and revenge. Plots and conspiracies without number were formed
against the tyrant's life, and in his later years he lived in
continual apprehension and distress. His fate, however, was still more
striking as an illustration of the manner in which the old age of
ambitious and unprincipled men is often embittered by the ingratitude
and wickedness of their children. Agathocles had a grandson named
Archagathus, who, if all the accounts are true, brought the old king's
gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. The story is too shocking to be
fully believed, but it is said that this grandson first murdered
Agathocles's son and heir, his own uncle, in order that he might
himself succeed to the throne--his own father, who would have been the
next heir, being dead. Then, not being willing to wait until the old
king himself should die, he began to form plots against his life, and
against the lives of the remaining members of the family. Although
several of Agathocles's sons were dead, having been destroyed by
violence, or having fallen in war, he had a wife, named Texina, and
two children still remaining alive. The king was so anxious in respect
to these children, on account of Archagathus, that he determined to
send them with their mother to Egypt, in order to place them beyond
the reach of their merciless nephew. Texina was very unwilling to
consent to such a measure. For herself and her sons the proposed
retiring into Egypt was little better than going into exile, and she
was, moreover, extremely reluctant to leave her husband alone in
Syracuse, exposed to the machinations and plots which his unnatural
grandson might form against him. She, however, finally submitted to
the hard necessity and went away, bidding her husband farewell with
many tears. Very soon after her departure her husband died.

The story that is told of the manner of his death is this: There was
in his court a man named Maenon, whom Agathocles had taken captive when
a youth, and ever since retained in his court. Though originally a
captive, taken in war, Maenon had been made a favorite with Agathocles,
and had been raised to a high position in his service. The indulgence
however, and the favoritism with which he had been regarded, were not
such as to awaken any sentiments of gratitude in Maenon's mind, or to
establish any true and faithful friendship between him and his master;
and Archagathus, the grandson, found means of inducing him to
undertake to poison the kin