What is "andromachus"

Andromachus (, lived 3rd century BC) was an Anatolian nobleman of Greek Macedonian and Persian descent. Andromachus’ father was a wealthy nobleman who owned estates in Anatolia and his family had power in Anatolia with strong royal connections. Andromachus was the second son of Achaeus by an unnamed Greek mother and a grandson of Seleucus I Nicator (the founder of the Seleucid Empire) and his first wife Apama I. He had four siblings; one brother: Alexander and two sisters: Antiochis and Laodice I. He was the father of Achaeus and Laodice II. Laodice II married her cousin, the Seleucid King Seleucus II Callinicus and they were the parents of Antiochus III the Great.

At some moment in the course of a war between the Seleucids and Egyptian Greek Pharaoh Ptolemy III Euergetes took him prisoner; and when Ptolemy III died in 221 BC, Andromachus was still a prisoner in Egypt. Since Achaeus had long shown great anxiety to secure his son's release, Ptolemy IV of Egypt’s chief advisor Sosibius, regarded the captive grandee as a very valuable piece to play in the political game. He had, perhaps, before the revolt of Achaeus, tried to strike a bargain with him-—the release of Andromachus as the price of Achaeus deserting his king. When Achaeus had once revolted, pushed by other circumstances, and without having made any compact with Egypt, there was the less reason to let Andromachus go. Sosibius was very unwilling to part with such a valuable asset; but around 220 BC the Rhodians exerted themselves as intercessors on behalf of Achaeus, changing radically the situation.

The Rhodians decision did not spring from altruism: it was a move with which they hoped to defeat the city-state of Byzantium, with which they were at war. Byzantium hoped to gain Achaeus' support against Rhodes and its allies; by obtaining Andromachus release the Rhodians planned to foil this design and obtain Achaeus' benevolence. They therefore sent an embassy to Ptolemy IV asking him to deliver this Andromachus to them. This request they had made before, but without laying any great stress upon it. Now, however, they put much more insistence upon it; and while Ptolemy at first refused to free Andromachus, on second thoughts, being anxious to please the Rhodians, the king yielded to their request, and handed over Andromachus to them to conduct to his son. This was done, and father and son were reunited. After this occurrence, Andromachus disappears from history.

Andromachus was the ruler of Tauromenium (modern Taormina) in Sicily in the middle of the 4th century BCE, and the father of the historian Timaeus. He is said to have been by far the best of the rulers of Sicily at that time. He assisted Timoleon in his expedition against Dionysius of Syracuse in 344 BCE. ( Diod. xvi. 7, 68; Plut. Timol. 10).

Andromachus (; 1st century) was the name of two Greek physicians, father and son, who lived in the time of Nero.

• Andromachus the Elder, was born in Crete, and was physician to Nero, 54-68 AD. He is principally celebrated for having been the first person on whom the title of " Archiater" is known to have been conferred, and also for having been the inventor of a very famous compound medicine and antidote, which was called after his name Theriaca Andromachi, which long enjoyed a great reputation. Andromachus has left us the directions for making this strange mixture in a Greek elegiac poem, consisting of 174 lines, and dedicated to Nero. Galen has inserted it in two of his works, and says that Andromachus chose this form as being more easily remembered than prose, and less likely to be altered. Saladino d'Ascoli, a 15th century Italian physician, insists that indeed Andromachus, and not Galen (as asserted in the Antidotarium Nicolai ) was the creator of this treacle. Some persons suppose him to be the author of a work on pharmacy, but this is generally attributed to his son, Andromachus the Younger.
• Andromachus the Younger, the son of Andromachus the Elder, may also have been an imperial physician. Nothing is known of the events of his life, but he is generally supposed to have been the author of a work on pharmacy in three books, which is quoted very frequently and with approbation by Galen, but of which only a few fragments remain.

Andromachus, a cavalry general, was commander of the Eleans in 364 BCE. During the Arcadians' campaign against Elis, while the Arcadians were encamped between Cyllene and the capital, Andromachus launched an attack against them. His army was defeated and he committed suicide as a consequence.

Andromachus was a grammarian of ancient Greece. He was quoted in the Scholia on Homer. There has been disagreement among scholars about whether he was the author of the Etymologicum Magnum.

Andromachus is the name of a number of people from classical antiquity:

• Andromachus of Cyprus, commander of the Cyprian fleet at the Siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE
• Andromachus (son of Achaeus), Anatolian nobleman of the 3rd century BCE, son of Achaeus, and grandson of Seleucus I Nicator
• Andromachus (ruler of Tauromenium), ruler of ancient Tauromenium, in Sicily
• Andromachus (cavalry general), commander of the Eleans in 364 BCE who committed suicide after his army was defeated by the Arcadians
• Andromachus of Aspendus was one of the commanders of the forces of Ptolemy IV Philopator at the Battle of Raphia in 217 BCE, in which Antiochus III the Great was defeated. After the battle Ptolemy left Andromachus commander of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia.
• Andromachus was a man who served as ambassador for Ptolemy VI Philometor. He was sent to Rome on a diplomatic mission in 154 BCE.
• Andromachus (grammarian), quoted in the Scholia on Homer and possibly the author of the Etymologicum Magnum
• Andromachus (physician), the court physician of the Roman emperor Nero in the 1st century CE
• Andromachus was a rhetorician of ancient Greece, who taught at Nicomedia in the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, in the 1st century CE.
• Andromachus Philologus, the 3rd-century CE husband of Moero and father of Homerus