Lagos (ancestor of the Ptolemies)

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Lagos ( Greek  Λαγός ; * 4th century BC) was the progenitor of the Macedonian royal house of Egypt, the Ptolemies . This family is often called "Lagiden" after him.

Lagos was married to Arsinoë , who was probably related to the Macedonian royal house of the Argeadians . Their children together were Ptolemy I and Menelaus . Later reports, according to which Arsinoë was a concubine of the Macedonian king Philip II and was already pregnant with Lagos, arose against the background of the cult of Alexander practiced by the Ptolemies in Egypt , with which they closely linked their own dynasty. The poet Theokritos probably also referred to this legend when he announced in his “Poem of Praise to Ptolemy ” that the Ptolemies were descended from Herakles , from whom the Argeads were also derived. The historian Arrian, on the other hand, who used the Alexander biography of the Egyptian king Ptolemaios I (FrGrHist 138) as a source, named him several times in his works as a son of Lagos.

The occasional claim that Lagos was also married to Antigone , the niece of Antipater , and was thus the father of Berenike , is based on a mistranslation of Theokritos' poem.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Satyros von Kallatis , FrGrHist 631 F11; Porphyrios , FrGrHist 260 F2 §2.
  2. ↑ Pausanias 1, 6, 2; Quintus Curtius Rufus Story of Alexander the Great 9, 8, 22.
  3. ^ Theocritus 17.
  4. ^ Scholia ad Theocritum (ed. Thomas Gaisford, Oxford, 1820).
personal data
SURNAME Lagos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ancestor of the Egyptian royal house of the Ptolemies
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 4th century BC Chr.