Antigonus II Gonatas - in The Wilderness

In The Wilderness

In 285 BC, Demetrius, worn down by his fruitless campaign, surrendered to Seleucus. At this point he wrote to son and his commanders in Athens and Corinth telling them to henceforth consider him a dead man and to ignore any letters they might receive written under his seal. Macedonia, meanwhile had been divided between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus, but like two wolves sharing a piece of meat, they soon fought over it with the result that Lysimachus drove Pyrrhus out and took over the whole kingdom.

Following the capture of his father, Antigonus proved himself a dutiful son. He wrote to all the kings, especially Seleucus, offering to surrender all the territory he controlled and proposing himself as a hostage for his father's release, but to no avail. In 283 BC, at the age of 55, Demetrius died in captivity in Syria. When Antigonus heard that his father's remains were being brought to him, he put to sea with his entire fleet, met Seleucus's ships near the Cyclades, and took the relics to Corinth with great ceremony. After this, the remains were interred at the town of Demetrias that his father had founded in Thessaly.

In 282 BC, Seleucus declared war on Lysimachus and the next year defeated and killed him at the Battle of Corupedium in Lydia. He then crossed to Europe to claim Thrace and Macedonia, but Ptolemy Keraunos, the son of Ptolemy, murdered him and seized the Macedonian throne. Antigonus decided the time was ripe to take back his father's kingdom, but when he marched north, Ptolemy Ceraunus defeated his army.

Ptolemy's success, however, was short-lived. In the winter of 279 BC, a great horde of Gauls descended on Macedonia from the northern forests, crushed Ptolemy's army, and killed him in battle, starting two years of complete anarchy in the kingdom. After plundering Macedonia, the Gauls invaded Greece. Antigonus cooperated in the defence of Greece against the barbarians, but it was the Aetolians who took the lead in defeating the Gauls. In 278 BC, a Greek army with a large Aetolian contingent resisted the Gauls at Thermopylae and Delphi, inflicting heavy casualties and forcing them to retreat.

The next year (277 BC), Antigonus, sailed to the Hellespont, landing near Lysimachia at the neck of the Thracian Chersonese. When an army of Gauls under the command of Cerethrius appeared, Antigonus laid an ambush. He abandoned his camp and beached his ships, then concealed his men. The Gauls looted the camp, but when they started to attack the ships, Antigonus's army appeared, trapping them with the sea to their rear. In this way, Antigonus was able to inflict a crushing defeat on them and claim the Macedonian throne. It was around this time, under these favorable omens, that his son and successor, Demetrius II Aetolicus was born by his niece-wife Phila.