Lysimachus

Lysimachus took Thrace after Alexander's death and held it for four decades before losing everything at eighty. Born around 360 BC in Thessaly or Macedonia, he was one of Alexander's bodyguards and served throughout the eastern campaigns. A story has him shut in with a lion by Alexander as a punishment and killing it barehanded, which is probably invented. In the division of 323 BC he was given Thrace, the least attractive of the assignments — a frontier region of tribes rather than cities, with no treasury and a hostile population. He spent about twenty years subduing it. He fought the Getic king Dromichaetes and was captured by him, and was released on terms, which suggests both weakness and a capacity to negotiate. He founded Lysimachia on the Gallipoli peninsula in 309 BC. He joined the coalition against Antigonus, and it was his march across Anatolia in 302 BC that pinned Antigonus and made the decisive battle possible. At Ipsus in 301 BC the allies destroyed him, and Lysimachus took most of Asia Minor — the moment at which he became a first-rank power. He took the royal title in 306 BC, seized Macedonia in 285 BC, and controlled Thrace, Anatolia and Macedonia together. He then destroyed himself. Under the influence of his wife Arsinoe, who wanted the succession for her own sons, he executed his able eldest son Agathocles in 282 BC. The resulting defections invited Seleucus to invade. He was killed at Corupedium in 281 BC. Seleucus was murdered seven months later, and both empires passed to others.

• Lived: 360 BCE – 281 BCE
• Nationality: Macedonian
• Roles: ruler, general