Ptolemy Ceraunus

Ptolemy Cerauno (Keraunos, "the thunderbolt") (c.320/319 BC - 279 BC) He was king of Macedonia from 281 BC. C. until 279 BC. c.

He was the firstborn of Ptolemy I Soter (sovereign of Egypt) and his second wife Eurydice (daughter of Antipater). His little brother Ptolemy II became the heir, and in 282, the new pharaoh. Ptolemy Ceraunus left Egypt and went to the Court of Lysimachus, King of Thrace. Arsinoe II of Egypt, half-sister of Ceraunus, married Lysimachus.

While at the Court of Lysimachus, Ceraunus took his sister's side in the Court's intrigues, and accompanied her to the Court of Seleucus to ask for help. Soon after, seeing an opportunity to intervene for his own benefit in the political situation of the Hellenistic kingdoms, he prepared an expedition against Lysimachus.

After Lysimachus is defeated and killed by Seleucus I at the Battle of Curupedion in 281, Ptolemy Ceraunus assassinates Seleucus and makes an alliance with Pyrrhus of Epirus. Cerauno asks his sister Arsinoe to marry him, and after the ceremony he kills Arsinoe's two sons. She flees to Egypt and marries her other brother Ptolemy II Philadelphus.

Ptolemy defeats Antigonus Gónatas and gains Macedonia, but dies in a battle against the Galatians in 279 BC. c.