Demetrios II (Macedonia)

Demetrios II Aitolikos ( Greek : Δημήτριος Αιτωλικός; * 278 BC ; † 229 BC ) was a king of Macedonia from the Antigonid dynasty . He was a son of Antigonus II Gonatas and Phila.

Life

Like his half-brother, Halkyoneus , Demetrios was by the scholar Perseios , a student of Zeno of Kition , educated. Around the year 250 BC Chr. He was with the Seleucid princess Stratonike, daughter Antiochus I , married. He violated them around the year 245 BC. BC to be married to Nikaia , the widow of his cousin Alexander , whereby the Acrocorinth Castle was won for the Antigonids.

At his accession to the throne, the Aitolian League fell away from Macedonia and allied itself with its former enemy, the Achaean League . To counter this threat Demetrios allied himself with Queen Olympias of Epirus and married her daughter Phthia. Presumably he had envisaged a union of Epirus with Macedonia, but the Epirus revolution around 231 BC. BC, which replaced the monarchy with a republic, ruined these plans. Demetrios could do little, however, since he was at the same time fighting with the barbaric people of the Dardans in northern Macedonia.

235 BC BC Demetrios moved against the Aitolians, won the Boeotians and Locrians as allies and destroyed the Aitolian Pleuron . This success earned him the nickname "Aitolikos". The Achaeans under Aratos of Sikyon meanwhile harassed the tyrant of Argos, who was allied with Macedonia, but were defeated in the following year by the Macedonian general Bithys of Lysimacheia near Phylakia in southern Arcadia. In 232 BC In BC Demetrios entered into an alliance with the Illyrian king Agron against the Aitolians and Achaeans, but this only brought advantages for the Illyrians for a short time. The activities of the Illyrians led to the first conquest of the Romans on Hellenic soil during his lifetime , who conquered the island of Korkyra and the cities of Apollonia and Dyrrhachion after their war against the Illyrian queen Teuta ( First Illyrian War ) . Demetrios was able to record minor successes against the Achaeans in the Peloponnese . The local tyrants sided with him. However, the mighty megalopolis joined the Achaean League. His war against the allies is also called the "Demetrios War".

Demetrios died in 229 BC During a new campaign against the Dardaner. From his fourth marriage to Chryseis, presumably a prisoner of war, he left behind the underage son Philip V , for whom his cousin, Antigonus III. Doson who took over government. From his first marriage to Stratonike he had the daughter Apame, who was married to King Prusias I of Bithynia .

literature

• Barry Baldwin: Demetrius 'Aetolicus' , in: Hermes Vol. 116 (1988), pp. 116-117

predecessor	Office	successor
Antigonus II	King of Macedonia 239–229 BC Chr.	Antigonus III. Doson