murdered his father and all his brothers. But when the young king tried to make himself independent, Bagoas killed him too, with all his children, in the third year of his reign (336) (Diod. 17.5; Strabo 15. 736; Trogus, Prol. x., Alexander’s despatch to Darius III.; Arrian ii. 14. 5, and the chronographers). In Plutarch, De fort. Alex. ii. 3. 5, he is called Oarses; in Johannes Antioch. p. 38, Arsamos; in the canon of Ptolemy, Aroges (by Elias of Nisibis, Pīrūz); in a chronological tablet from Babylon (Brit. Mus. Sp. ii. 71, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, viii. 176, x. 64) he is abbreviated into Ar. See Persia: Ancient History. (Ed. M.)
ARSINOË, the name of four Egyptian princesses of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The name was introduced into the Ptolemaic dynasty by the mother of Ptolemy I. This Arsinoë was originally a mistress of Philip II. of Macedon, who presented her to a Macedonian soldier Loqus shortly before Ptolemy was born. It was, therefore, assumed by the Macedonians that the Ptolemaic house was really descended from Philip (see Ptolemies).
1. Daughter of Lysimachus, king of Thrace, first wife of Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285–247 B.C.). Accused of conspiring against her husband, who perhaps already contemplated marriage with his sister, also named Arsinoë, she was banished to Coptos, in Upper Egypt. Her son Ptolemy was afterwards king under the title of Euergetes. It is supposed by some (e.g. Niebuhr, Kleine Schriften; cf. Ehrlichs, De Callimachi hymnis) that she is to be identified with the Arsinoë who became wife of Magas, king of Cyrene, and that she married him after her exile to Coptos. But this hypothesis is apparently without foundation. Magas before his death had betrothed his daughter Berenice to the son of his brother Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, but Arsinoë, disliking the projected alliance, induced Demetrius the Fair, son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, to accept the throne of Cyrene as husband of Berenice. She herself, however, fell in love with the young prince, and Berenice in revenge formed a conspiracy, and, having slain Demetrius, married Ptolemy’s son (see Berenice, 3).
2. Daughter of Ptolemy I. Soter and Berenice. Born about 316 B.C., she married Lysimachus, king of Thrace, who made over to her the territories of his divorced wife, Amastris. To secure the succession for her own children she brought about the murder of her stepson Agathocles. Lysandra, the wife of Agathocles, took refuge with Seleucus, king of Syria, who made war upon Lysimachus and defeated him (281). After her husband’s death Arsinoë fled to Ephesus and afterwards to Cassandreia in Macedonia. Seleucus, who had seized Lysimachus’s kingdom, was murdered in 281 by Ptolemy Ceraunus (half-brother of Arsinoë), who thus became master of Thrace and Macedonia. To obtain possession of Cassandreia, he offered his hand in marriage to Arsinoë, and being admitted into the town, killed her two younger sons and banished her to Samothrace. Escaping to Egypt, she became the wife of her full brother Ptolemy II., the first instance of the practice (afterwards common) of the Greek kings of Egypt marrying their sisters. She was a woman of a masterful character and won great influence. Her husband, though she bore him no children, was devoted to her and paid her all possible honour after her death in 271. He gave her name to a number of cities, and also to a district (nome) of Egypt.[1] It is related that he ordered the architect Dinochares to build a temple in her honour in Alexandria; in order that her statue, made of iron, might appear to be suspended in the air, the roof was to consist of an arch of loadstones (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 42). Coins were also struck, showing her crowned and veiled on the obverse, with a double cornucopia on the reverse. She was worshipped as a goddess under the title of Θεὰ φιλάδελφος, and she and her husband as Θεοὶ ἄδελφοι (Justin xxiv. 2, 3; Pausanias i. 7).
See von Prott, Rhein. Mus. liii. (1898), pp. 460 f.
3. Daughter of Ptolemy III. Euergetes, sister and wife of Ptolemy IV. Philopator. She seems to be erroneously called Eurydice by Justin (xxx. 2), and Cleopatra by Livy (xxvii. 4). Her presence greatly encouraged the troops at the battle of Raphia (217), in which Antiochus the Great was defeated. Her husband put her to death to please his mistress Agathocleia, a Samian dancer (between 210 and 205). She was worshipped as Θεὰ φιλοπάτωρ; she and her husband as Θεοὶ φιλοπάτορες (Polybius v. 83, 84, xv. 25-33).
4. Youngest daughter of Ptolemy XIII. Auletes, and sister of the famous Cleopatra. During the siege of Alexandria by Julius Caesar (48) she was recognized as queen by the inhabitants, her brother, the young Ptolemy, being then held captive by Caesar. Caesar took her with him to Rome as a precaution. After Caesar’s triumph she was allowed to return to Alexandria. After the battle of Philippi she was put to death at Miletus (or in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus) by order of Mark Antony, at the request of her sister Cleopatra (Dio Cassius xlii. 39; Caesar, Bell. civ. iii. 112; Appian, Bell. civ. v. 9).
Authorities.—For general authorities see article Ptolemies. The article “Arsinoë” in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie contains a full list of those who bore the name, and also of the numerous towns which were called after the various princesses.
ARSINOITHERIUM (so called from the Egyptian queen Arsinoë), a gigantic horned mammal from the Middle Eocene beds of the Fayum, Egypt, representing a sub-order of Ungulata, called Barypoda. The skull is remarkable for carrying a huge pair of horn-cores above the muzzle, which seem to be the enlarged nasal bones, and a rudimentary pair farther back; the front horn-cores, like the rest of the skull, consist of a mere shell of bone, and were probably clothed in life with horny sheaths. The teeth form a continuous even series, the small canines being crowded between the incisors and premolars; the crowns of the cheek-series are tall (hypsodont), with a distinctive pattern of their own. Although the brain is relatively larger, the bones of the limbs, especially the short, five-toed feet, approximate to those of the Amblypoda and Proboscidea; but in the articulation of the astragalus with both the navicular and cuboid Arsinoitherium is nearer the former than the latter group.
It is probable, however, that these resemblances are mainly due to parallelism in development, and are in all three cases adaptations necessary to support the enormous weight of the body. On the other hand, the marked resemblance of the structure of the tarsus is probably indicative of descent from nearly allied condylarthrous ancestors (see Phenacodus). No importance can be attached to the presence of horns as an indication of affinity between Arsinoitherium and the Amblypoda; and there are important differences in the structure of the skulls of the two, notably in the external auditory meatus, the occiput, the premaxillae, the palatal foramina and the lower jaw.
From the Proboscidea Arsinoitherium differs broadly in skull structure, in the form of the cheek-teeth, and in the persistence of the complete dental series of forty-four without gaps or enlargement of particular teeth. Whether there is any relationship with the Hyracoidea cannot be determined until we are acquainted with the forerunners of Arsinoitherium, which is evidently a highly specialized type.
It may be added that as the name Barypoda has been used at an earlier date for another group of animals, the alternative title Embrithopoda has been suggested in case the former should be considered barred.
See C. W. Andrews, Descriptive Catalogue of the Tertiary Vertebrata of the Fayum, British Museum (1906). (R. L.*)
ARSON (from Lat. ardere, to burn), a crime which has been described as the malicious and voluntary burning of the house of another (3 Co. Inst. 66). At common law in England it is an offence of the degree of felony. In the Roman civil law arson was punishable by death. It appears early in the history of English law, being known in ancient laws by the term of boernet. It is mentioned by Cnut as one of the bootless crimes, and under the Saxon laws was punishable by death. The sentence of death for arson was, says Stephen (Commentaries, iv. 89), in the reign of Edward I. executed by a kind of lex talionis, for the incendiaries were burnt to death; a punishment which was inflicted also under
- ↑ The appendix to pt. ii. of the Tebtunis series of papyri (Grenfell, Hunt and Goodspeed, 1907) contains a lengthy account of the topography of the Arsinoite nome.
