THE AETOLIANS
[Sidenote: Straitened finances in Aetolia cause a revolution, B.C. 204.]
+1.+ From the unbroken continuity of their wars, and the extravagance
of their daily lives, the Aetolians became involved in debt, not
only without others noticing it, but without being sensible of it
themselves. Being therefore naturally disposed to a change in their
constitution, they elected Dorimachus and Scopas to draw out a code
of laws, because they saw that they were not only innovators by
disposition, but were themselves deeply involved in private debt. These
men accordingly were admitted to the office and drew up the laws....
When they produced them they were opposed by Alexander of Aetolia,
who tried to show by many instances that innovation was a dangerous
growth which could not be checked, and invariably ended by inflicting
grave evils upon those who fostered it. He urged them therefore not
to look solely to the exigencies of the hour, and the relief from
their existing contracts, but to the future also. For it was a strange
inconsistency to be ready to forfeit their very lives in war to
preserve their children, and yet in their deliberations to be entirely
careless of the future....
[Sidenote: Scopas goes to Egypt. See 16, 18-19; 18, 53.]
+2.+ Having failed to obtain the office, for the sake of which he had
had the boldness to draw up these laws, Scopas turned his hopes to
Alexandria, in the expectation of finding means there of restoring his
broken fortunes, and satisfying to a fuller extent his grasping spirit.
He little knew that it is impossible to assuage the ever-rising desires
of the soul without correcting this passion by reason, any more than
it is to stay or quench the thirst of the dropsical body by supplying
it with drink, without radically restoring its healthy condition.
Scopas, indeed, is a conspicuous example of this truth; for though on
his arrival at Alexandria, in addition to his military pay, which he
possessed independently as commander-in-chief, the king assigned him
ten minae a day, and one mina a day to those next him in rank, still he
was not satisfied; but continued to demand more, until he disgusted his
paymasters by his cupidity, and lost his life and his gold together.
PHILIP’S TREACHEROUS CONDUCT, B.C. 204
+3.+ Philip now entered upon a course of treachery which no one would
venture to say was worthy of a king; but which some would defend on
the ground of its necessity in the conduct of public affairs, owing to
the prevailing bad faith of the time. For the ancients, so far from
using a fraudulent policy towards their friends, were scrupulous even
as to using it to conquer their enemies; because they did not regard
a success as either glorious or secure, which was not obtained by
such a victory in the open field as served to break the confidence of
their enemies. They therefore came to a mutual understanding not to
use hidden weapons against each other, nor such as could be projected
from a distance; and held the opinion that the only genuine decision
was that arrived at by a battle fought at close quarters, foot to
foot with the enemy. It was for this reason also that it was their
custom mutually to proclaim their wars, and give notice of battles,
naming time and place at which they meant to be in order of battle.
But nowadays people say that it is the mark of an inferior general
to perform any operation of war openly. Some slight trace, indeed,
of the old-fashioned morality still lingers among the Romans; for
they do proclaim their wars, and make sparing use of ambuscades, and
fight their battles hand to hand and foot to foot. So much for the
unnecessary amount of artifice which it is the fashion for commanders
in our days to employ both in politics and war.
[Sidenote: Philip employs Heracleides of Tarentum.]
+4.+ Philip gave Heracleides a kind of problem to work out,—how
to circumvent and destroy the Rhodian fleet. At the same time he
sent envoys to Crete to excite and provoke them to go to war with
the Rhodians. Heracleides, who was a born traitor, looked upon the
commission as the very thing to suit his plans; and after revolving
various methods in his mind, presently started and sailed to Rhodes.
He was by origin a Tarentine, of a low family of mechanics, and he had
many qualities which fitted him for bold and unscrupulous undertakings.
His boyhood had been stained by notorious immorality; he had great
acuteness and a retentive memory; in the presence of the vulgar no one
could be more bullying and audacious; to those in high position no one
more insinuating and servile. He had been originally banished from his
native city from a suspicion of being engaged in an intrigue to hand
over Tarentum to the Romans: not that he had any political influence,
but being an architect, and employed in some repairs of the walls, he
got possession of the keys of the gate on the landward side of the
town. He thereupon fled for his life to the Romans. From them, being
detected in making communications by letters and messages with Tarentum
and Hannibal, he again fled for fear of consequences to Philip. With
him he obtained so much credit and influence that he eventually was the
most powerful element in the overthrow of that great monarchy.
[Sidenote: The false pretences of Heracleides at Rhodes.]
+5.+ The Prytanies of Rhodes were now distrustful of Philip, owing to
his treacherous policy in Crete,[51] and they began to suspect that
Heracleides was his agent.... But Heracleides came before them and
explained the reasons which had caused him to fly from Philip....
Philip was anxious above everything that the Rhodians should not
discover his purpose in these transactions; whereby he succeeded in
freeing Heracleides from suspicion....
[Sidenote: Magna est veritas.]
Nature, as it seems to me, has ordained that Truth should be a most
mighty goddess among men, and has endowed her with extraordinary power.
At least, I notice that though at times everything combines to crush
her, and every kind of specious argument is on the side of falsehood,
she somehow or another insinuates herself by her own intrinsic virtue
into the souls of men. Sometimes she displays her power at once; and
sometimes, though obscured for a length of time, she at last prevails
and overpowers falsehood. Such was the case with Heracleides when he
came from king Philip to Rhodes....[52]
Damocles, who was sent with Pythio as a spy upon the Romans, was a
person of ability, and possessed of many endowments fitting him for the
conduct of affairs....
NABIS, TYRANT OF SPARTA, B.C. 207-192
[Sidenote: The character of Nabis’s tyranny.]
+6.+ Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, being now in the third year of his
reign, ventured upon no undertaking of importance, owing to the
recent defeat of Machanidas by the Achaeans; but employed himself in
laying the foundations of a long and grinding tyranny. He destroyed
the last remains of the old Spartan nobles; drove into banishment
all men eminent for wealth or ancestral glory; and distributed their
property and wives among the chief men of those who remained, or among
his own mercenary soldiers. These last were composed of murderers,
housebreakers, foot-pads, and burglars. For this was, generally
speaking, the class of men which he collected out of all parts of the
world, whose own country was closed to them owing to their crimes and
felonies. As he put himself forward as the patron and king of such
wretches, and employed them as attendants and bodyguards, there is
evidently no cause for surprise that his impious character and reign
should have been long remembered. For, besides this, he was not content
with driving the citizens into banishment, but took care no place
should be secure, and no refuge safe for the exiles. Some he caused to
be pursued and killed on the road, while others he dragged from their
place of retreat and murdered. Finally, in the cities where they were
living, he hired the houses next door to these banished men, wherever
they might be, by means of agents who were not suspected; and then sent
Cretans into these houses, who made breaches in the party walls, and
through them, or through such windows as already existed, shot down the
exiles as they stood or lay down in their own houses; so that there
was no place of retreat, and no moment of security for the unfortunate
Lacedaemonians.
[Sidenote: Nabis’s wife.]
+7.+ When he had by these means put the greater number of them out of
the way, he next had constructed a kind of machine, if machine it may
be called, which was the figure of a woman, clothed in costly garments,
and made to resemble with extraordinary fidelity the wife of Nabis.
Whenever then he summoned one of the citizens with a view of getting
some money from him, he used first to employ a number of arguments
politely expressed, pointing out the danger in which the city stood
from the threatening attitude of the Achaeans, and explaining what
a number of mercenaries he had to support for their security, and
the expenses which fell upon him for the maintenance of the national
religion and the needs of the State. If the listeners gave in he was
satisfied; but if they ever refused to comply with his demand, he would
say, “Perhaps I cannot persuade you, but I think this lady Apéga will
succeed in doing so.” Apéga was the name of his wife. Immediately on
his saying these words, the figure I have described was brought in. As
soon as the man offered his hand to the supposed lady to raise her from
her seat, the figure threw its arms round him and began drawing him by
degrees towards its breasts. Now its arms, hands, and breasts were full
of iron spikes under its clothes. When the tyrant pressed his hands on
the back of the figure, and then by means of the works dragged the man
by degrees closer and closer to its breasts, he forced him under this
torture to say anything. A good number of men who refused his demands
he destroyed in this way.[53]
[Sidenote: The beginning of the war between Nabis and the Achaeans.]
+8.+ The rest of his conduct was on a par with this beginning. He
made common cause with the Cretan pirates, and kept temple-breakers,
highway-robbers, and murderers all over the Peloponnese; and as he
shared in the profits of their nefarious trades, he allowed them to
use Sparta as their base of operations. Moreover, about this time
some visitors from Boeotia, who happened to be staying at Lacedaemon,
enticed one of his grooms to make off with them, taking a certain
white horse which was considered the finest in the royal stud. They
were pursued by a party sent by Nabis as far as Megalopolis, where the
tyrants found the horse and groom, and took them off without any one
interfering. But they then laid hands on the Boeotians, who at first
demanded to be taken before the magistrate; but as no attention was
paid to the demand, one of them shouted out “Help!” Upon a crowd of the
people of the place collecting and protesting that the men should be
taken before the magistrate, Nabis’s party were obliged to let them go
and retire. Nabis, however, had been long looking out for a ground of
complaint and a reasonable pretext for a quarrel, and having seized on
this one, he harried the cattle belonging to Proagoras and some others;
which was a commencement of the war....[54]
ANTIOCHUS IN ARABIA, B.C. 205-204
+9.+ Labae, like Sabae, is a city of Chattenia, which is a territory of
the Gerraei.... In other respects, Chattenia is a rugged country, but
the wealth of the Gerraei who inhabit it has adorned it with villages
and towers. It lies along the Arabian Sea, and Antiochus gave orders to
spare it....
In a letter to Antiochus the Gerraei demanded that he should not
destroy what the gods had given them—perpetual peace and freedom; and
this letter having been interpreted to him he granted the request....
Their freedom having been confirmed to the Gerraei, they presented King
Antiochus at once with five hundred talents of silver, one thousand of
frankincense, and two hundred of oil of cinnamon, called stactè, all of
them spices of the country on the Arabian Sea. He then sailed to the
island of Tylos, and thence to Seleucia....