Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the king of Egypt, sent a fleet to break the blockade. The Egyptian admiral, Patroclus, landed on a small uninhabited island near Laurium and fortified it as a base for naval operations. The Seleucid Empire had signed a peace treaty with Egypt, but Antiochus's son-in-law, Magas, king of Cyrene, persuaded Antiochus to take advantage of the war in Greece to attack Egypt. To counter this, Ptolemy dispatched a force of pirates and freebooters to raid and attack the lands and provinces of Antiochus, while his army fought a defensive campaign, holding back the stronger Seleucid army. Although successfully defending Egypt, Ptolemy II was unable to save Athens from Antigonus. In 263/2 or 262/1 BC, the Athenians and Spartans, worn down by several years of war and the devastation of their lands, made peace with Antigonus, who thus retained his hold on Greece. Ptolemy II continued to interfere in the affairs of Greece and this led to war in 261. After two years in which little changed, Antiochus II Theos, the new Seleucid king, made a military agreement with Antigonus, and the Second Syrian War began. Under the combined attack, Egypt lost ground in Anatolia and Phoenicia, and the city of Miletus, held by its ally, Timarchus, was seized by Antiochus II. In 255 BC, Ptolemy made peace, ceding lands to the Seleucids and confirming Antigonus in his mastery of Greece. Two years later, however, the Egyptian interfered again, inducing with his subsidies the Macedonian governor of Corinth and Euboea, Alexander, son of Craterus, to challenge his king, seeking independence as a tyrant. Alexander's revolt was the most serious threat to the Macedonian hegemony in Greece, and since Antigonus' military efforts were unsuccessful, he probably resolved to poison the traitor in 247 BC. By offering a marriage with his heir Demetrius II Aetolicus Antigonus took in his widow Nicaea and regained control of Corinth in the winter of 245/44 BC. Antigonus against Aratus Having successfully repelled the external threat to his control of Greece, the main danger to the power of Antigonus lay in the Greek love of liberty. In 251 BC, Aratus, a young nobleman in the city of Sicyon, expelled the tyrant Nicocles, who had ruled with the acquiescence of Antigonus, freed the people, and recalled the exiles. This led to confusion and division within the city. Fearing that Antigonus would exploit these divisions to attack