The deposed queen’s ambitious rival, widow to both Lysimachus and Keraunus, marries Ptolemy and adopts her children.

Sibling marriage, while scandalous to the Greeks, is a customary practice in Egypt.

The event shocks Greek public opinion but is celebrated by the Alexandrian court poets.

Philadelphoi (“Brother-Loving”) consequently is added to the names of Ptolemy and Arsinoe II.

Ptolemy, taking advantage of the difficulties of the rival kingdoms of the Seleucids and Antigonids, extends his rule in Syria, Asia Minor, and the Aegean at their expense and asserts at the same time his influence in Ethiopia and Arabia.

Egyptian embassies to Rome as well as to India reflect the wide range of Ptolemy's political and commercial interests.

The Egyptians invade northern Syria in 276, but Antiochus defeats Ptolemy, repels him, and secures an alliance with Ptolemy’s half brother, who rules Cyrene.

Macedon has had no central government for the past two years: three men had been offered the crown, but two of them were immediately dethroned and the third one, a nobleman named Sosthenes, had refused the supreme power.

Although the city-dwellers have had to fend for themselves, the Gauls lack the capacity to besiege towns.

Sosthenes has been able to harass Bolgius, who has returned with his loot to the region of modern Serbia.

The Macedonians in 276 acknowledge Antigonus king.

The despotic methods employed by Pyrrhus provoke a revolt of the Greek Sicilians, and in 276 (or early 275), he returns to Italy.

On his departure, the Syracusans appoint as commander of the troops his supporter Hiero, who strengthens his position by marrying the daughter of Leptines, the city's leading citizen.

Ptolemaic Egypt invades northern Syria in 276 BCE, but Antiochus defeats Ptolemy, repels him, and secures an alliance with Ptolemy’s half brother, who rules Cyrene.

The Gallic horde continues to plague western Anatolia until checked in 275 by Antiochus at the so-called Elephant Battle.

At this point, the Celts, called Galatae (Galatians) by third-century writers, settle, courtesy of Nicomedes of Bithynia and Mithridates of Pontus, in an area of northern Phrygia stretching from southwest to northeast through the central Anatolian plateau (the region will become known as Galatia (from Galli, the Latin word for Celts), there to serve as a buffer against the Seleucids.

Angora, one of their hillforts, is today Ankara, the Turkish capital.

Pyrrhus, after suffering heavy losses in a battle against Rome at Beneventum (Benevento) in 275, returns to Greece, while Rome puts down resistance in southern Italy.

The so-called First Syrian War erupts in 274-273 BCE between Antiochus and Ptolemy, a conflict partly occasioned by Seleucid support for the revolt of Magas, the Ptolemaic governor of Cyrene, who is linked to Antiochus by marriage to his daughter, Apame.

Ptolemy II conquers Tyre and renames the city Ptolemais.

Seleucid king Antiochus invades the Palestinian lands claimed by Ptolemaic Egypt, scoring successes in land operations in the year 274, and the next.

Pyrrhus's military adventures have overstrained the military resources of the Epirote state, but they have also brought it great prosperity.

He builds a magnificent stone theater at Dodona and …