Nicocles
- a tyrant of Sicyon, overthrown by Aratus, Cic. Off. 2, 23, 81.
(Νικοκλῆς). (1) A king of Paphos, in the island of Cyprus. He owed his throne to the kindness of Ptolemy I., king of Egypt, who continued thereafter to bestow upon him many marks of favour. Having learned, however, at last, that Nicocles had formed an alliance with Antigonus, Ptolemy sent two emissaries to Cyprus, with orders to despatch Nicocles in case his treachery should be clearly proved. These persons, having taken with them a party of soldiers, surrounded the palace of the king of Paphos, and compelled him to destroy himself, although he protested his innocence (B.C. 310). His wife Axiothea, when she heard of her husband's death, killed her daughters with her own hand, and then slew herself. The other female relatives followed her example. The brothers of Nicocles also, having shut themselves up in the palace, set fire to it, and then fell by their own hands (Diod. Sic.xx. 21).
(2) King of Salamis, in Cyprus, succeeding his father Evagoras B.C. 374. He celebrated the funeral obsequies of his parent with great splendour, and engaged Isocrates to write his eulogy. (See Isocrates.)
(3) A tyrant of Sicyon, deposed by Aratus in B.C. 251.
- a minstrel, his tomb: Paus. 1.37.2
- his monument at Acriae: Paus. 3.22.5
- expelled by Aratus: Paus. 2.8.3