Arsinoe I

Who was Arsinoe I?

Arsinoe I was a Greek Princess who was of Macedonian and Thessalian descent. She was the second daughter and youngest child born to the diadochus who was King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedonia Lysimachus from his first wife, Nicaea of Macedon. Arsinoe I had two older siblings: a brother called Agathocles and a sister called Eurydice.

Her paternal grandfather was Agathocles of Pella a nobleman who was a contemporary to King Philip II of Macedon who reigned 359 BC-336 BC, while her maternal grandfather was the powerful Regent Antipater. Arsinoe I was named in honor of an unnamed grandmother, who may have been the mother of Lysimachus or the mother of Nicaea whose both names of these women are unknown. Little is known of her life prior to her marriage.

Between 289/28 and 281 BC, Arsinoe became the first wife of Ptolemaic Greek Egyptian Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who was also her distant maternal cousin. Arsinoe I married Ptolemy II as part of an alliance between her father and Ptolemy II, against Seleucus I Nicator.

Arsinoe I was, by marriage, Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.