Магас Киренский: Греческий король Киренаики

Greek king of Cyrenaica from 276 BC to 250 BC

Magas of Cyrene (; born before 317 BC – 250 BC, ruled 276 BC – 250 BC) was a Greek King of Cyrenaica. Through his mother’s second marriage to Ptolemy I he became a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty. He managed to wrest independence for Cyrenaica (in modern Libya) from the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt, and became King of Cyrenaica from 276 BC to 250 BC.

Magas was the first born son of the Macedonian noblewoman Berenice and her first husband, Philip, who had served as a military officer in the campaigns of Alexander the Great. He had two younger sisters: Antigone of Epirus and Theoxena of Syracuse. His father, Philip was the son of Amyntas by an unnamed mother. Plutarch (Pyrrhus 4.4) implies that his father was previously married and had children, including daughters born to him. Phillip served as a military officer in the service of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great and was known for commanding one division of the phalanx in Alexander’s wars. Magas's mother, Berenice, was from Eordeaea. She was the daughter of local obscure nobleman Magas and noblewoman Antigone. Berenice’s mother was the niece of the powerful regent Antipater He was the namesake of his maternal grandfather. About 318 BCE, Magas's father, Philip, died of natural causes. After her husband's death, Berenice took her children to the Ptolemaic Kingdom, where they were a part of the entourage of Berenice's cousin Eurydice. Eurydice was then the wife of Ptolemy I, the first Greek pharaoh and founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty. By 317 BCE, Ptolemy I fell in love with Berenice and repudiated Eurydice to marry her. Through her marriage to Ptolemy, Berenice became an Egyptian queen and the queen mother of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Magas was thus a stepson to Ptolemy I; he became an Egyptian prince living in his stepfather's court and was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty. His mother bore Ptolemy I three children: Queen Arsinoe II, Princess Philotera, and King Ptolemy II.

Around five years after the death of the Cyrenese ruler Ophellas, Magas, then about 20 years old, received the governorship of Cyrenaica from the ruling Ptolemies in Egypt: his mother Queen Berenice I and his stepfather Ptolemy I. Following the death of his stepfather Ptolemy I in 283 BC, Magas tried on several occasions to wrest independence for Cyrenaica from his stepfather's successor, his maternal half brother Ptolemy Philadelphus, until he crowned himself King around 276 BC. After the death of Magas, Apama II broke the marital alliance between her daughter Berenice II and Ptolemy III and proposed her daughter and the throne to Demetrius the Fair, son of the Antigonid king Demetrius I Poliorcetes, who became the new king of Cyrene. This gave the Antigonids strategic control of the western side of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

Magas was known by name to the contemporary Indian Emperor Ashoka, and he may have received Buddhist emissaries from India: indeed Magas is mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka, as one of the recipients of Ashoka's Buddhist proselytism. Ashoka also claims that he encouraged the development of herbalism, for men and animals, in the territories of the Hellenistic Kings. There are no records of such emissaries in Western sources. However, the philosopher Hegesias of Cyrene, from the city of Cyrene where Magas ruled in Cyrenaica, is sometimes thought to have been influenced by the teachings of Ashoka's Buddhist missionaries, given the similarity of some of his teachings with Buddhism. Still, Magas probably was quite knowledgeable about India. His father, Philip, had been a phalanx officer in the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Later, Magas, having been raised in part at the Ptolemaic court, must also have received first hand accounts of India from his stepfather Ptolemy I, a former general in Alexander's campaigns. The predecessor of Magas in Cyrene, the Ptolemaic governor named Ophellas, had also been one of the Alexander's officers in India, in charge of one of his triremes during the expedition down the Indus River. Magas was probably quite acquainted with matters pertaining to India through his contacts with such veterans of the Indian campaigns.