Magas of Cyrene

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. Family background and early life 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 and was a distant collateral relative to the Argead dynasty. 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.