PTOLEMY'S CHILDREN BY EURYDIKE

[ruthaki]

OK, this is a minute bit of research I'd like to try and get correct. Was Ptolemy's first child by Eurydike a boy or a girl? I have the geneology charts but it isn't quite clear as there are some discrepancies. I think it's Ptolemy Ceraunus but want to make sure. There are two other offspring by Eurydike listed: Lysandra and Ptolemais. Would those both be girls?

All these icky picky details...but even though I'm writing historical fiction I still like to make sure they are as correct as I can get them. Thanks in advance.

[agesilaos]

Yes they are both girls Lysandra married the tyrant Agathokles of Syracuse and Ptolemais was betrothed to Demetrius Poliocetes, but he never arrived to collect his bride and she went quietly mad stuck in the limbo of a royal engagement. At least that's how I seem to recall it.

[ruthaki]

Thanks for that. I'd figured by the end of the name Ptolemais that was a female name. I assume Ptolemy Ceranus was his first child (son) by Eurydike?

[athenas owl]

Yes they are both girls Lysandra married the tyrant Agathokles of Syracuse and Ptolemais was betrothed to Demetrius Poliocetes, but he never arrived to collect his bride and she went quietly mad stuck in the limbo of a royal engagement. At least that's how I seem to recall it.

Wasn't she the mother of Demetrios the Fair?

[Paralus]

Yes, that seems to be so. Demetrius, in the middle of yet another Diadoch struggle, was organised by Seleucus to marry Ptolemais (301 ?). He didn't quite have the time to actualise it at when offered: with Ispos and reclaiming Athens in the following years another wife could wait a little. He did meet up with her and her rather insistent mother, Eurydice, later in 287 though (Plut. Dem 46.3):

He was met at Miletus by Eurydicé, a sister of Phila, who brought with her one of her daughters by Ptolemy, Ptolemaïs, who had been betrothed to Demetrius before this through the agency of Seleucus. Demetrius married her now, and Eurydicé gave the bride away. After the marriage Demetrius at once turned his arms against the cities...

Plutarch rounds out his life with the following:

The children left by Demetrius were these: Antigonus and Stratonicé, by Phila; two named Demetrius, one who was surnamed the Thin, by a woman of Illyria, and one who ruled Cyrené, by Ptolemaïs;

This Demetrius ("The Fair) then sired, upon one Olympias of Larissa (or was it - yet another - Berenice?), Antigonus III (Doson).

[ruthaki]

Thanks Paralus. I wonder if the reason Ptolemy married Berenice after Eurydike was because Eurydike produced only the 1 son and then 2 daughters. (In my novel I have him considering it a 'loveless marriage' (strictly for producing a legal heir) which seems to be the way they did things in those days (and in some places stil...!!!)