Axiothea of Paphos

After Ptolemy I Soter, besieged Paphos and ordered Nicocles to commit suicide, Nicocles hanged himself. Axiothea then killed her own daughters, to prevent them falling into the hands of their enemies, and then, together with a group of sisters, mothers, and wives, committed mass suicide.^[3][4] The women went up to the roof of the palace, in full public view, killed the children, and then, according to Polyaenus, set the building ablaze and died in the fire, though Axiothea is said to have stabbed herself with a dagger before succumbing to the flames. In Diodorus Siculus's telling of the same event, the women still commit suicide, despite Ptolemy wishing no harm on them, and after the women killed themselves, the palace fire was set by Nicocles's male relatives so that the women's bodies might not fall into enemy hands.^[2][5][6]

The anecdote of Axiothea's death is primarily known through Diodorus Siculus and Polyaenus – writing 400 and 600 years, respectively, after the supposed events of the story – some modern scholars believe they were mistaken, and that this story may have happened to another royal house on Cyprus around the same time.

The Parian Chronicle suggests this may have been an episode in the history of Salamis, and happened to king Nicocreon of Salamis, not king Nicocles of Paphos. The writing of Athenaeus even identifies Axiothea as the wife of Nicocreon, though some modern scholars believe this was an error.^[7][6] These attributions are debated, and there is no clear consensus among scholars that these events happened in Salamis.^[2]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Mason, Charles Peter (1870). "Axiothea". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 449.