Theoxena

(Θεόξενα).

1. The last wife of Agathocles, king of Syracuse, to whom she bore two children. She is called by Justin an Egyptian princess, but her parentage is unknown. Droysen, however, conjectures that she was a daughter of Berenice by her first husband. According to Justin, Agathocles, when he felt his death approaching, sent away Theoxena and her two children to Egypt, but the whole of his narrative is subject to grave difficulties. (Just. 23.2 Droysen, Hellenism. vol. i. pp. 560, 602.)

2. A daughter of Herodicus, a noble Thessalian, who had been put to death by Philip V. king of Macedonia. Many years afterwards, the increasing suspicions and cruelty of that monarch having led hint to contemplate the destruction of the children of all those whom he had previously executed, Theoxena sought to make her escape by sea with her husband Poris and her two nephews, whom she had adopted; but the ship being driven back, in order to avoid falling into the hands of the king's emissaries, she slew her nephews with her own hand, and then threw herself with her husband into the sea. (Liv. 40.4.) [E.H.B]