12
Ptolemy, son of Lagus, the most fortunate of the kings of his day, ruled over Egypt, and at the age of eighty-four, two years before his death, abdicated in favour of his son Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, who succeeded to his father’s throne in lieu of his elder brothers.1 Philetaerus, an eunuch, secured and kept the throne of Pergamus, and closed his life at At least one word, perhaps more than one, has fallen out of the Greek text. Schwartz would read ἀδελφὴν γαμῶν ("and married his sister"): my supplement is based on Justinus 16, 27: is (i.e. Ptolemy Soter) contra ius gentium minimo natu ex filiis ante infirmitatem regnum tradiderat, eiusque rei rationem populo reddiderat. eighty. Attalus, called Philadelphus, also king of Pergamus, to whom the Roman general Scipio paid a visit, ended his life at the age of eighty-two.
13
Mithridates, king of Pontus, called the Founder, exiled by Antigonus One-eye, died in Pontus at eighty-four, as Hieronymus and other writers say. Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, lived eighty-two years, as Hieronymus says: perhaps he would have lived longer if he had not been captured in the battle with Perdiccas and crucified.
14
Cyrus, king ot the Persians in olden times, according to the Persian and Assyrian annals (with which Onesicritus, who wrote a history of Alexander, seems to agree) at the age of a hundred asked for all his friends by name and learned that most of them had been put to death by his son Cambyses. When Cambyses asserted that he had done this by order of Cyrus, he died of a broken heart, partly because he had been slandered for his son’s cruelty, partly because he accused himself of being feeble-minded.
