11 Facts About Ptolemy Keraunos

Ptolemy Keraunos fled to King Lysimachus of Thrace and Macedon where he was involved in court intrigue that led to the fall of that kingdom in 281 BC to Seleucus I, whom he then assassinated.

Ptolemy Keraunos then seized the throne of Macedon, which he ruled for seventeen months before his death in battle against the Gauls in early 279 BC.

Ptolemy Keraunos was the eldest son of Ptolemy Keraunos I Soter, King of Egypt, and his first wife Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, regent of Macedon.

Ptolemy Keraunos was probably born in 319 BC, soon after his parents' marriage – the first of their six children.

Sometime between 317 and 314 BC, Ptolemy Keraunos I married one of Eurydice's ladies-in-waiting, Berenice and had further children, including another son – the future Ptolemy Keraunos II.

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However, Hollstein has argued that these were coins of Ptolemy Keraunos Ceraunus, intended to present him as the legitimate heir of Lysimachus and in possession of a formidable force of elephants.

Ptolemy Keraunos Ceraunus entered into negotiations with Arsinoe II and proposed to marry her, even though she was his half-sister.

Ptolemy Keraunos agreed on the condition that her young sons were kept safe.

Ptolemy Keraunos Ceraunus was next attacked by a son of Lysimachus and an Illyrian king called Monunius.

Diodorus Siculus reports that the impetuous Ptolemy Keraunos refused to wait for his full force to arrive before attacking Bolgius' army, while Justin reports that he rudely rebuffed diplomatic overtures from Bolgius.

Ptolemy Keraunos agreed to marry Lysimachus' widow Arsinoe II, his own half-sister, in late 281 or early 280 BC, as part of a plot to seize the city of Cassandreia and murder her children.