[1] In a fragment of a play by the New Comedy playwright Machon, we learn that the musician Stratonicus of Athens composed some satirical verses about Nicocles and Axiothea's sons that so incensed Axiothea, she insisted her husband have the musician put to death, a request which the king obliged.
Axiothea then killed her own daughters, to prevent their 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.
[2][5][6] The anecdote of Axiothea's death is chiefly relayed to us by the writers Diodorus Siculus and Polyaenus -- writing 400 and 600 years, respectively, after the supposed events of the story -- but some modern scholars believe that both of these were mistaken, and that this story may have happened to another royal house on Cyprus around the same time.
The writing of Athenaeus even identifies Axiothea as the wife of Nicocreon, though some modern scholars believe this an error.