Agathocles was one of two courtiers who managed the succession of the boy-king Ptolemy V Epiphanes and the murder of his mother Arsinoe, according to Polybius, in a staged ceremony in Alexandria at which they produced two urns made of silver which supposedly contained the bones of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III, thought the one which allegedly contained the latter was actually full of spices, and a forged will appointing themselves as guardians of the under-age king.