Magas (Cyrene)

Magas ( Greek  Μάγας ; * at the latest 320; † approx. 250 BC) was a king of Cyrene in what is now northeastern Libya. He succeeded in enforcing the independence of Kyrenes from the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt .

Magas was the son of an otherwise unknown Macedonian nobleman named Philippos and of Berenike I , who had married the Egyptian king Ptolemy I for the second time in 317 . Magas was thus a half-brother of Ptolemy II Philadelphus .

After he had succeeded in suppressing a five-year revolt in Cyrene in 300, he became a Ptolemaic governor there through the strong intercession of his mother. After the death of his stepfather (283) he transformed this governorship into an independent rule. Around 276 he dared the open break and crowned himself king of Cyrene.

Magas married Apame , the daughter of the Seleucid king Antiochus I, and used the marriage alliance to conclude an agreement to invade Egypt. He opened hostilities against his half-brother 274 by attacking Egypt from the west, while Antiochus attacked from Palestine . However, Magas had to abandon its activities due to an internal revolt by the Marmaridae, Libyan nomads. In the east Antiochus was defeated by the armies of the Ptolemies.

Little is known of Magas' administration of Kyrenaia; he was at least once an eponymous priest of the Cyrenean Apollon, and received a cult during his lifetime. Magas minted coins according to Ptolemaic standards with the image of Ptolemy I, on which he based his legitimacy; it is unclear whether local coins continued to be minted. Magas was one of the kings to whom Aśoka sent Buddhist missionaries ( edicts of Ashoka ). Shortly before his death around 250, Magas betrothed his daughter Berenike II to Ptolemy III. - a turnaround in politics that Apame later no longer supported.

Remarks

1. ^ Pausanias : Helládos Periégésis. 1,6.8.
2. ↑ Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 18,743 .
3. ↑ Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 9,112 .
4. ^ Iustinus : Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV. 26.3.