Arsinoe of Macedon

{{Short description|4th-century BC Macedonian woman}}

Arsinoe of Macedon ({{langx|grc|Ἀρσινόη}}; lived 4th century BC) was an ancient Macedonian noblewoman and the mother of Ptolemy I Soter (323 – 283 BC), king of Ptolemaic Egypt.

Arsinoe was of the Argead dynasty, and originally a concubine of Philip II, king of Macedon, and it is said she was given by Philip to Lagus, a Macedonian nobleman, while she was pregnant with Ptolemy I Soter, but it is possible that this is a later myth fabricated to glorify the Ptolemaic Dynasty.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WQq_podFRNYC&q=arsinoe&pg=PA10|title=Alexandre le Grand|year=1962|publisher=Librairie Droz|isbn=9782600044141|pages=155|language=en}} Alternately, Ptolemy's lineage to the Argead dynasty was found through his mother, Arsinoe, in this case Arsinoe is daughter of Meleager, who was a cousin of Amyntas III and son of Balacrus, son of Amyntas, son of Alexander I of Macedon. Contemporary and modern research concludes the latter claim much more valid than Philip II as Ptolemy’s father, now dismissed as a myth.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4LtB9I_SyU8C&q=attempt+to+legitimize+ptolemy+i+through+arsinoe&pg=PA128|title=Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives|last1=Carney|first1=Elizabeth|last2=Ogden|first2=Daniel|date=2010-06-24|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199745517|pages=127–129|language=en}}{{Cite journal|last=Stephens|first=Susan|date=January 2012|title=Writing.Alexandria.as.the.(Common)place|url=https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/stephens/011202.pdf|journal=Princeton/Stanford.Working.Papers.in.Classics|pages=9}}{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/carletonsconden00cogoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/carletonsconden00cogoog/page/n89 83]|quote=arsinoe daughter of meleager.|title=Carleton's Condensed Classical Dictionary: Being Brief But Succinct Information Concerning the Prominent Names in Classical History and Mythology, Together with the Most Conspicuous Incidents Associated with Them|last=Carleton|first=George Washington|date=1882|publisher=G. W. Carleton & Company|language=en}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CXKVAwAAQBAJ&q=Satyrus+the+Peripatetic+on+ptolemaic+dynasty&pg=PA312|title=By the Spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire|last=Worthington|first=Ian|date=2014-05-02|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199929870|pages=312|language=en}}{{Cite journal|last=Tarn|first=W. W.|date=1933|title=Two Notes on Ptolemaic History|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-hellenic-studies/article/two-notes-on-ptolemaic-history/05069B5449B7E1991CBC22B912331227|journal=The Journal of Hellenic Studies|volume=53|issue=1|pages=57–68|doi=10.2307/627247|jstor=627247|s2cid=163238913 |issn=2041-4099}}