the princes her sons, as the completion of all her calamities.

A. M. • Providence would not suffer such crimes to go. 3725 unpunished, but called forth a distant people to be Ant. J. C. the ministers of its vengeance.

279.

The Gauls, finding their own country too populous, sent out a prodigious number of people to seek a new settlement in some other land. This swarm of foreigners came from the extremity of the ocean, and after they had proceeded along the Danube, arrived at the outlet of the Save, and then divided themselves into three bodies. The first, commanded by Brennus and Acichorius, entered Pannonia, now known by the name of Hungary; the second marched into Thrace, under Cerethrius; and Belgius led the third into Illyrium and Macedonia,

All the nations near whose territories this people approached, were struck with so much terror, that instead of waiting till they were subdued, they dispatched ambassadors to the Gauls, and thought themselves exceedingly happy in purchasing their liberty with money. Ptolemy Ceraunus*, King of Macedonia, was the only prince who was unaffected at the tidings of this formidable eruption; and running headlong of himself on the punishment the divine vengeance was preparing to inflict upon him for the murders he had perpetrated, he advanced to meet the Gauls with a small body of undisciplined troops, as if it had been as easy for him to fight battles, as it was to commit crimes. He had even the imprudence to refuse a supply of twenty thousand men, which the Dardanians, a neighbouring people to Mace

Justin. 1. xxiv. et xxv. Pausan. 1. x. p. 643-645. Memn. Exc. apud. Photium. Eclogue Diod. Sic. I. xxii. Callim hymn, in Delum, et schol. ad eundum. Suidas in Taλara.

* Solus rex Macedonia Ptolemæus adventum Gallorum intrepidus audivit, bisque cum paucis & incompositis, quasi bella non difficiliùs quam scelera patrarentur, parricidiorum furiis agitatus, occurrit. JUSTIN.

donia, offered him; and answered with an insulting air, that Macedonia would be much to be pitied, if, after it had conquered all the East, it could need the aid of the Dardanians to defend its frontiers; to which he added with a haughty tone of triumph, that he would face the enemy with the children of those who had subdued the universe under the ensigns of Alexander.

He expressed himself in the same imperious strain to the Gauls, who first offered him peace by a deputation, in case he would purchase it: but, conceiving this offer the result of fear, he replied, that he would never enter into any treaty of peace with them, unless they would deliver up some of the principal persons of their nation to him as hostages; and that they must likewise send him their arms, before he would place any confidence in their promises. This answer was received with contempt by the Gauls: and we may from hence observe, the methods usually employed by the Deity, in chastising the pride and injustice of princes: he first deprives them of reason and counsel, and then abandons them to their vaid imaginations.

A few days after this event, a battle was fought, wherein the Macedonians were entirely defeated, and cut to pieces; Ptolemy covered with wounds, was taken prisoner by the Gauls, who after they had cut off his head, fixed it on a lance, and showed it to the army in derision. A very inconsiderable number of Macedonians saved themselves by flight, but all the rest were either slain or made prisoners. The Gauls dispersed themselves, after this victory, in order to pillage the adjacent country; upon which Sosthenes, one of the principal persons among the Macedonians, improving the disorder in which they then were, destroyed a great number of their men, and obliged the rest to quit the country.

Brennus then advanced into Macedonia with his troop: but this leader is not to be confounded with that other Brennus who took the city of Rome,