A sensational scandal occurs in 294 BCE at the court of Seleucus.

Antiochus, his son by his Sogdian queen, Apama, has fallen in love with his beautiful stepmother, Stratonice, and his unrequited passion affects his health.

Seleucus gives him Stratonice and assigns him as commander in chief to the upper satrapies.

…the Phoenician coastal towns of Sidon and Tyre.

Demetrius, having kept a foothold in Greece, conquers most of the peninsula in 294, defeating Archidamus IV of Sparta, son of Eudamidas I, grandson of Archidamus III, in a battle at Mantineia.

Sparta is saved only because Demetrius is called away by the threatening activities of his rivals Lysimachus and Ptolemy.

Pyrrhus had at first reigned with a kinsman, Neoptolemus, but soon had had his colleague assassinated.

He exploits the dynastic quarrel in Macedon in 294 to obtain the frontier areas of Parauaea and Tymphaea, along with Acarnania, Ampholochia, and Ambracia.

Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, reoccupies Athens, at this time oppressed by the tyranny of Lachares, pardons the inhabitants for their former misconduct and …

…after overthrowing his rival Antipater II and arranging the murder of Alexander V, who had turned to Demetrius for help, in 294 establishes himself as king of Macedon.

Seleucia on the Tigris continues to be Seleucus’s capital for the eastern satrapies.

He installs his son Antiochus here as viceroy in about 293 BCE, the vast extent of the empire seeming to require a double government. (It has been written of Seleucus that "few princes have ever lived with so great a passion for the building of cities. He is reputed to have built in all nine Seleucias, sixteen Antiochs, and six Laodiceas.")

The Samnites have seen their countryside systematically ravaged by the Romans.

According to Titus Livius, the Samnites are desperately short of men, and thus call a general muster to Aquilonia, which all men of Samnium are required to answer.

Here, they take strict religious oaths to their country, and are then forced to join the army upon an altar to the Gods.

If they refuse, they are slain on the spot and their bodies left in a pile as a reminder to all others what will happen if they refuse.

Roman forces under the consuls Lucius Papirius Cursor and Spurius Carvilius Maximus in 293 deal the Samnites a decisive defeat at the Battle of Aquilonia.

After the battle, the Samnites flee into the city of Aquilonia itself, and their camp.

The camp is captured and looted by the Romans, while taking the city itself proves more difficult.

The city is eventually taken, with many of the Samnite survivors being slaughtered in the fighting.

The loot taken from the Samnites this day is so extravagant, according to Livy, that there is enough gold and silver to decorate all the public buildings of Rome, with some left over to decorate the public buildings of other Roman cities as well.

Papirius Cursor is unanimously decreed a triumph, and a period of seven days thanksgiving is declared in his honor.

He sets up a sundial, the first of its kind in Rome, in the temple of Quirinus.

The cult of Venus had begun in Ardea and Lavinium, Latium.

On August 18, 293 BCE, her temple, the oldest-known, is built in Rome, and August 18 becomes a festival called the Vinalia Rustica.

Hellenic culture heavily influences the Getae, especially the ruling class, from about 300 BCE.

One Basileus Dromichaites, having organized the Getae of the Lower Danube into a state by about 300 BCE, repulses an attack by Lysimachus.

Hereafter, native Getian leaders protect the coastal urban centers that have developed from Greek colonies.

Agathocles is sent by his father against the Getae in about 292 BCE but is defeated and taken prisoner.

He is kindly treated by Dromichaetes, and sent back to his father with presents; but Lysimachus, notwithstanding, marches against the Getae, and is taken prisoner himself.

He too is also released by Dromichaetes, who received in consequence the daughter of Lysimachus in marriage.

According to some authors it was only Agathocles and according to others only Lysimachus, who was taken prisoner.