Pyrrhus asked Antiochus I (the king of the Seleucid Empire) for money and Antigonus II (the king of Macedon) to lend him ships to carry his army to Italy. Ptolemy II (the king of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt) gave him 5,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry on condition that they would not serve him for more than two years. In exchange, since Pyrrhus would be taking the best of his army to Italy, he appointed Ptolemy as guardian of his kingdom while he was away.