The sovereigns of Epirus, belonging to the family of the Aeacidae, were properly kings of the Molossi. See above, p. 150. They did not become lords of all Epirus, nor consequently of any historical importance, until the time of the Peloponnesian war. After that period Epirus was governed by Alcetas I. about 384, who pretended to be the sixteenth descendant from Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles; Neoptolemus, father to Olympias, by whose marriage with Philip, 358, the kings of Epirus became intimately connected with Macedonia, _d._ 352; Arymbas, his brother, _d._ 342; Alexander I. son of Neoptolemus, and brother-in-law to Alexander the Great; he was ambitious to be as great a conqueror in the west as his kinsman was in the east, but he fell in Lucania, 332. Aeacides, son of Arymbas, _d._ 312. Pyrrhus II. his son, the Ajax of his time, and, we might almost say, rather an adventurer than a king. After uninterrupted wars waged in Macedonia, Greece, Italy, and Sicily, he fell at last at the storming of Argos, 272. He was followed by his son Alexander II. in the person of whose successor, Pyrrhus III. 219, the male line became extinct. Although the daughter of this last prince, Deidamia, succeeded to the throne, the Epirots were not long before they established a democratic government, which endured till such time as they were, together with Macedonia and the rest of Greece, brought under the Roman yoke, 146. 9. In consequence of the accession of Lysimachus, Thrace, and for a short time even Asia Minor, were annexed to the Macedonian kingdom. But rankling hatred and family relations soon afterwards involved Lysimachus in a war with Seleucus Nicator, in which, at battle of Curopedion, he lost both his throne and his life. Execution of the gallant Agathocles, eldest son of Lysimachus, at the instigation of his step-mother Arsinoe: his widow Lysandra and her brother Ptolemy Ceraunus, who had already been driven out of Egypt by his step-mother Berenice, go over, followed by a large party, to Seleucus, whom they excite to war. 10. The victorious Seleucus, already lord of Asia, now causing himself to be proclaimed likewise king of Macedonia, it seemed as if that country was again about to become the head seat of the whole monarchy. But shortly after he had crossed over into Europe, Seleucus fell by the murderous hand of Ptolemy Ceraunus, who, availing himself of the treasures of his victim, and of the yet remaining troops of Lysimachus, took possession of the throne; by another act of treachery he avenged himself of Arsinoe, his half-sister; but just as he conceived himself securely established, he lost both his crown and his life by the irruption of the Gauls into Macedonia.