Son of Ptolemy and the last sole king in Pausanias' Theban roll — killed in a duel with Andropompus by craft and not in fair fight, after which the Thebans divided the government among several magistrates rather than one man.1
Pausanias closes his Boeotian king-list with a short Peneleid coda after the Epigon and Labdacid branches: Damasichthon son of Opheltes son of Peneleos, then Ptolemy, then Xanthus. When Xanthus fought a duel with Andropompus and was killed by treachery rather than in fair combat, the Thebans changed their constitution.2
Hereafter, Pausanias says, the Thebans thought it better to entrust the government to several people, rather than to let everything depend on one man — the end of single kingship at seven-gated Thebes in his reckoning, and the fitting close to a city whose royal house had been torn by curse, fratricide, and the wars of the Seven and the Epigoni.3
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story