Octogenerians (11-15)

Antigonus One-eye, son of Philip, and king of Macedonia, died in Phrygia in battle against Seleucus and Lysimachus, with many wounds, at eighty-one: so we are told by Hieronymus, who made the campaign with him. Lysimachus, king of Macedonia, also lost his life in the battle with Seleucus in his eightieth year, as the same Hieronymus says. There was also an Antigonus who was son of Demetrius and grandson of Antigonus One-eye: he was king of Macedonia for forty-four years and lived eighty, as Medeius and other writers say. So too Antipater, son of Iolaus, who had great power and was regent for many kings of Macedonia, was over eighty when he died.

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 [*]

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.

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.

Artaxerxes, called the Unforgetting, against whom Cyrus, his brother, made the expedition, was king of Persia when he died of illness at the age of eighty-six (according to Dinon ninetyfour). Another Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who, Isidore the Characene historian says, occupied the throne in the time of Isidore’s fathers, was assassinated at the age of ninety-three through the machinations of his brother Gosithras. Sinatroces,