[_Including Book XL. of Dindorf’s Text._]
[Sidenote: A defence of the historian’s method of parallel histories of
several countries, each kept up to date.]
+1.+ I am fully aware that some will be found to criticise my work, on
the ground that my narrative of events is incomplete and disconnected;
beginning, for instance, the story of the siege of Carthage, and then
leaving it half told, and interrupting the stream of my history, I pass
over to Greek affairs, and from them to Macedonian or Syrian, or some
other history; whereas students require continuity, and desire to hear
the end of a subject; for the combination of pleasure and profit is
thus more completely secured. But I do not think this: I hold exactly
the reverse. And as a witness to the correctness of my opinion I might
appeal to nature herself, who is never satisfied with the same things
continuously in any of the senses, but is ever inclined to change; and,
even if she is satisfied with the same things, wishes to have them at
intervals and in diversity of circumstance. This may be illustrated
first by the sense of hearing, which is never gratified either in
music or recitations by a continuance of the same strains or subjects;
it is the varied style, and, in a word, whatever is broken up into
intervals and has the most marked and frequent changes, that gives it
pleasurable excitement. Similarly one may notice that the palate can
never remain gratified by the same meats, however costly, but grows to
feel a loathing for them, and delights in changes of diet, and often
prefers plain to rich food merely for the sake of variety. The same may
be noticed as to the sight: it is quite incapable of remaining fixed on
the same object, but it is a variety and change of objects that excites
it. And this is more than all the case with the mind; for changes in
the objects of attention and study act as rests to laborious men.
+2.+ Accordingly the most learned of the ancient historians have, as it
seems to me, taken intervals of rest in this way: some by digressions
on myths and tales, and others by digressions on historical facts,—not
confining themselves to Greek history, but introducing disquisitions
on points of foreign history as well. As, for instance, when, in the
course of a history of Thessaly and the campaigns of Alexander of
Pherae, they introduce an account of the attempts of the Lacedaemonians
in the Peloponnese; or those made by the Athenians; or actions which
took place in Macedonia or Illyria: and then break off into an account
of the expedition of Iphicrates into Egypt, and the iniquitous deeds
of Clearchus in the Pontus. This will show you that these historians
all employ this method; but, whereas they employ it without any system,
I do so on a regular system. For these men, after mentioning, for
instance, that Bardylis, king of the Illyrians, and Cersobleptes,
king of the Thracians, established their dynasties, neither go on
continuously with the stories nor return to them after an interval to
take them up where they left off, but, treating them like an episode in
a poem, they go back to their original subject. But I made a careful
division of all the most important countries in the world and the
course of their several histories; pursued exactly the same plan in
regard to the order of taking the several divisions; and, moreover,
arranged the history of each year in the respective countries,
carefully keeping to the limits of the time: and the result is that I
have made the transition backwards and forwards between my continuous
narrative and the continually recurring interruptions easy and obvious
to students, so that an attentive reader need never miss anything....
_After various operations during the autumn of B.C. 147, the upshot
of which was to put the whole of the open country in Roman hands, in
the beginning of spring B.C. 146, Scipio delivered his final attack on
Carthage, taking first the quarter of the merchants’ harbour, then the
war harbour, and then the market-place. There only remained the streets
leading to the Byrsa and the Byrsa itself. Appian, Pun. 123-126. Livy_,
Ep. 51.
[Sidenote: The fall of Carthage, B.C. 146 (spring).]
[Sidenote: Scipio within the walls of Carthage.]
+3.+ Having got within the walls, while the Carthaginians still
held out on the citadel, Scipio found that the arm of the sea which
intervened was not at all deep; and upon Polybius advising him to set
it with iron spikes or drive sharp wooden stakes into it, to prevent
the enemy crossing it and attacking the mole,[251] he said that, having
taken the walls and got inside the city, it would be ridiculous to take
measures to avoid fighting the enemy....
+4.+ The pompous Hasdrubal threw himself on his knees before the Roman
commander, quite forgetful of his proud language....
When the Carthaginian commander thus threw himself as a suppliant at
Scipio’s knees, the proconsul with a glance at those present said: “See
what Fortune is, gentlemen! What an example she makes of irrational
men! This is the Hasdrubal who but the other day disdained the large
favours which I offered him, and said that the most glorious funeral
pyre was one’s country and its burning ruins. Now he comes with
suppliant wreaths, beseeching us for bare life and resting all his
hopes on us. Who would not learn from such a spectacle that a mere
man should never say or do anything presumptuous?” Then some of the
deserters came to the edge of the roof and begged the front ranks
of the assailants to hold their hands for a little; and, on Scipio
ordering a halt, they began abusing Hasdrubal, some for his perjury,
declaring that he had sworn again and again on the altars that he
would never abandon them, and others for his cowardice and utter
baseness: and they did this in the most unsparing language, and with
the bitterest terms of abuse. And just at this moment Hasdrubal’s wife,
seeing him seated in front of the enemy with Scipio, advanced in front
of the deserters, dressed in noble and dignified attire herself, but
holding in her hands, on either side, her two boys dressed only in
short tunics and shielded under her own robes.[252] First she addressed
Hasdrubal by his name, and when he said nothing but remained with his
head bowed to the ground, she began by calling on the name of the gods,
and next thanked Scipio warmly because, as far as he could secure it,
both she and her children were saved.[253] And then, pausing for a
short time, she asked Hasdrubal how he had had the heart to secure this
favour from the Roman general for himself alone, ... and, leaving his
fellow-citizens who trusted in him in the most miserable plight, had
gone over secretly to the enemy? And how he had the assurance to be
sitting there holding suppliant boughs, in the face of the very men to
whom he had frequently said that the day would never come in which the
sun would see Hasdrubal alive and his native city in flames....
_Hasdrubal’s wife finally threw herself and children from the citadel
into the burning streets. Livy_, Ep. 51.
After an interview with [Scipio], in which he was kindly treated,
Hasdrubal desired leave to go away from the town....
+5.+ At the sight of the city utterly perishing amidst the flames
Scipio burst into tears, and stood long reflecting on the inevitable
change which awaits cities, nations, and dynasties, one and all, as
it does every one of us men. This, he thought, had befallen Ilium,
once a powerful city, and the once mighty empires of the Assyrians,
Medes, Persians, and that of Macedonia lately so splendid. And
unintentionally or purposely he quoted,—the words perhaps escaping him
unconsciously,—[254]
“The day shall be when holy Troy shall fall And Priam, lord of
spears, and Priam’s folk.”
And on my asking him boldly (for I had been his tutor) what he meant by
these words, he did not name Rome distinctly, but was evidently fearing
for her, from this sight of the mutability of human affairs....
Another still more remarkable saying of his I may record.... [When
he had given the order for firing the town] he immediately turned
round and grasped me by the hand and said: “O Polybius, it is a grand
thing, but, I know not how, I feel a terror and dread, lest some one
should one day give the same order about my own native city.”... Any
observation more practical or sensible it is not easy to make. For
in the midst of supreme success for one’s self and of disaster for
the enemy, to take thought of one’s own position and of the possible
reverse which may come, and in a word to keep well in mind in the midst
of prosperity the mutability of Fortune, is the characteristic of a
great man, a man free from weaknesses and worthy to be remembered....
_After the rejection of the orders conveyed by the legates of Metellus
(38, 11), Critolaus collected the Achaean levies at Corinth, under the
pretext of going to war with Sparta; but he soon induced the league to
declare themselves openly at war with Rome. He was encouraged by the
adhesion of the Boeotarch Pytheas, and of the Chalcidians. The Thebans
were the readier to join him because they had lately been ordered by
Metellus, as arbiter in the disputes, to pay fines to the Phocians,
Euboeans, and Amphissians. When news of these proceedings reached Rome
in the spring of B.C. 146, the consul Mummius was ordered to lead a
fleet and army against Achaia. But Metellus in Macedonia wished to have
the credit of settling the matter himself; he therefore sent envoys
to the Achaeans ordering them to release from the league the towns
already named by the Senate viz. Sparta, Corinth, Argos, Heracleia,
and Orchomenus in Arcadia, and advanced with his army from Macedonia
through Thessaly by the coast road, skirting the Sinus Maliacus.
Critolaus was already engaged in besieging Heraclea Oetea, to compel
it to return to its obedience to the league, and when his scouts
informed him of the approach of Metellus, he retreated to Scarphea
on the coast of Locris, some miles south of the pass of Thermopylae.
But before he could get into Scarphea Metellus caught him up, killed
a large number of his men, and took one thousand prisoners. Critolaus
himself disappeared; Pausanias seems to imagine that he was drowned in
the salt marshes of the coast, but Livy says that he poisoned himself.
Pausanias, 7, 14, 15. Livy_, Ep. 52. _Orosius, 5, 3._
[Sidenote: Character of the Boeotarch Pytheas.]
+7.+ Pytheas was a brother of Acatidas the runner, and son of
Cleomenes. He had led an evil life, and was reported to have wasted the
flower of his youth in unnatural debauchery. In political life also
he was audacious and grasping, and had been supported by Eumenes and
Philetaerus for these very reasons....
[Sidenote: On the death of Critolaus (spring of B.C. 146) Diaeus
succeeds as Strategus.]
[Sidenote: and a general levy of the free men of military age.]
[Sidenote: a special contribution by the rich,]
[Sidenote: He orders the arming of 10,000 slaves,]
+8.+ Critolaus the Achaean Strategus being dead, and the law providing
that, in case of such an event befalling the existing Strategus, the
Strategus of the previous year should succeed to the office until
the regular congress of the league should meet, it fell to Diaeus
to conduct the business of the league and take the head of affairs.
Accordingly, after sending forward some troops to Megara,[255] he went
himself to Argos; and from that place sent a circular letter to all
the towns ordering them to set free their slaves who were of military
age, and who had been born and brought up in their houses, and send
them furnished with arms to Corinth. He assigned the numbers to be
furnished by the several towns quite at random and without any regard
to equality, just as he did everything else. Those who had not the
requisite number of home-bred slaves were to fill up the quota imposed
on each town from other slaves. But seeing that the public poverty was
very great, owing to the war with the Lacedaemonians, he compelled the
richer classes, men and women alike, to make promises of money and
furnish separate contributions. At the same time he ordered a levy
_en masse_ at Corinth of all men of military age. The result of these
measures was that every city was full of confusion, commotion, and
despair: they deemed those fortunate who had already perished in the
war, and pitied those who were now starting to take part in it; and
everybody was in tears as though they foresaw only too well what was
going to happen. They were especially annoyed at the insolent demeanour
and neglect of their duties on the part of the slaves,—airs which they
assumed as having been recently liberated, or, in the case of others,
because they were excited by the prospect of freedom. Moreover the men
were compelled to make their contribution contrary to their own views,
according to the property they were reputed to possess; while the women
had to do so, by taking the ornaments of their own persons or of their
children, to what seemed deliberately meant for their destruction.
[Sidenote: The Eleians and Messenians do not move.]
[Sidenote: Dismay at Patrae.]
[Sidenote: Thebes abandoned.]
[Sidenote: The distracted state of Greece.]
+9.+ As these measures came all at once, the dismay caused by the
hardship of each individually prevented people from attending to or
grasping the general question; or they must have foreseen that they
were all being led on to secure the certain destruction of their
wives and children. But, as though caught in the rush of some winter
torrent and carried on by its irresistible violence, they followed the
infatuation and madness of their leader. The Eleians and Messenians
indeed did not stir, in terror of the Roman fleet; for nothing could
have saved them if the storm had burst when it was originally intended.
The people of Patrae, and of the towns which were leagued with it, had
a short time before suffered disasters in Phocis;[256] and their case
was much the most pitiable one of all the Peloponnesian cities: for
some of them sought a voluntary death; others fled from their towns
through deserted parts of the country, with no definite aim in their
wanderings, from the panic prevailing in the towns. Some arrested and
delivered each other to the enemy, as having been hostile to Rome;
others hurried to give information and bring accusations, although no
one asked for any such service as yet; while others went to meet the
Romans with suppliant branches, confessing their treason, and asking
what penance they were to pay, although as yet no one was asking for
any account of such things.
$3
$1e whole country seemed to be under an evil spell: everywhere people
were throwing themselves down wells or over precipices; and so dreadful
was the state of things, that as the proverb has it “even an enemy
would have pitied” the disaster of Greece. For in times past the Greeks
had met with reverses or indeed complete disaster, either from internal
dissensions or from treacherous attacks of despots; but in the present
instance it was from the folly of their leaders and their own unwisdom
that they experienced the grievous misfortunes which befell them. The
Thebans also, abandoning their city _en masse_, left it entirely empty;
and among the rest Pytheas retired to the Peloponnese, with his wife
and children, and there wandered about the country.[257]...
He came upon the enemy much to his surprise. But to my mind the
proverb, “the reckonings of the foolish are foolishness” applies
to him. And naturally to such men things clear as day come as a
surprise....
He was even forming plans for getting back home, acting very like a
man who, not having learnt to swim and being about to plunge into the
sea, should not consider the question of taking the plunge; but, having
taken it, should begin to consider how he is to swim to land....
_Having secured Boeotia, Metellus advanced to Megara, where the Achaean
Alcamenes had been posted by Diaeus with five thousand men. Alcamenes
hastily evacuated Megara and rejoined Diaeus at Corinth, the latter
having meanwhile been reelected Strategus. Pausanias, 7, 15, 10._
[Sidenote: Diaeus at Corinth rejects all offers sent by Metellus,
August, B. C. 146,]
[Sidenote: because he and his party do not believe that they will ever
be amnestied with the rest.]
+10.+ Diaeus having recently come to Corinth after being appointed
Strategus by the vote of the people, Andronidas and others came from
Caecilius Metellus. Against these men he spread a report that they were
in alliance with the enemy, and gave them up to the mob, who seized on
them with great violence and threw them into chains. Philo of Thessaly
also came bringing many liberal offers to the Achaeans. And on hearing
them, certain of the men of the country attempted to secure their
acceptance; among whom was Stratius, now a very old man, who clung to
Diaeus’s knees and entreated him to yield to the offers of Metellus.
But he and his party would not listen to Philo’s proposals. For the
fact was that they did not believe that the amnesty would embrace them
with the rest; and, as they regarded their own advantage and personal
security as of the highest importance, they spoke as they did, and
directed all their measures on the existing state of affairs to this
end: although, as a matter of fact, they failed entirely to secure
these objects. For as they understood quite clearly the gravity of
what they had done, they could not believe they would obtain any mercy
from Rome; and as to enduring nobly whatever should befall on behalf
of their country and the safety of the people, that they never once
took into consideration; yet that was the course becoming men who cared
for glory, and professed to be the leaders of Greece. But indeed how
or whence was it likely that such a lofty idea should occur to these
men? The members of this conclave were Diaeus and Damocritus, who had
but recently been recalled from exile owing to the disturbed state of
the times, and with them Alcamenes, Theodectes and Archicrates; and
of these last I have already stated at length who they were, and have
described their character, policy, and manner of life.
[Sidenote: Cruel death of Sosicrates.]
[Sidenote: Greece is saved by the rapidity of her ruin.]
+11.+ Such being the men with whom the decision rested, the
determination arrived at was what was to be expected. They not only
imprisoned Andronidas and Lagius and their friends, but even the
sub-Strategus Sosicrates, on the charge of his having presided at
a council and given his voting for sending an embassy to Caecilius
Metellus, and in fact of having been the cause of all their
misfortunes. Next day they empanelled judges to try them; condemned
Sosicrates to death; and having bound him racked him till he died,
without however inducing him to say anything that they expected: but
they acquitted Lagius, Andronidas and Archippus, partly because the
people were scared at the lawless proceeding against Sosicrates, and
partly because Diaeus got a talent from Andronidas and forty minae
from Archippus; for this man could not relax his usual shameless and
abandoned principles in this particular even “in the very pit,”[258] as
the saying is. He had acted with similar cruelty a short time before
also in regard to Philinus of Corinth. For on a charge of his holding
communication with Menalcidas[259] and favouring the Roman cause, he
caused Philinus and his sons to be flogged and racked in each other’s
sight, and did not desist until the boys and Philinus were all dead.
When such madness and ferocity was infecting everybody, as it would
not be easy to parallel even among barbarians, it would be clearly
very natural to ask why the whole nation did not utterly perish. For
my part, I think that Fortune displayed her resources and skill in
resisting the folly and madness of the leaders; and, being determined
at all hazards to save the Achaeans, like a good wrestler, she had
recourse to the only trick left; and that was to bring down and conquer
the Greeks quickly, as in fact she did. For it was owing to this that
the wrath and fury of the Romans did not blaze out farther; that the
army of Libya did not come to Greece; and that these leaders, being
such men as I have described, did not have an opportunity, by gaining
a victory, of displaying their wickedness upon their countrymen. For
what it was likely that they would have done to their own people,
if they had got any ground of vantage or obtained any success, may
be reasonably inferred from what has already been said. And indeed
everybody at the time had the proverb on his lips, “had we not perished
quickly we had not been saved.”[260]...
[Sidenote: Character of Aulus Postumius Albinus.]
+12.+ Aulus Postumius deserves some special notice from us here. He was
a member of a family and gens of the first rank, but in himself was
garrulous and wordy, and exceedingly ostentatious. From his boyhood
he had a great leaning to Greek studies and literature: but he was so
immoderate and affected in this pursuit, that owing to him the Greek
style became offensive to the elder and most respectable men at Rome.
Finally he attempted to write a poem and a formal history in Greek, in
the preface to which he desired his readers to excuse him if, being
a Roman, he could not completely command the Greek idiom or method
in the handling of the subject. To whom M. Porcius Cato made a very
pertinent answer. “I wonder,” said he, “on what grounds you make such
a demand. If the Amphictyonic council had charged you to write the
history, you might perhaps have been forced to allege this excuse and
ask for this consideration. But to write it of your own accord, when
there was no compulsion to do so, and then to demand consideration,
if you should happen to write bad Greek, is quite unreasonable. It is
something like a man entering for the boxing match or pancratium in
the public games, and, when he comes into the stadium, and it is his
turn to fight, begging the spectators to pardon him ‘if he is unable to
stand the fatigue or the blows.’ Such a man of course would be laughed
at and condemned at once.”[261] And this is what such historiographers
should experience, to prevent them spoiling a good thing by their rash
presumption. Similarly, in the rest of his life, he had imitated all
the worst points in Greek fashions; for he was fond of pleasure and
averse from toil. And this may be illustrated from his conduct in the
present campaign: for being among the first to enter Greece at the
time that the battle in Phocis took place, he retired to Thebes on the
pretence of illness, in order to avoid taking part in the engagement;
but, when the battle was ended, he was the first to write to the Senate
announcing the victory, entering into every detail as though he had
himself been present at the conflict....
[Sidenote: B.C. 146. Coss. Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, L. Mummius.]
_On the arrival of the Consul Mummius, Metellus was sent back into
Macedonia. Mummius was accompanied by L. Aurelius Orestes, who had
been nearly murdered in the riot at Corinth (38, 7), and, pitching his
camp in the Isthmus, was joined by allies who raised his army to three
thousand five hundred cavalry and twenty-six thousand infantry. The
Achaeans made a sudden attack upon them and gained a slight success,
which was a few days afterwards revenged by a signal defeat. Instead
of retiring into Corinth, and from that stronghold making some terms
with Mummius, Diaeus fled to Megalopolis, where he poisoned himself,
after first killing his wife. The rest of the beaten Achaean army took
refuge in Corinth, which Mummius took and fired on the third day after
the battle with Diaeus. Then the commissioners were sent from Rome to
settle the whole of Greece. Pausanias, 7, 16-17; Livy_, Ep. 52.
[Sidenote: The destruction of the works of art in Corinth, September,
B.C. 146.]
+13.+ The incidents of the capture of Corinth were melancholy. The
soldiers cared nothing for the works of art and the consecrated
statues. I saw with my own eyes pictures thrown on the ground and
soldiers playing dice on them; among them was a picture of Dionysus by
Aristeides—in reference to which they say that the proverbial saying
arose, “Nothing to the Dionysus,”—and the Hercules tortured by the
shirt of Deianeira....
+14.+ Owing to the popular reverence for the memory of Philopoemen,
they did not take down the statues of him in the various cities.
So true is it, as it seems to me, that every genuine act of virtue
produces in the mind of those who benefit by it an affection which it
is difficult to efface....
One might fairly, therefore, use the common saying: “He has been foiled
not at the door, but in the road.”...[262]
[Sidenote: Statues of Philopoemen.]
There were many statues of Philopoemen, and many erections in his
honour, voted by the several cities; and a Roman at the time of the
disaster which befell Greece at Corinth, wished to abolish them all and
to formally indict him, laying an information against him, as though
he were still alive, as an enemy and ill-wisher to Rome. But after a
discussion, in which Polybius spoke against this sycophant, neither
Mummius nor the commissioners would consent to abolish the honours of
an illustrious man....
[Sidenote: Speech of Polybius defending the memory of Philopoemen.]
Polybius, in an elaborate speech, conceived in the spirit of what has
just been said, maintained the cause of Philopoemen. His arguments
were that “This man had indeed been frequently at variance with the
Romans on the matter of their injunctions, but he only maintained his
opposition so far as to inform and persuade them on the points in
dispute; and even that he did not do without serious cause. He gave a
genuine proof of his loyal policy and gratitude, by a test as it were
of fire, in the periods of the wars with Philip and Antiochus. For,
possessing at those times the greatest influence of any one in Greece,
from his personal power as well as that of the Achaeans, he preserved
his friendship for Rome with the most absolute fidelity, having joined
in the vote of the Achaeans in virtue of which, four months before the
Romans crossed from Italy, they levied a war from their own territory
upon Antiochus and the Aetolians, when nearly all the other Greeks
had become estranged from the Roman friendship.” Having listened to
this speech and approved of the speaker’s view, the ten commissioners
granted that the complimentary erections to Philopoemen in the several
cities should be allowed to remain. Acting on this pretext, Polybius
begged of the Consul the statues of Achaeus, Aratus, and Philopoemen,
though they had already been transported to Acarnania from the
Peloponnese: in gratitude for which action people set up a marble
statue of Polybius himself.[263]...
[Sidenote: Polybius will have no confiscated goods.]
+15.+ After the settlement made by the ten commissioners in Achaia,
they directed the Quaestor, who was to superintend the selling of
Diaeus’s property, to allow Polybius to select anything he chose from
the goods and present it to him as a free gift, and to sell the rest
to the highest bidders. But, so far from accepting any such present,
Polybius urged his friends not to covet anything whatever of the goods
sold by the Quaestor anywhere:—for he was going a round of the cities
and selling the property of all those who had been partisans of Diaeus,
as well of such as had been condemned, except those who left children
or parents. Some of these friends did not take his advice; but those
who did follow it earned a most excellent reputation among their
fellow-citizens.
[Sidenote: B.C. 145. The commissioners return in the spring, leaving
instructions with Polybius to explain the new constitutions.]
+16.+ After completing these arrangements in six months, the ten
commissioners sailed for Italy, at the beginning of spring, having left
a noble monument of Roman policy for the contemplation of all Greece.
They also charged Polybius, as they were departing, to visit all the
cities and to decide all questions that might arise, until such time
as they were grown accustomed to their constitution and laws. Which he
did: and after a while caused the inhabitants to be contented with the
constitution given them by the commissioners, and left no difficulty
connected with the laws on any point, private or public, unsettled.
[Sidenote: Note by a friend of Polybius as to the effect of his careful
fulfilment of his commission.]
[Wherefore the people, who always admired and honoured this man,
being in every way satisfied with the conduct of his last years and
his management of the business just described, honoured him with the
most ample marks of their respect both during his life and after his
death. And this universal verdict was fully justified. For if he
had not elaborated and reduced to writing the laws relating to the
administration of justice, everything would have been in a state of
uncertainty and confusion. Therefore we must look upon this as the most
glorious of the actions of Polybius.]...
[Sidenote: Mummius acted in Greece with clean hands and great
moderation.]
+17.+ The Roman Proconsul, after the commissioners had left Achaia,
having restored the holy places in the Isthmus and ornamented the
temples in Olympia and Delphi, proceeded to make a tour of the cities,
receiving marks of honour and proper gratitude in each. And indeed he
deserved honour both public and private, for he conducted himself with
self-restraint and disinterestedness, and administered his office with
mildness, although he had great opportunities of enriching himself,
and immense authority in Greece. And in fact in the points in which he
was thought to have at all overlooked justice, he appears not to have
done it for his own sake, but for that of his friends. And the most
conspicuous instance of this was in the case of the Chalcidian horsemen
whom he put to death.[264]...
[Sidenote: Death of Ptolemy Philometor in a war in Syria in support of
Demetrius the younger against Alexander Balas. See above, 33, 18.]
+18.+ Ptolemy, king of Syria,[265] died from a wound received in the
war: a man who, according to some, deserved great praise and abiding
remembrance, and according to others the reverse. If any king before
him ever was, he was mild and benevolent; a very strong proof of which
is that he never put any of his own friends to death on any charge
whatever; and I believe that not a single man at Alexandria either
owed his death to him. Again, though he was notoriously ejected from
his throne by his brother, in the first place, when he got a clear
opportunity against him in Alexandria, he granted him a complete
amnesty; and afterwards, when his brother once more made a plot against
him to seize Cyprus, though he got him body and soul into his hands
at Lapethus, he was so far from punishing him as an enemy, that he
even made him grants in addition to those which formerly belonged to
him in virtue of the treaty made between them, and moreover promised
him his daughter. However, in the course of a series of successes
and prosperity, his mind became corrupted; and he fell a prey to the
dissoluteness and effeminacy characteristic of the Egyptians: and these
vices brought him into serious disasters....
CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORY
+19.+ Having accomplished these objects, I returned home from Rome,
having put, as it were, the finishing-stroke to my whole previous
political actions, and obtained a worthy return for my constant
loyalty to the Romans. Wherefore I make my prayers to all the gods
that the rest of my life may continue in the same course and in the
same prosperity; for I see only too well that Fortune is envious of
mortals, and is most apt to show her power in those points in which a
man fancies that he is most blest and most successful in life.
[Sidenote: See 1, 3, and 3, 4.]
Such was the result of my exertions. But having now arrived at the
end of my whole work, I wish to recall to the minds of my readers the
point from which I started, and the plan which I laid down at the
commencement of my history, and then to give a summary of the entire
subject. I announced then at starting that I should begin my narrative
at the point where Timaeus left off, and that going cursorily over the
events in Italy, Sicily, and Libya—since that writer has only composed
a history of those places,—when I came to the time when Hannibal took
over the command of the Carthaginian army; Philip son of Demetrius the
kingdom of Macedonia; Cleomenes of Sparta was banished from Greece;
Antiochus succeeded to the kingdom in Syria, and Ptolemy Philopator to
that in Egypt,—I promised that starting once more from that period,
namely the 139th Olympiad, I would give a general history of the world:
marking out the periods of the Olympiads, separating the events of each
year, and comparing the histories of the several countries by parallel
narratives of each, up to the capture of Carthage, and the battle of
the Achaeans and Romans in the Isthmus, and the consequent political
settlement imposed on the Greeks. From all of which I said that
students would learn a lesson of supreme interest and instructiveness.
This was to ascertain how, and under what kind of polity, almost the
whole inhabited world came under the single authority of Rome, a fact
quite unparalleled in the past. These promises then having all been
fulfilled, it only remains for me to state the periods embraced in my
history, the number of my books, and how many go to make up my whole
work....
I.—SHORTER FRAGMENTS
_The first eight of these fragments belong to book 6, but as they do
not fall in with what remains of the text, I have placed them here. I
have divided these fragments into two classes: (A) those which seem to
have some distinct reference which can be recognised or guessed: (B)
those which though fairly complete in themselves cannot be so classed.
A good many more, generally quoted by Suidas for the sake of some one
word, did not seem worth putting in an English dress. The numbers in
brackets are those of Hultsch’s text._
_A_
I (6, 2)
[Sidenote: B.C. 751.]
I believe Rome to have been founded in the second year of the 7th
Olympiad.[266]
II (6, 2)
[Sidenote: B.C. 672.]
Polybius, like Aristodemus of Elis, informs us that the register of the
athletic victors at the Olympic games began to be kept from the 27th
Olympiad, at which Coroebus of Elis was first registered as conqueror
in the stadium; and this Olympiad was regarded as an era by the Greeks
from which to calculate dates.[267]
III (6, 2)
The Palatine was named after Pallas, who died there. He was the son
of Heracles and Lavina, daughter of Evander. His maternal grandfather
raised a barrow as his tomb on this hill, and called the place after
him the Pallantium.
IV (6, 2)
Among the Romans women are forbidden to drink wine; and they drink
what is called _passum_, which is made from raisins, and tastes very
like the sweet wine of Aegosthena or Crete. This is what they drink to
quench their thirst. But it is almost impossible for them to drink wine
without being found out. For, to begin with, the woman has not got the
charge of wine; and, in the next place, she is bound to kiss all her
male relatives and those of her husband, down to his cousins, every day
on seeing them for the first time; and as she cannot tell which of them
she will meet, she has to be on her guard. For if she has but tasted
wine, there is no occasion for any formal accusation.[268]
V (6, 2)
[Sidenote: Ancus Marcius, Livy, 1, 33.]
He also founded Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber.
VI (6, 2)
[Sidenote: Lucius Tarquinius Priscus comes to Rome.]
Lucius, the son of Demaratus of Corinth, came to Rome relying on his
own ability and wealth, and convinced that the advantages he possessed
would place him in the front rank in the state: for he had a wife
who, among other useful qualities, was admirably suited by nature to
assist in any political enterprise. Arrived at Rome, and admitted to
citizenship, he devoted himself to flattering the king; and before very
long his wealth, his natural dexterity, and, more than all, his early
training, enabled him so to please the king’s taste that he gained his
cordial liking and confidence. As time went on his intimacy became so
close that he lived with [Ancus] Marcius, and assisted him in managing
his kingdom. While so engaged, he contrived to make himself useful to
every one. All who were suitors for anything found in him an active
supporter and friend: his wealth was spent with noble liberality and
judgment on various objects of national importance; and thus he secured
for himself the gratitude of many, and the goodwill and good word of
all, and finally obtained the throne.[269]...
Every branch of virtue should be practised by those who aim at good
training, from childhood, but, above all, courage....
(6, 1)
An impossible lie admits of no defence even.
(6, 1)
It is the act of a wise and sensible man to recognise—as Hesiod puts
it—“how much greater the half is than the whole.”[270]
VII (6, 1)
To learn sincerity towards the Gods is a kind of image of truthfulness
towards each other.
VIII (6, 1)
It generally happens in the world that men who acquire have a natural
turn for keeping; while those who succeed to wealth, without any
trouble to themselves, are apt to squander it.
IX (10)
The strongest fortifications are in general dangerous to both sides;
which may be illustrated from what occurs in the case of citadels.
These last are regarded as contributing greatly to the security of the
cities in which they stand, and to the protection of their freedom;
but they often turn out to be the origin of slavery and indisputable
misfortunes.[271]
X (13)
Some few approved of his doing so, but the majority objected, saying,
some that it was folly, and others that it was madness for a man thus
to risk and hazard his life, who was quite unacquainted with the kind
of fighting in use among these barbarians.[272]
XI (16)
“Secure retreat in case disaster fall.”
One ought always to keep this line in mind. From failing to do so
Lucius the Roman[273] met with a grave disaster. So narrow is the
risk of destruction to the most powerful forces when the leaders are
unwise. A sufficient illustration to thoughtful men is furnished by the
headstrong invasion of Argos by Pyrrhus king of the Epirotes,[274] and
the expedition through Thrace of king Lysimachus against Dorimichaites,
king of Odrysae;[275] and indeed many other similar cases.
XII (23)
Marcellus never once conquered Hannibal, who in fact remained unbeaten
until Scipio’s victory.[276]
XIII (25)
No darkness, no storm however violent, turned him from his purpose. He
forced his way through all such obstacles; he overcame even disease by
resolute labour, and never once failed in an object or experienced a
variation in his uniform good fortune.
XIV (29)
In old times single combats among the Romans were conducted with good
faith [but in our days many contrivances have been hit upon].
XV (31)
The horse, from the agony of the wound, first fell forward, and then
galloped furiously through the middle of the camp.
XVI (42)
Seeing that the superstitious feelings of the soldiers were roused by
these portents, he exerted himself to remove the scruples of the men by
means of his own intelligence and strategic skill.
XVII (63)
SHIPS WITH SIX BANKS OF OARS
These vessels appear to be as swift sailers as penteconters, but to be
much inferior to triremes; and their construction has been abandoned
for many years past. Polybius, however, is supposed to lay down the
measurements of such vessels, which the Romans and Carthaginians appear
to have often employed in their wars with each other.[277]
XVIII (64)
Getting completely drunk, and all flung on the ground in the various
tents, they neither heard any word of command nor took any thought of
the future whatever.[278]
XIX (66)
In consultations of war, as in those relating to bodily sickness, one
ought to take as much account of the symptoms that have since arisen as
of those originally existing.
XX (90)
Cappadocia extends from Mount Taurus and Lycaonia up to the Pontic
Sea. The name is Persian and arose thus. A certain Persian [named
Cappadocus?] was present at a hunt with Artaxerxes, or some other king,
when a lion sprang upon the king’s horse. This Persian happened to be
in that part of the hunting company, and drawing his sword rescued
the king from his imminent danger and killed the lion. This Persian
therefore ascending the highest mountain in the neighbourhood received
as a gift from the king as much territory as the human eye could take
in, looking east, west, north, and south.[279]
XXI (95)
The Celtiberians have a peculiar manœuvre in war. When they see their
infantry hard pressed, they dismount and leave their horses standing in
their places. They have small pegs attached to their leading reins, and
having fixed them carefully into the ground, they train their horses to
keep their places obediently in line until they come back and pull up
the pegs.
XXII (96)
The Celtiberians excel the rest of the world in the construction of
their swords; for their point is strong and serviceable, and they can
deliver a cut with both edges. Wherefore the Romans abandoned their
ancestral swords after the Hannibalian war and adopted those of the
Iberians. They adopted, I say, the construction of the swords, but they
can by no means imitate the excellence of the steel or the other points
in which they are so elaborately finished.[280]
XXIII (102)
The Roman praetor Marcus[281] wished to get rid of the war against
the Lusitani, and laying aside war altogether, to shirk—as the saying
is—“the men’s hall for the women’s bower,” because of the recent defeat
of the praetor by the Lusitani.
(103)
But those of the Ligurians who fought against Mago were unable to do
anything important or great.
XXIV (113)
A _mora_ consisted of nine hundred men.[282]
XXV (117)
A general needs good sense and boldness; they are the most necessary
qualities for dangerous and venturesome undertakings.
XXVI (154)
The second king of Egypt, called Philadelphus, when giving his daughter
Berenice in marriage to Antiochus king of Syria, was careful to send her
some Nile water, that the young bride might drink no other water.
XXVII (156)
I say this to point out the wisdom of the Romans, and the folly of those
who despise the practice of making comparisons with the habits of
foreign nations, and believe themselves competent to reform their own
armies without reference to others.[283]
XXVIII (157)
The Romans were wont to take great care not to appear to be the
aggressors, or to attack their neighbours without provocation; but to be
considered always to be acting in self-defence, and only to enter upon
war under compulsion.[284]
XXIX (166)
When Scipio Africanus, the younger, was commissioned by the Senate to
settle the kingdoms throughout the world, and see that they were put in
proper hands, he only took five slaves with him; and, on one of these
dying during the journey, he wrote home to his relations to buy another
and send him to take the place of the dead one.[285]
XXX (184)
If one ought to speak of _Fortune_ in regard to such things; for I fear
she often gets credit of that sort without good reason; while the real
fault lies with the men who administer public business, who sometimes
act with seriousness and sometimes the reverse.
_B_
XXXI (1)
But not making at all a good guess at the king’s mind, he acted in a
most inconsiderate manner.
XXXII (2)
Want of civilisation appears to have an extraordinary influence on
mankind in this direction.
XXXIII (3)
But the general being unable to endure the unfairness of those who made
these assertions....
XXXIV (5)
But he determined to hold out to the last, trusting to the supplies from
Egypt.
XXXV (6)
But having fallen in with him he gained an extremely fortunate victory.
XXXVI (7)
In all these things the Aetolians had been deceived.
XXXVII (8)
And some he honoured with gold cloths and spears, because he wished that
his promises should agree with his performances.
XXXVIII (11)
He wrote in bitter and frantic terms, calling them fiends and murderers
in his letter, if they abandoned the positions thus disgracefully,
before they had suffered or witnessed any hardship.
XXXIX (12)
There is a courage in words too which can despise death.
XXXIX (14)
Before he had been rejoined by the stragglers of the skirmishing
parties.
XL (27)
Being utterly at a loss, at last he rested his chance of escape from the
difficulty which was upon him on some such hope as this.
XLI (30)
None of the citizens being aware of what was taking place owing to the
distance, for the city was a large one.
XLII (32)
But trusting to them he undertook the war against Ariarathes.
XLIII (34)
Harpyia is a city in Illyria near Encheleae, to which Baton, charioteer
of Amphiaraus, removed after the latter’s disappearance.
XLIV (35)
And he waited for the coming of Hasdrubal.
XLV (36)
Hearing all this through the curtain the king laughed.
XLVI (39)
Foreseeing and fearing the fierce temper and obstinacy of the men.
XLVII (40)
At that time, persuaded that he was enduring a fiery test, he was
released from the suspicion.
XLVIII (43)
He thought therefore that it was dangerous to have shared in their
enterprise when their plan had failed and come to an end.
XLIX (44)
Having urged the soldiers to make haste, and exhorted the tribunes to
engage.
L (46)
Thinking it better and safer not to be present at the hour of the
enemy’s opportunity, nor when they were under the influence of popular
excitement and fury.
LI (47)
Whenever it is possible to obtain satisfaction from those who have
wronged us either by law or by any other settled forms of justice.
LII (54)
Having drawn his army from the pass he encamped.
LII (55)
And then they took up some sort of order, as though by mutual consent,
and fought the battle in regular formation.
LIII (56)
That which causes the most pain at the time involves also the most
signal revulsion of joy.
LIV (57)
Having ordered the pilots to steer the ships as fast as they could to
Elaea.
LV (61)
They not only drove themselves off the stage, but ruined also all
Greece.
LV (62)
But he, from his long experience of war, did not all lose his presence
of mind.
LVI (67)
He persuades them by reckoning all the wealth he considered they would
gain in the battle.
LVII (68)
The Romans had been inspired by some divine influence, and having
fortified their courage with irresistible might....
LVII (69)
To signalise some by favours, and others by punishments, that they might
be a warning to the rest.
LVIII (72)
And they, being persuaded, and throwing themselves in the way of the
enemy’s charge, died gallantly.
LIX (73)
He tried to take the city by an intrigue, having long secured a party of
traitors within it.
LX (74)
He brought up the transports, by lading which with rocks and sinking
them at the mouth of the harbour he planned to shut out the enemy
entirely from the sea.
LXI (80)
Though I have much more to say, I fear lest some of you may think that I
am unnecessarily diffuse.
LXII (81)
They are reserving themselves for an opportunity, and are quite ready to
meet them again.
LXIII (85)
To be eager for life and to cling to it is a sign of the greatest
baseness and weakness.
LXIV (86)
He was feeling something like starters in horse races, which are started
by the raising of torches.
LXV (88)
Their boldness transgresses the bounds of propriety, and their actions
are a violation of duty.
LXV (91)
Seeing that the Carthaginians had obeyed all injunctions in the most
honourable spirit.
LXVI (92)
To have fifty ships built entirely new, and to launch fifty of those
already existing from the docks.
LXVII (100)
Lucius being appointed to go on a mission to the Lapateni and speak to
them in favour of an unconditional surrender, was unprepared for the
task before him.
LXVIII (101)
Of all the determining forces in war the most decisive of failure or
success is the spirit of the combatants.
LXIX (104)
Having mentioned summarily the defeats they had sustained, and putting
before them the successes of the Macedonians.
LXX (105)
For he perceived that the Macedonian kingdom would become contemptible,
if the rebels succeeded in their first attempt.
LXXI (109)
Therefore it was intolerable that the Romans even then should make their
way into Macedonia unobserved.
LXXII (110)
He, if any one of our time has done so, has examined all that has been
said scientifically on tactics.
LXXIII (111)
Metrodorus and his colleagues, frightened at the threatening aspect of
Philip, departed.
LXXIV (112)
The Romans made no show of bearing a grudge for what had taken place.
LXXV (113)
But putting both spurs to his horse he rode on as hard as he could.
LXXVI (114)
Being annoyed at the treaty, Nabis paid no attention to its provisions.
LXXVII (120)
It was neither possible to examine the man closely in his state of
physical weakness, nor to put a question to him for fear of worrying
him.
LXXVIII (122)
The Pannonians having seized the fort at the beginning of the war, had
taken it as a base of operations, and had fitted it up for the reception
of booty.
LXXIX (124)
But wishing to point the contrast between his policy to those who
trusted and those who disobeyed him, he commenced the siege.
LXXX (126)
So that those in the assembly were thunderstruck and unable to collect
their thoughts, sympathising with the poignant sorrow of those thus
dispossessed of their all.
LXXXI (131)
They immediately sent a courier to Perseus to tell him what had
happened. (132) It was Perseus’s design to keep it close, but he could
not hide the truth.
LXXXII (133)
In other respects he was well equipped for service, but his spear was
limp.
LXXXIII (134)
Publius was anxious to engage and avail himself of the enthusiasm of the
barbarians. (135) He put in at Naupactus in Aetolia. (136) He escorted
Publius out with great respect. (137) Having received Publius and Gaius
with kindness and honour.
LXXXIV (140)
It was the deliberate intention of the Romans to fight at sea.
LXXXV (141)
While they were still together and were fighting at close quarters with
their swords, taking his stand behind them he stabbed him under the
armpit.
LXXXVI (151)
This man presented Prusias with many silver and gold cups during the
banquet.
LXXXVII (153)
Taking a wise view of the future, he came to the conclusion to get rid
of the garrison sent by Ptolemy.
LXXXVIII (158)
On that occasion both Romans and Carthaginians bivouacked on the
embankment.
LXXXIX (159)
Not being able to persuade him again, owing to that king’s cautious and
inactive character, he was forced to offer five hundred talents. And so
Seleucus agreed to give the aid.
XC (161)
Chance and Fortune, so to speak, enhanced the achievements of Scipio, so
that they always appeared more illustrious than was expected.
XCI (162)
One must not pass over even a minor work of his, as in the case of a
famous artist.
XCII (163)
Scipio counselled him either not to try, or to do so in such a manner as
to succeed at all risks. For to make an attempt on the same man twice
was dangerous in itself, and was apt to make a man altogether
contemptible.
XCIII (164)
But being jealous of Scipio they tried to decry his achievements.
XCIV (168)
Fixing the stocks upright in the ground in a semicircle touching each
other.
XCV (170)
The important point of their resolution was that they would not admit a
garrison or governor, and would not give up their constitution as
established by law.
XCV (177-179)
He said that we should not let the enemy escape, or encourage their
boldness by shirking a battle....
Conceiving a slight hope from the besieged garrison, he made the most of
it....
Pretending warm friendship, he tried every manœuvre whereby he might
promote the enemy’s interests, and surround us by the gravest perils....
XCVI (182)
As the rock caused them difficulty because they were obliged to bore a
hole in it, they completed the mine which they were making by using
wooden bolts.
XCVII (183)
He did not think it right to leave the war in Etruria, and give his
attention to the cities in that part of the country. He feared that he
should waste all the time, which was not very long to begin with, in
less important details.
XCVIII (185)
And having got his boats and hemioliae dragged across the Isthmus he put
to sea, being anxious to be in time for the Achaean congress.
XCIX (191)
Philip was annoyed at the request of the Corcyreans.
C (192)
Since circumstances debar Philip, the king wishes to give that man the
credit of the achievement, making the proposal to him in the light of a
favour.
CI (193)
Philip, having given out that he was about to serve out rations, made a
proclamation that a return should be made to him of all who had not
provisions for more than thirty days.
CII (195)
After two days from starting for the seat of war Philip passed the order
to make two rations three, whenever he wanted an additional day, and
sometimes to make two four. (? Cp. Livy, 35, 28.)
CIII (195)
A swipe (φρεατοτόπανον) is one of the implements mentioned by Polybius.
(See 9, 43, Hultsch.)
CIV (199)
It was impossible to convey the equipments and provisions for the
legions by sea or upon beasts of burden; they must carry ten days’
provisions in their wallets.
II.—GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
QUOTED BY STEPHANUS AND OTHERS
AS HAVING BEEN USED BY POLYBIUS
Achriane, a town in Hyrcania.
Adrane, a town in Thrace.
Aegosthena, a town in Megaris.
Allaria, a town in Crete.
Ancara, a town in Italy.
Aperanteia, a city and district in Thessaly.
Apsyrtus, an island off Illyricum.
Ares, plain of, “A desolate plain in Thrace with low trees.”
Arsinoe, a town in Aetolia and in Libya.
Atella, a town of the Opici, in Campania. “The Atellani surrendered.”
Badiza, a town in Bruttium.
Babrantium, a place near Chios.
Cabyle, a town in Thrace.
Calliope, a town in Parthia.
Candasa, a fort in Caria.
Carthaea, one of the four cities of Ceos.
Corax, a mountain between Callipolis and Naupactus.
Cyathus, a river in Aetolia, near Arsinoe (a tributary of the Achelous).
Dassaretae, an Illyrian tribe.
Digeri, a Thracian tribe.
Ellopium, a town in Aetolia.
Gitta, a town in Palestine (Gath).
Hella, in Asia, a port belonging to Attalus.
Hippo (Regius), a town in Libya.
Hyrtacus, a town in Crete.
Hyscana, a town in Illyria.
Ilattia, a town in Crete.
Lampeteia, a town in Bruttium.
Mantua, in N. Italy.
Massyleis, a Libyan tribe.
Melitusa, a town in Illyria.
Oricus (m.), a town in Epirus, “The first town on the right as
one sails into the Adriatic.”
Parthus, a town in Illyria.
Philippi, a town in Macedonia.
Phorynna, a town in Thrace.
Phytaeum, a town in Aetolia.
Rhyncus, in Aetolia.
Sibyrtus, a town in Crete.
Singa, a town in Libya.
Tabraca, a town in Libya.
Temesia, a town in Bruttium.
Volci, a town in Etruria.
Xynia, a town in Thessaly.
APPENDIX I.
THE DIVISIONS OF THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE AFTER THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ALEXANDER THE GREAT, OB. JUNE B.C. 323.
Justin, 12, 16; Arrian, _An._ 7, 28.
{Philip III. (Arrhidaeus) half-brother of Alexander,
οἱ βασιλεῖς { ob. B.C. 317.
{Alexander IV. (posthumous son of Alexander by Roxana).
Successive Guardians {Perdiccas, killed B.C. 321.
(οἱ ἐπιμεληταί) {Arrhidaeus and Python (for a few months),
resigned B.C. 321.
Hipparch ... Seleucus. Captain of the Bodyguards ... Cassander.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Macedonia and Greece. Antipater.
Egypt, and parts of Libya and Asia. Ptolemy s. of Lagus.
Pamphylia(1). Lycia. Greater Phrygia. Antigonus.
Caria. Cassander.
Thrace. Lysimachus.
Paphlagonia. Cappadocia. Eumenes.
Media Major. Python.
Syria. Laomedon.
Phrygia Hellespontiaca. Leonnatus.
Lydia. Meleager.(2)
Cilicia. Philotas.
Media Minor. Atropatos.
_Bactria ulterior._ Unchanged.(3)
_India._ Unchanged.
_Indian Colonies._ _Pithon s. of Agenor._
_Punjaub._ _Taxiles._
_Parapamisos._ _Oxyartes._
_Arachossi_ and _Cedrussi._ _Silyrtias._
_Draucae_ and _Arei._ _Stasanor._
_Bactria._ _Amyntas._
_Sogdiani._ _Stasandros._
_Parthians._ _Philip._
_Hyrcani._ _Phrataphernes._
_Carmani._ _Tleptolemus._
_Persis._ _Peucestes._
_Babylonians._ _Archon._
_Mesopotamia._ _Arcesilaus._
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Justin gives Pamphylia and Lycia to Nearchus.
(2) Justin calls him Menander.
(3) The provinces and governors printed in italics are not mentioned
by Diodorus here, who merely says that they were unchanged, But
the list given by Justin agrees with that of Diodorus in the
next settlement, with certain exceptions, which may be regarded
as changes arising from death or other causes.
SECOND ARRANGEMENT, B.C. 321.
οἱ βασιλεῖς { Philip III. (Arrhidaeus) ob. 317 B.C.
{ Alexander IV. (son of Alexander
by Roxana).
Regent with absolute powers ... Antipater, ob. B.C. 318.
” ” ... Polysperchon, B.C. 318-315.
Strategus of the Empire ... Antigonus.
Chiliarch ” ... Cassander (s. of Antigonus).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B.C. 321. SECOND ARRANGEMENT OF THE PROVINCES. Diod. 18, 39.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Unchanged.) Macedonia and Greece. (Unchanged.) Antipater.
(Unchanged.) Egypt & parts of Libya
& Asia. Ptolemy, s. of Lagus.
Greater Phrygia, Lycia, & Susiana added. Antigonus.
(Unchanged.) Cassander.
(Unchanged.) Thrace. Lysimachus.
(Unchanged.) Media. Python.
(Unchanged.) Syria. Laomedon.
Cilicia. Philoxenus.
Babylonia. Seleucus.
Cappadocia. Nicanor.
Lydia Cheiton.
Phrygia Hellespontiaca. Arrhidaeus.
Mesopotamia and Asbelitis. Amphimachus.
The other provinces as in the previous list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD ARRANGEMENT, B.C. 312-311.
King ... Alexander IV. (in charge of Roxana).
Strategus in Europe till the king comes of age ... Cassander.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B.C. 312-311. THIRD ARRANGEMENT OF THE PROVINCES OF THE EMPIRE.
Diod. Sic. 19, 105.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Egypt. Ptolemy, s. of Lagus.
Thrace. Lysimachus.
Macedonia. Cassander.
All Asia (ἀφηγεῖσθαι). Antigonus.
Babylonia. Seleucus Nicanor.
Greece nominally free, B.C. 307
Demetrius (s. of Antigonus) becomes
Master of Athens.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B.C. 311. Alexander IV. and Roxana murdered by order of Cassander.
B.C. 306. FOURTH ARRANGEMENT. +Kingdoms+
FORMED, AFTER THE NAVAL VICTORY OF DEMETRIUS OVER PTOLEMY.
Diod. 30, 53.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
King of Egypt. Ptolemy, s. of Lagus.
King of Syria and Asia. Antigonus.
King of Upper Asia. Seleucus.
King of Thrace. Lysimachus.
King of Macedonia. Cassander.
Demetrius Poliorcetes (s. of Antigonus)
also takes the title of _king_,
and in B.C. 304 returns to Athens
and wages war with Cassander.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B.C. 301. SETTLEMENT AFTER THE BATTLE OF IPSUS,
IN WHICH ANTIGONUS FELL.
(Lysimachus and Seleucus against Antigonus and Demetrius.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
King of Egypt. Ptolemy, s. of Lagus, ob. 283.
King of Syria. Seleucus Nicanor, ob. B.C. 280.
King of Thrace. Lysimachus, ob. 281.
King of Macedonia. Cassander, ob. B.C. 297.
Greece is nominally free, but in B.C. 295
Demetrius takes Athens, and becoming King of
Macedonia in B.C. 295 to B.C. 287, he retains
Greece as part of the kingdom. In the confusion
which followed it was practically free.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX II
THE KINGS OF EGYPT, SYRIA, AND MACEDONIA, TO THE END OF THE
PERIOD EMBRACED IN POLYBIUS’S HISTORY
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
| B.C. | EGYPT |
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
| 306-285 | Ptolemy, s. of Lagus |
| 283-247 | Ptolemy II. Philadelphus |
| 247-222 | Ptolemy III. Euergetes |
| 222-205 | Ptolemy IV. Philopator |
| 205-181 | Ptolemy V. Epiphanes |
| 181-146 | Ptolemy VI. Philometor |
| 170-154 | Ptolemy VII. Physcon, joint king with his |
| | brother, Ptolemy VI |
| 146-117 | Ptolemy VII. sole king |
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
| | SYRIA |
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
| 306-301 | Antigonus the One-eyed |
| 301-280 | Seleucus Nicanor |
| 280-261 | Antiochus I. Soter, s. of |
| | Antigonus the One-eyed |
| 246-226 | Seleucus II. Callinicus |
| 226-223 | Seleucus III. Alexander or Ceraunus |
| 223-187 | Antiochus III. the Great |
| 187-175 | Seleucus IV. Philopator |
| 175-164 | Antiochus IV. Epiphanes |
| 164-162 | Antiochus V. Eupator |
| 162-150 | Demetrius I. Soter |
| 150-147 | Alexander Balas |
| 147-125 | Demetrius II. Nicator |
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
| | MACEDONIA |
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
| 323-311 | {Alexander IV. |
| 323-317 | {Philip III. (Arrhidaeus) |
| 311-306 | Regency of Cassander |
| 306-296 | Cassander |
| 296 | Philip IV. s. of Cassander |
| 296-294 | Antipater} sons of Cassander |
| | Alexander} |
| 294-287 | Demetrius I. Poliercetes, ob. 283 |
| 287-281 | Divided between Lysimachus and Pyrrhus |
| 281-280 | {Seleucus, Nicanor |
| | {Ptolemy Ceraunus, s. of Ptolemy of Egypt |
| 280-277 | [Various claimants] |
| 277-239 | Antigonus Gonatas, s. of Demetrius I. |
| 239-229 | Demetrius II. s. of Gonatas. |
| 229-179 | Philip V. s. of Demetrius II. |
| | [Antigonus Doson, nominally his guardian |
| | assumes the crown B.C. 229-220] |
| 179-168 | Perseus [Macedonia a Roman province] |
+---------+-------------------------------------------+
APPENDIX III
1, 21. The capture of Cornelius Asina is ascribed by Livy
(_Ep._ 17) to an act of treachery, _per fraudem velut in colloquium
evocatus captus est_. He is copied by Florus (2, 2) and Eutropius
(2, 10). See also Valerius Max. 6, 6, 2. This is perhaps not
incompatible with the narrative of Polybius, which, however, does
not suggest it. He must have been released at the time of the
entrance of Regulus into Africa, for being captured in B.C. 260,
we find him Consul for B.C. 254, without any account of his
release being preserved.
1, 32-36.—XANTHIPPUS THE LACEDAEMONIAN
The fate of Xanthippus has been variously reported. Polybius
represents him as going away voluntarily, and Mommsen supposes
him to have taken service in the Egyptian army. Appian,
however, asserts that he and his men were drowned on their way
home to Sparta by the Carthaginian captains who were conveying
them, and who were acting on secret orders from home (8, 4).
Mommsen also regards the account of Polybius of the reforms
introduced in the Carthaginian tactics by Xanthippus as exaggerated:
“The officers of Carthage can hardly have waited for
foreigners to teach them that the light African cavalry can be
more appropriately employed on the plain than among hills and
forests.” The doubt had apparently occurred to others [Diodor.
Sic. fr. bk. 23.] The mistake, however, was not an unnatural one.
For other references to Xanthippus see Cicero _de Off._ 3, 26, 7;
Valerius Max. 1, 1, 14; Dio Cassius, fr. 43, 24.
1, 34.—M. ATILIUS REGULUS
No more is told us of the fate of Regulus, and Mommsen says
“nothing more is known with certainty.” Arnold, following
Niebuhr, declared the story of his cruel death to be a fabrication.
The tradition, however, of his mission home to propose peace, his
subsequent return after advising against it, and his death under
torture, was received undoubtingly by the Roman writers of the
time of Cicero and afterwards. See Cicero, _Off._ 3, § 99; _ad Att._
16, 11; _de Sen._ § 74; _Paradox._ 2, 16; _Tusc._ 5, § 14. Horace,
_Od._ 3, 5; Livy, _Ep._ 18; Valerius Max. 1, 1, 14; Dio Cassius,
fr. 43, 28. To Appian (8, 4) is due the additional particular of the
barrel full of nails, καὶ αὐτὸν οἱ Καρχηδόνιοι καθείρξαντες ἐν
γαλεάγρᾳ κέντρα πάντοθεν ἐχούσῃ διέφθειραν. Against this
uniformity of tradition is to be set the silence of Polybius. But
on the other hand, in this introductory part of his history, Polybius
does not profess to give full particulars (see note to 1, 21); and
in the case of Regulus, he has not stated what we learn from Livy
(_Ep._ 18) and Valerius Max. 4, 4, 6, that his stay in Africa for
the second year was against his own express wish, his private
business requiring, as he thought, his presence in Italy.
1, 60.—LUTATIUS
Lutatius is represented by Polybius as directing the operations
at the battle of Aegusa; but it appears that he had
received some hurt a few days before, and was confined to his
lectica during the action (_lectica claudum jacuisse_). The chief
direction therefore devolved upon the praetor, Q. Valerius Falto,
who accordingly claimed to share his triumph, but was refused
on the technical ground that the victory had not been won under
his _auspicia_. Valerius Max. 2, 8, 2.
1, 76.—HAMILCAR
(Vol. i. p. 85.) Dr. Warre writes on the manœuvre of
Hamilcar as follows: “Hamilcar’s army is in column of route;
elephants leading, then cavalry, then light-armed infantry, and
heavy-armed infantry in the rear. He observes the enemy bearing
down hastily; gives orders to his whole force to turn about, and
then forms line (ἐξέτασις) by successive wheels of his heavy-armed
troops. He would thus have changed his heavy-armed from
column of route into line by wheeling them while retiring to the
right (or left) about. The light-armed apparently passed through
the intervals; the cavalry halted when they came to the line now
formed up, and at once turned to their front and faced the enemy,
and the remainder marched forward to meet them. Polybius
does not tell us with what front Hamilcar was marching; but I
think it is clear that he was in column of route and not in battle
array (ἐκ παρατάξεως). Thus the deployment of his columns,
_while retiring, by right (or left) about wheel_ into line by successive
συντάγματα, or battalions, would be a very pretty manœuvre, and
only such as an able tactician would resort to.”
11, 22-23.—SCIPIO AND HASDRUBAL SON OF GESCO
(Vol. ii. p. 67.) Of this passage Dr. Warre has again favoured
me with a note and a translation which I append: “The passage in
Polybius is very interesting. It is a good tactical example of an
attack on both flanks, refusing the centre, the effect being to keep
the enemy from moving the troops in his centre to the assistance
of his wings. The inversion of order, by which the right became
the left in the case of those troops who had first orders ‘right
turn, left wheel from line into column,’ and then ‘left wheel into
line,’ is an ordinary instance of doing what might be called
‘clubbing’ a battalion or brigade. It is of course on parade a
clumsy mistake to make; but Scipio rightly took no notice of it
in battle, as Polybius, who sees the matter with a soldier’s eye,
observes. Scipio’s army was inferior in numbers, and so he first
moved his Romans _outwards_ while still in line, and then formed
for attack with the cavalry, light infantry, and three battalions
(cohorts) on each flank.”
[Illustration]
The following is Dr. Warre’s translation:—
“Polybius 11, 22.—On this occasion Scipio seems to have
employed two stratagems. He observed that Hasdrubal was in
the habit of marching out late in the day, of keeping his Libyan
troops in the centre, and of posting his elephants in front of each
wing. His own custom was to march out at the said hour to
oppose him, and to set the Romans in his centre opposite to the
Libyans, while he posted his Spanish troops upon his wings. On
the day upon which he determined to decide matters he did the
reverse of this, and thereby greatly assisted his forces towards
gaining a victory, and placed the enemy at no small disadvantage.
At daybreak he sent his aides and gave orders to all the tribunes
and to the soldiers that they were first to get their breakfast,
and then to arm and to parade in front of the ramparts. This
was done. The soldiers obeyed eagerly, having an idea of his
intention. He sent forward the cavalry and light infantry, giving
them joint orders to approach the camp of the enemy, and to
skirmish up to it boldly; but he himself took the heavy infantry,
and at sunrise advanced, and when he had reached the middle of
the plain formed line in just the opposite order to his previous
formation. For he proceeded to deploy the Iberians on the
centre and the Romans on the flanks.”
* * * * *
“For a while the Romans remained as usual silent, but
after the day had worn, and the light infantry engagement was
indecisive and on equal terms, since those who were hard
pressed retired on their own heavy infantry and (ἐκ μεταβολῆς
κινδυνεύειν), after retreating formed again for attack, then it
was that Scipio withdrew his skirmishers through the intervals
of the troops under the standards, and divided them on
either wing in rear of his line, first the velites, and in succession
to them his cavalry, and at first made his advance _in
line direct_. But when distant (? five) furlongs from the enemy he
directed the Iberians to advance in the same formation, but gave
orders to the wings to turn outwards (to the right wing for the
infantry to turn to their right, and to their left to the left). Then
he himself took from the right and Lucius Marcius and Marcus
Junius from the left the three leading squadrons of cavalry, and
in front of these the usual number of velites, and three cohorts
(for this is the Roman term), but the one body wheeled to the left
and the other to the right, were led in column against the enemy,
advancing at full speed, the troops in succession forming and
following as they wheeled....
(They were in line, and the cavalry and velites got the word
turn, left wheel, and the infantry right wheel and forward, _i.e._ the
light troops and cavalry wheeled from their outer flank, and the
heavy infantry from their inner flank.)
“And when these troops were not far off the enemy, and the
Iberians in the line direct were still a considerable distance
behind, as they were advancing slowly, they came in contact with
either wing of the enemy, the Roman forces being in column
according to his original intention.
“The subsequent movements by which the troops in rear of
these columns came into line with those leading were exactly the
reverse, generally, in the case of the right and the left wings, and
particularly, in case of the light troops and cavalry and the heavy
infantry. For the cavalry and velites on the right wing forming
to the right into line were trying to outflank the enemy, but the
infantry formed on the contrary to the left. On the left wing the
cavalry and light infantry left formed into line, and the heavy
infantry right formed into line. And so it came to pass that on
both wings the cavalry and light troops were in inverted order, _i.e._
their proper right had become their left. The general took little
heed of this, but cared only for that which was of greater importance,
the outflanking of the enemy; and rightly so, for while
a general ought to know what has happened, he should use the
movements that are suitable to the circumstances.”
34, 5, 10.—PYTHEAS
The date of these voyages of Pytheas is uncertain beyond the
fact that they were somewhere in the 4th century B.C. His
Periplus, or notes of his voyage, was extant until the 5th
century A.D. The fragments remaining have been published by
Arvedson, Upsala, 1824. The objection raised by Polybius to
the impossibility of a poor man making such voyages is sometimes
answered by the supposition that he was sent officially by the
Massilian merchants to survey the north of Europe and look out
for places suitable for commerce. The northern sea, which he
describes as “like a jellyfish through which one can neither walk
nor sail,” is referred “to the rotten and spongy ice which sometimes
fills those waters.” This is assuming Thule to be Iceland.
Tacitus supposed it to be Shetland (_Agr._ 10), and described the
waters there as sluggish, and not subject to the influence of the
wind. See Elton (_Origins of English History_, pp. 73-74). Elton
quotes Wallace (_Concerning Thule_, 31), who comments on Tacitus
by saying, “This agrees with the sea in the north-east of Scotland,
not for the reason given by Tacitus, but because of the contrary
tides, which drive several ways, and stop not only boats with oars
but ships under sail.”
34, 10.—THE SUBTERRANEAN FISH
Schweighaeuser in his note on this passage quotes Aristotle _de
Anim._ 6, 15, who states that gudgeon thus hide themselves in the
earth; and Seneca, _Nat. Q._, 3, 17 and 19, who refers to the fact
_piscem posse vivere sub terra et effodi_, and quotes an instance as
occurring in Caria. See also Livy, 42, 2, who, among other
prodigies occurring in B.C. 173, says, _in Gallico agro qua induceretur
aratrum sub existentibus glebis pisces emersisse dicebantur_.
Eels and other fish have been found in the mud of ponds long
after the ponds have been dried up. The truer account is given
in Strabo (4, 1, 6): “There was a lake near Ruscino, and a
swampy place a little above the sea, full of salt, and containing
mullets (κεστρεῖς), which are dug out; for if a man dig down
two or three feet, and drive a trident into the muddy water, he
may spear fish which is of considerable size, and which feeds on
the mud like the eels.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The port of Brundisium was known long before. See Herod. 4, 99. The
Romans colonised the town in B.C. 244. See Livy, epit. 19.
[2] See on 3, 66.
[3] Dr. Arnold declares it “all but an impossibility that an army
should have marched the distance (not less than 325 Roman miles) in a
week.” Livy (26, 42) accepts the statement without question.
[4] Mr. Strachan-Davidson explains this to mean from the sea to the
lake, as Scipio’s lines would not have extended right round the lake to
the other sea.
[5] Escombrera (Σκομβραρία). I must refer my readers to Mr.
Strachan-Davidson’s appendix on _The Site of the Spanish Carthage_ for
a discussion of these details. See above 2, 13; Livy, 26, 42.
[6] This seems to be the distinction between the words γερουσία and
σύγκλητος. Cp. 36, 4. The latter is the word used by Polybius for the
Roman Senate: for the nature of the first see Bosworth Smith, _Carthage
and the Carthaginians_, p. 27. It was usually called “The Hundred.”
Mommsen (_Hist. of Rome_, vol. ii. p. 15) seems to doubt the existence
of the larger council: its authority at any rate had been superseded by
the oligarchical gerusia.
[7] This and the following chapter were formerly assigned to the
description of Scipio’s proceedings in Spain and followed, ch. 20.
Hultsch, however, seems right in placing them thus, and assigning them
to the account of the tactics of Philopoemen.
[8] On the margin of one MS. the following is written, which may be
a sentence from the same speech, or a comment of the Epitomator: “A
confederacy with democratic institutions always stands in need of
external support, owing to the fickleness of the multitude.”
[9] See 5, 44.
[10] This goddess is variously called Anaitis (Plut. _Artax._ 27) and
Nanea (2 Macc. 1, 13). And is identified by Plutarch with Artemis, and
by others with Aphrodite.
[11] This proverb perhaps arose from the frequent employment of the
non-Hellenic Carians as mercenaries. Cp. Plato, _Laches_, 187 B;
_Euthydemus_, 285 B; Euripides, _Cyclops_, 654.
[12] See 9, 11.
[13] This passage does not occur in the extant treatise of Aeneas;
but is apparently referred to (ch. 7, § 4) as being contained in a
preparatory treatise (παρασκευαστικὴ βίβλος).
[14] The grouping of these letters will be as follows:—
1 2 3 4 5
1 α ζ λ π φ
2 β η μ ρ χ
3 γ θ ν σ ψ
4 δ ι ξ τ ω
5 ε κ ο υ
[15] Polybius confuses the Tanais (Don) with another Tanais or Iaxartes
flowing into the south-east part of the Caspian.
[16] King of Bactria, see 11, 34.
[17] See Livy, 27, 39.
[18] Livy, 27, 44.
[19] There is nothing to show positively that a Rhodian is the speaker:
but Livy mentions envoys from Rhodes and Ptolemy this year. For the
special attempts of the Rhodians to bring about a peace between Philip
and the Aetolians, see 5, 24, 100.
[20] The “Tarentines” were horsemen armed with light skirmishing
javelins. See 4, 77; 16, 18; and cp. Arrian, _Tact._ 4, § 5; 18, § 2.
Livy, 35, 28; 37, 40.
[21] See on 27, 4.
[22] The text is certainly corrupt here, and it is not clear what
the general sense of the passage is beyond this,—that Philopoemen
calculated on defeating the enemy, as he did, while struggling through
the dyke: or on their exposing themselves to attack if they retreated
from the dyke without crossing it.
[23] Or, according to another reading “five stades.” Livy, 28, 14, says
_quingentos passus_.
[24] The text is imperfect.
[25] Handing it over to L. Lentulus and L. Manlius Acidinus, Livy, 28,
38.
[26] That is the _Caucasus Indicus_ or Paropamisus: mod. Hindú Kúsh.
[27] Cp. a similar custom of the Lycians, Herod. 1, 173.
[28] He may have been referring to pre-homeric times, cp. Herod. 6,
137, οὐ γὰρ εἶναι τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον σφίσι κω οὐδὲ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι Ἕλλησι
οἰκέτας.
[29] The text is very imperfect here.
[30] For this title see on 22, 19. It is found in inscriptions in
Thasos, Crete, and Cibyra. C.I.G. 2163, _c_; 2583; 4380, _b_.
[31] Both Curtius and Arrian seem to have found in their authorities
that Darius crossed the Pinarus. Curt. 3, 8; Arrian, 2, 8.
[32] Reckoning the stade at 600 feet (Greek).
[33] See note to previous chapter.
[34] The Cilician gates.
[35] That is, sixteen or thirty-two deep.
[36] The text here is in hopeless confusion.
[37] Homer, who is generally spoken of as “the poet.” We may remember
Horace (_Ep._ 1, 19, 6) _Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus_.
[38] See 3, 37. The point seems to be that the remark was too
commonplace to put into the mouth of a hero.
[39] The text is again hopeless.
[40] The text is uncertain, and I am not at all sure of the meaning
of ἐπ’ ὀνόματος, cp. 25 _k_, 27. These public harangues of doctors to
attract patients are noticed in Xenophon, _Memorab._ 4, 2, 5.
[41] Tyrant of Salamis in Cyprus, B.C. 404-374. See Isocrates, _Orat._
x.
[42] For this proverb see Plutarch, _Nicias_, ch. 9, ἡδέως μεμνημένοι
τοῦ εἰπόντος ὅτι τοὺς ἐν εἰρήνῃ καθεύδοντας οὐ σάλπιγγες ἀλλ’
ἀλεκτρυόνες ἀφυπνίζουσι.
[43] _Ib._ ch. 25.
[44] Homer, _Il._ 5, 890.
[45] Homer, _Il._ 9, 63.
[46] Euripides, fr.
[47] Battle of the Crimesus. See Plutarch, _Timol._ ch. 27.
[48] He refers to the habit of Eastern nations thrusting their hands
into long sleeves in the presence of their rulers. See Xenophon,
_Hellen._ 2, 1, 8.
[49] Homer, _Odyss._ 1, 1-4; 8, 183.
[50] _Republic_, v. 473 C. vi. 499 B.
[51] The Rhodians had proclaimed war against the Cretan pirates. Philip
had secretly commissioned one of his agents, the Aetolian Dicaearchus,
to aid the Cretans. Diodor. fr. xxviii.
[52] Heracleides having gained credence at Rhodes by pretending to
betray Philip’s intrigue with the Cretans, waited for an opportunity,
and, setting fire to their arsenal, escaped in a boat. Polyaen. 5, 17,
2.
[53] The text of these last sentences is so corrupt that it is
impossible to be sure of having rightly represented the meaning of
Polybius.
[54] These raids on the territory of Megalopolis, however, did not lead
to open war till B.C. 202. See 16, 16.
[55] Caepio was commanding in Bruttium, Servilius in Etruria and
Liguria. Livy, 30, 1.
[56] Sophanisba, the daughter of Hasdrubal son of Gesco. Livy, 29, 23;
30, 12, 15.
[57] Some words are lost from the text.
[58] παρενέβαλλε, which Schweig. translates _castra locavit_: but
though the word does sometimes bear that meaning, I cannot think that
it does so here. Scipio seems to have retained his camp on the hill,
only two and a half miles’ distant, and to have come down into the
plain to offer battle each of the three days. Hence the imperfect.
[59] The war with Antiochus, B.C. 218-217. See 5, 40, 58-71, 79-87.
[60] A civil war, apparently in a rebellion caused by his own feeble
and vicious character. It seems to be that referred to in 5, 107.
[61] Homer, _Iliad_, 4, 437.
[62] Homer, _Iliad_, 4, 300.
[63] A line of which the author is unknown; perhaps it was Theognis.
[64] See Livy, 31, 31; Strabo, 12, c. 4. Philip handed over Cius to
Prusias.
[65] That is, from Rhodes and other states.
[66] That is the treaty between Philip and Antiochus.
[67] The word βίαχα in the text is unknown, and certainly corrupt. The
most obvious remedy is ὑπόβρυχα or ὑποβρύχια. But we cannot be sure.
[68] _Jam cum Rhodiis et Attalo navalibus certaminibus, neutro
feliciter, vires expertus._ Livy, 31, 14.
[69] An inscription found at Iassus [C.I.G. 2683] has confirmed this
name which is found in one MS. instead of _Hestias_. Whether the
meaning of the title is Artemis of the City, or some local designation,
is uncertain.
[70] Called Panion or Paneion. See Josephus _B. Jud._ 3, 10, 7,
Ἰορδάνου πήγη τὸ Πάνειον. The town near it was called Paneas, and
afterwards Paneas Caesarea, and later still Caesarea Philippi. Scopas,
the Aetolian, was now serving Ptolemy Epiphanes; see 13, 2; 18, 53.
[71] See on 4, 77; 13, 1.
[72] See 15, 25.
[73] Ptolemy Philopator had made Gaza his chief depôt of war material;
see 5, 68. Antiochus destroyed it in B.C. 198 for its loyalty to the
King of Egypt.
[74] Syria was conquered by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilezer about
B.C. 747, and was afterwards a part of the Babylonian and Persian
empires. It does not seem certain to what invasion Polybius is here
referring.
[75] That is from the wars undertaken by them against Philip. Livy, 31,
14, 24.
[76] For the Phocians see Pausan. 10, 1, 6. For the Acarnanians see
_supra_, 9, 40.
[77] According to Hultsch no fragments or extracts of book 17 are
preserved. In it would have been contained the campaign of B.C. 199, in
the war between Rome and Philip, for which see Livy, 31, 34-43. And the
operations of Flamininus in the season of B.C. 198, Livy, 32, 9-18. The
first seventeen chapters of this book are generally classed in book 17.
[78] The reading ἐναύσασθαι, which I attempt to represent, is doubtful.
Schweig. suggests ἐγγεύσασθαι “to taste.”
[79] Demosthenes, _de Corona_, §§ 43, 48, 295.
[80] B.C. 338 after the battle of Chaeronea. See Thirlwall, 6, 77;
Grote, 11, 315 (ch. 90); Kennedy’s translation of the _de Corona_,
Appendix vi. The argument of Polybius is of course an _ex post facto_
one. It is open still to maintain that, had the advice of Demosthenes
been followed, these states might have been freed from the tyranny
of Sparta without becoming subject to another master in the king of
Macedonia.
[81] Attalus spent the winter of B.C. 198-197 at Aegina, in the course
of which he seems to have visited Sicyon.
[82] That is of Cynoscephalae. _Supergressi tumulos qui Cynoscephalae
vocantur, relicta ibi statione firma peditum equitumque, posuerunt
castra._ Livy, 33, 7.
[83] I have given the meaning which I conceive this sentence to have;
but the editors generally suspect the loss of a word like ἄπρακτα
or ἀπραγοῦντα after τὰ μὲν συνεχῆ τοῖς διαγωνιζομένοις. This is
unnecessary if we regard συνεχῆ as predicative, and I think this way
of taking it gives sufficient sense. Polybius is thinking of the
Macedonian army as being so dislocated by the nature of the ground,
that, while some parts were in contact with the enemy, the rest had not
arrived on the scene of the fighting.
[84] See 3, 87.
[85] _Iliad_, 13, 131.
[86] See 4, 77; 7, 12; 10, 26.
[87] See 6, 56; 32, 11.
[88] Livy (33, 13) has mistaken the meaning of Polybius in this
passage, representing the quarrel of the Aetolians and Flamininus as
being for the possession of Thebes,—the only town, in fact, on which
there was no dispute.
[89] Referring apparently to the conduct of the Hellenic cities in
Asia in presence of Antiochus, who, having wintered in Ephesus (B. C.
197-196), was endeavouring in 196 by force or stratagem to consolidate
his power in Asia Minor. Livy, 33, 38.
[90] Justin. 17, 1-2; Appian _Syr._ 62. The battle was in the plain of
Corus in Phrygia.
[91] The Apocleti, of the numbers of whom we have no information, acted
as a consultative senate to prepare measures for the Aetolian Assembly.
See Freeman, _History of Federal Government_, p. 335. Livy, 35, 34.
[92] προσένειμαν Αἰτώλοις τὸ ἔθνος, cp. 2, 43. Some have thought that
a regular political union with the Aetolian League is meant. But the
spirit of the narrative seems to point rather to an alliance.
[93] Brachylles, when a Boeotarch in B.C. 196, was assassinated by a
band of six men, of whom three were Italians and three Aetolians, on
his way home from a banquet. Livy, 33, 28.
[94] Livy, 33, 29.
[95] At Thermopylae, in which battle Livy (36, 19) states on the
authority of Polybius that only 500 men out of 10,000 brought by
Antiochus into Greece escaped, B.C. 191.
[96] Livy, 37, 9.
[97] Son of Antiochus the Great, afterwards King Seleucus IV.
[98] This extract, preserved by Suidas, s. v. προστηθιδίων has been
restored by a brilliant emendation of Toupe, who reads ἐξελθόντες
μὲν Γάλλοι for the meaningless ἐξελθόντες μεγάλοι. Livy calls them
_fanatici Galli_.
[99] _Dies forte, quibus Ancilia moventur, religiosi ad iter
inciderant._ Livy, 37. 33. The festival of Mars, during which the
_ancilia_ were carried about, was on the 1st of March and following
days. If this incident, therefore, took place in the late spring or
summer of B.C. 190, the Roman Calendar must have been very far out.
[100] The remaining chapters of this book are placed by Schweighaeuser
and others in book 22, 1-27.
[101] The text of this fragment is much dislocated.
[102] Smoking out an enemy in a mine was one of the regular manœuvres.
See Aen. Tact. 37. It was perhaps suggested by the illegal means
taken by workmen in the silver mines to annoy a rival; for we find an
Athenian law directed against it. See Demosth. _in Pantaen._ § 36.
[103] Nothing seems to be known of this exile of Fulvius, who had been
granted an ovation in B.C. 191 for his victories in Spain. He was,
however, in opposition to Cato, one of whose numerous prosecutions may
have been against him.
[104] Or “a compliment.” The Greek word στέφανος seems to be used for
any present made to a victor. So also in ch. 34, and elsewhere.
[105] Hultsch’s text, supported by the MSS., has Δάμις ὁ κιχησίων,
from which no sense seems obtainable. According to Suidas, Damis was
a philosopher from Nineveh who had settled in Athens. Livy (38, 10),
has _Leon Hicesiae filius_. He must therefore have found the name Leon
in his copy, which could hardly have been substituted for Δᾶμις by
mistake, though ἹΚΕΣίου may have become κιχησίων.
[106] The Greek text is corrupt. The sense is given from Livy, 38, 14.
[107] The dynasty lasted until the time of the Mithridatic wars. The
last Moagĕtes being deposed by Muraena, when Cibyra was joined to
Lycia. Strabo, 13, 4, 71.
[108] That is probably “of the necessity of submitting to Rome;” but
the passage referred to is lost.
[109] See ch. 6.
[110] This is really Plutarch’s version of a story he found in
Polybius, and, to judge from Livy, 38, 24, not a very complete one. It
took place near Ancyra. Plutarch _de mulierum virtutibus_.
[111] See Livy, 38, 28, 29. The fragment here seems to be that
translated by Livy in ch. 29, _Romani nocte per arcem, quam Cyatidem
vocant (nam urbs in mare devexa in Occidentem vergit) muro superato in
forum pervenerunt_. The people of Same suddenly threw off the terms
under which the rest of Cephallania had submitted and stood a four
months’ siege.
[112] A fragment, arranged in Hultsch’s text as ch. 42, is too much
mutilated to be translated with any approach to correctness.
[113] These words are wanting in the text. From Livy (38, 38) it
appears that the territory was defined as between the Taurus and the R.
Halys as far as the borders of Lycaonia.
[114] Livy (_l.c._) has _neve monerem ex belli causa quod ipse
illaturus erit_.
[115] See Livy, 38, 39. Some words are lost referring to grants to the
people of Ilium.
[116] This summary is arranged by Hultsch as chs. 1 and 2 of book 22.
It appears as book 23, chs. 4, 5 in Schweighaeuser’s text.
[117] In B.C. 191 Philopoemen secured the adhesion of Sparta to the
Achaean league: but the Spartans were never united in their loyalty to
it, and during his year as Strategus (B.C. 189) he punished a massacre
of some Achaean sympathisers in Sparta by an execution of eighty
Spartans at Compasium on the frontier of Laconia. This number Plutarch
gives on the authority of Polybius, but another account stated it at
three hundred and fifty. Plut. _Phil._ 16.
[118] Some words are lost from the text describing their method of
procedure.
[119] Some words are lost in the text which would more fully explain
the transaction.
[120] Something is lost in the text.
[121] Livy (39, 24) gives the names as Q. Caecilius Metellus, M.
Baebius Tamphilus, Ti. Sempronius.
[122] Livy (39, 34) more cautiously says: veneno _creditur_ sublatus.
Such accusations were easily made, and not easily proved or confuted.
[123] For the ten Cosmi of Crete, see Aristot. _Pol._ 2, 10; and
Muller’s _Dorians_, vol. ii. p. 133 _sq._ Cydas gives his name to the
year as πρωτόκοσμος, see C.I.G. 2583. The same inscription contains the
title κοσμόπολις, apparently like πολιοῦχος, as a name for a guardian
hero of the city. We have already had this latter title as that of a
chief magistrate at Locri. See bk. 12, ch. 16.
[124] There is some loss in the text as to these names. The last is
mentioned on a Greek embassy in 22, 16. See also the index. Livy, 39,
41, says nothing of this committee of three.
[125] The ten federal magistrates of the league, who formed a council
to act with the general. Their number probably arose from the number
of the Achaean cantons or towns, after two of the twelve—Helice and
Olenus—were destroyed. Polybius nowhere else gives them this title
in any part of the history we possess, but its use by Livy, 32, 22,
seems to point to his having used it in other places. It also occurs
in a letter of Philip II. (perhaps genuine) quoted in Demosth. _de
Cor._ 157. Polybius calls them also οἱ ἄρχοντες, ἀρχαί, προεστῶτες
συνάρχοντες, συναρχίαι. See Freeman’s _Federal Gov._ p. 282.
[126] That is, apparently, by some fresh disturbance towards the end of
B. C. 183. See Strachan-Davidson, p. 495.
[127] The Messenians revolted from the league B. C. 183, and in the
course of the fighting which ensued Philopoemen fell into an ambush,
was taken prisoner, and put to death by them. See ch. 12.
[128] Stasinus _fr._
[129] He was ill with fever. Plutarch, _Phil._ 18.
[130] Livy (39, 50) speaks of Lycortas at the time of Philopoemen’s
death as _alter imperator Achaeorum_. If he had been the ὑποστρατηγός
we know that he would not by law have succeeded on the death of the
Strategus. Plutarch, _Phil._ 21, seems to assert that an election was
held at once, but not the ordinary popular election.
[131] That is the ten Demiurgi.
[132] The second congress of the year seems to mean not that held for
election of the Strategus for the next year, which met about 12th May,
but the second regular meeting in August.
[133] This looks like a local name, but no place is known corresponding
to it. A Diactorides of Sparta is mentioned in Herodotus, 6, 127; and
perhaps, as Hultsch suggests, we ought to read “Cletis and Diactorius.”
[134] The mission to Eumenes and Pharnaces has been already mentioned
in bk. 23, ch. 9, but the name of the ambassador was not given; nor is
it mentioned by Livy (40, 20), who records the mission. It is uncertain
who is meant by Marcus, some editors have altered it to Marcius, _i.e._
Q. Marcius Philippus, who had been sent to Macedonia, imagining him to
have fulfilled both missions.
[135] From Strabo (vii. 5, 13), who adds: “But this is not true, for
the distance from the Adriatic is immense, and there are many obstacles
in the way to obscure the view.”
[136] Perhaps thirty, which seems to have been the legal age for
admission to political functions. See 29, 24.
[137] See Hicks’s _Greek Inscriptions_, p. 330.
[138] Something is lost from the text.
[139] From Strabo 3, ch. 4, who quotes Poseidonius as criticising this
statement by remarking that Polybius must count every tower as a city.
[140] The notices are put up at the three places visited yearly by
great numbers, and by many separate pilgrims. It is interesting to
notice the persistence in a custom common from the earliest times,
at any rate as far as Delos and Delphi are concerned. Iton was in
Thessaly, and the temple and oracle of Athena there was celebrated
throughout Greece, and was the central place of worship for the
Thessalians. The town stood in a rich plain on the river Cuarius, and
hence its name—sometimes written Siton—was connected by some with
σιτόφορος, “corn-bearing” (Steph. Byz. Homer calls it μητέρα μήλων,
“mother of sheep.” Pyrrhus hung up in this temple the spoils of
Antigonus and his Gallic soldiers about B. C. 273. [Pausan. 1, 13, 2].
“Itonian Athena” had temples in other parts of Greece also, _e.g._ in
Boeotia [Paus. 91, 34, 1].
[141] The war in Istria, and the mutiny of the troops against the
consul Manlius, are described in Livy, 41, 8-11.
[142] Besides this connexion with Seleucus of Syria, sure to be
offensive to Rome, Perseus gave a sister to Prusias, another enemy of
Rome and Eumenes. Livy, 42, 12.
[143] This word, of unknown origin, seems to be used here for the toga,
or some dress equivalent to it. See 10, 4.
[144] Marcius on his return to Rome gloried in having thus deceived
the king and gained time for preparations at Rome, but his action was
repudiated by the Senate. Livy, 42, 47.
[145] Ismenias had just been elected Strategus of Boeotia; but the
party who had supported a rival candidate had in revenge obtained a
decree of the league banishing the Boeotarchs from all the Boeotian
cities. They had, however been received at Thespiae, whence they were
recalled to Thebes and reinstated by a reaction in popular feeling.
Then they obtained another decree banishing the twelve men who, though
not in office, had convened the league assembly; and Ismenias as
Strategus sentenced them to the loss of all rights in their absence.
These are the “exiles” here meant (Livy, 42, 43). Who Neon was is not
certain; but we find in the next chapter that he had been a leader in
the Macedonising party at Thebes, perhaps a son of Brachylles, whose
father’s name was Neon (see 20, 5). He was captured in B.C. 167 and put
to death by the Romans (Livy, 45, 31).
[146] See note 2, page 356.
[147] τὰ δίθυρα, Livy (42, 44) says in _tribunal legatorum_, and
Casaubon contents himself with the same word. Schweighaeuser translates
it _podium_, as if a “raised platform” on which the commissioners sat
was meant. I think it is used in the natural sense of a “door” leading
into the hall in which they were sitting, and into which Ismenias fled
for refuge. Livy used _tribunal_ from the ideas of his age as to the
construction of such a building.
[148] The text has Θήβας, which is inconsistent with what follows as to
the Thebans. An inscription found on the site of Thisbae supplies the
correction of an error as old as Livy (42, 46, 47). See Hicks’s _G. I._
p. 330.
[149] Gaius Lucretius had seen naval service as _duumvir navalis_
on the coast of Liguria in B.C. 181. Livy, 40, 26. He was now (B.C.
171) Praetor, his _provincia_ being the fleet, and commanded 40
quinqueremes. _Id._ 42, 48.
[150] Livy, who translates this passage, calls the missile a
_cestrosphendona_ (42, 65).
[151] In Phocis. The name was variously given as Phanoteis, Phanote,
Phanota (Steph. _Byz._)
[152] Schweighaeuser seems to regard this as a second name. But the
Greeks seldom had such, and it is more likely the designation of some
unknown locality. There was an Attic deme named Cropia, and therefore
the name is a recognised one (Steph. _Byz._) Gronovius conjectured
Ὠρωπίῳ “of Oropus.”
[153] Apparently the Anticyra on the Sperchius, on the borders of
Achaia Phthiotis.
[154] Hence Attalus obtained the name of Philadelphus. The origin of
Eumenes’s loss of popularity in the Peloponnese is referred to in 28,
7, but no adequate cause is alleged. A reference to Achaia in his
speech at Rome was not perhaps altogether friendly (Livy, 42, 12),
and we shall see that he was afterwards suspected of intriguing with
Perseus; but if this extract is rightly placed, it can hardly be on
this latter ground that the Achaeans had renounced him.
[155] Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, B.C. 175-164; Ptolemy VI. Philometor,
B.C. 181-146.
[156] See 16, 18.
[157] The decree referred to is given in Livy, 43, 17. “No one shall
supply any war material to the Roman magistrates other than that which
the Senate has decreed.” This had been extracted from the Senate by
vehement complaints reaching Rome of the cruel extortions of the Roman
officers in the previous two years.
[158] Polybius seems to mean the smaller council, not the public
assembly, though Livy evidently understood the latter (43, 47).
[159] The expedition of Perseus into Illyricum apparently took place
late in the year B.C. 170 and in the first month of B.C. 169. Livy, 43,
18-20.
[160] Hyscana, or Uscana, a town of the Illyrian tribe Penestae.
[161] That is, the war between Antiochus and Ptolemy.
[162] The Antigoneia was a festival established in honour of Antigonus
Doson, who had been a benefactor of the Achaeans. In 30, 23, it is
mentioned as being celebrated in Sicyon. The benefactions of this
Macedonian king to the Achaeans are mentioned by Pausanias (8, 8, 12).
[163] See 27, 19; 18, 1, 17.
[164] Seleucus Nicanor, B.C. 306-280.
[165] Livy (44, 8) calls it the Enipeus (_Fersaliti_), a tributary of
the Peneus.
[166] In a previous part of the book now lost. See Livy, 44, 25.
[167] The extract begins in the middle of a sentence at the top of a
page. I have supplied these words at a guess, giving what seems the
sense.
[168] P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum was afterwards Pontifex
Maximus (B.C. 150). See Cic. _de Sen._ 3, 50.
[169] Of the two eldest sons of Aemilius, the elder was adopted by
Quintus Fabius Maximus, the second by P. Cornelius Scipio, son of the
elder Africanus, his maternal uncle.
[170] From Plutarch, _Aemilius_, 15, who adds that Polybius made
a mistake as to the number of soldiers told off for this service,
which to judge from Livy, 44, 35, Polybius probably stated at 5000.
Plutarch got his correction from an extant letter of Nasica (8000 Roman
infantry, with 120 horse, and 200 Thracians and Cretans).
[171] From Plutarch, who again contradicts this last statement, on the
authority of Nasica, who said that there was a sharp engagement on the
heights.
[172] The Roman was saved from a scare by the eclipse being foretold by
Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, famous for his knowledge of Greek literature
and astronomy. He is represented by Cicero as explaining the celestial
globe (_sphaera_) which Marcellus brought from Syracuse. He was consul
in B.C. 166. Livy, 44, 37; Cicero, _Brut._ § 78; _de Repub._ 1, § 21.
[173] ἐν ἀγορᾷ. The objection, though it served to divert the
magistrates from going on with the proposition at the time, seems to
have been got over before the meeting at Sicyon; unless, indeed, the
latter was considered to be of a different nature in regard to the age
of those attending. But we have no information as to this restriction
of thirty years of age,—whether it was universal, or confined to
particular occasions. This passage would seem to point to the latter
alternative.
[174] Livy says _viginti millia_. By χρυσοῦς Polybius appears to mean
“staters,” worth about 20 drachmae (20 francs). This would give a rough
value of the present as £8000, or on Livy’s computation twice that
amount.
[175] Called by Polybius in previous books Conope, 4, 64; 5, 6. Its
name was changed to Arsinoe, from its having been rebuilt and enlarged
by Arsinoe, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Strabo, 10, 2,
22). It was on the east bank of the Achelous. Its modern name is
_Angelokastro_. The civil war in Aetolia alluded to here is mentioned
in Livy, 41, 25 (B.C. 174). This particular massacre appears to have
taken place in B.C. 168-167. Livy (45, 28) narrates that Aemilius was
met during his Greek tour in B.C. 167 by a crowd of Aetolians, in a
miserable state of destitution, who informed him that five hundred and
fifty Aetolian nobles had been massacred by Lyciscus and Tisippus,
besides many driven into exile, and that the goods of both had been
confiscated.
[176] From Athenaeus, XIV. 4, p. 615. It seems to be part of some
strictures of Polybius on the coarseness of the amusements of the
Romans. This noisy and riotous scene in a theatre would strike a Greek
as barbarous and revolting; and may remind us of the complaints of the
noise and interruption to their actors so often found in the prologues
to the plays of Plautus and Terence. Though the substance of this
extract is doubtless from Polybius, Athenaeus has evidently told the
anecdote in his own language.
[177] Menalcidas was one of the Romanising party, who appears to have
been Strategus of the league in B.C. 153 [Pausan. 7, 11, 7], and to
have committed suicide in B.C. 148-147, in despair at his failure to
wrest Sparta from the league.
[178] Haliartus had been taken by the praetor L. Lucretius Gallus in
B.C. 171, its inhabitants sold into slavery, and its houses and walls
entirely destroyed. Its crime was siding with Perseus. Livy, 42, 63.
_Supra_ bk. 27, ch. 5; 29, 12.
[179] A drachma may be taken as between a sixth and a seventh of an
ounce.
[180] Hultsch prints in parallel columns the text of this fragment as
it appears in Athenaeus and Diodorus. The English translation attempts
to combine them.
[181] He means that, they being no longer able to decide in mercantile
affairs independently of Rome, the prestige (προστασία), and
consequently the popularity, of this harbour is destroyed.
[182] Demetrius had been exchanged for his uncle Antiochus Epiphanes in
B.C. 175, just eleven years before.
[183] The _Senatus Consultum de Macedonibus_ (Livy, 45, 29) had
declared all Macedonians free; each city to enjoy its own laws, create
its own annual magistrates, and pay a tribute to Rome—half the amount
that it had paid to the king. Macedonia was divided into four regions,
at the respective capitals of which—Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella,
and Pelagonia—the district assemblies (concilia) were to be held,
the revenue of the district was to be collected, and the district
magistrates elected; and there was to be no inter-marriage or mutual
rights of owning property between the regions.
[184] The Greek of this sentence is certainly corrupt, and no
satisfactory sense can be elicited from it.
[185] Ariarathes, the elder, had been in alliance with Antiochus the
Great, and had apparently given him one of his daughters in marriage,
who had been accompanied by her mother to Antioch, where both had now
fallen victims to the jealousy of Eupator’s minister, Lysias. See 21,
43.
[186] The anger of the Alexandrians had been excited against Ptolemy
Physcon by his having, for some unknown reason, caused the death of
Timotheus, who had been Ptolemy Philometor’s legate at Rome. See 28, 1.
Diodor. _Sic._ fr. xi.
[187] The first line is of unknown authorship. The second is from
Euripides, _Phoeniss._ 633. The third apophthegm is again unknown. The
last is from Epicharmus, see 18, 40.
[188] About £12.
[189] In his Censorship (B.C. 184) Cato imposed a tax on slaves under
twenty sold for more than ten sestertia (about £70.) Livy, 39, 44.
[190] Called Ptolemy the Orator in 28, 19.
[191] A more detailed statement of the controversies between Carthage
and Massanissa, fostered and encouraged by the Romans, is found in
Appian, _Res Punicae_, 67 _sq._
[192] Demetrius was now king. On his escape from Rome, described in bk.
31, chs. 20-23, he had met with a ready reception in Syria, had seized
the sovereign power, and put the young Antiochus and his minister
Lysias to death; this was in B.C. 162. Appian, _Syriac._ ch. 47.
[193] ἐν ταῖς συγκρίσεσιν. But it is very doubtful what the exact
meaning of this word is. Alcaeus seems to be the Epicurean philosopher
who, among others, was expelled from Rome in B.C. 171. See Athenaeus,
xii. 547, who however calls him Alcios. See also Aelian, _V. Hist._ 9,
12.
[194] See note on p. 456.
[195] She was the daughter of C. Papirius Carbo, Coss. B.C. 231.
[196] The following pedigree will show the various family connexions
here alluded to:—
Publius Cornelius Scipio
ob. in Spain B.C. 212.
|
P. Cornelius = Aemilia, sister of Lucius Aemilius Paulus = Papiria
Scipio Africanus| ob. B.C. 162. ob. B.C. 160. |
ob. B.C. 187. | |
| +-----------------+---------------+
| | | |
| Quintus Fabius Scipio two
| Maximus adopted by Aemilianus daughters
| Q. F. M. b. B.C. 185.
|
+-------------+---------------------------------+
| | |
P. = Cornelia(1). Cornelia(2) = Tib. Sempronius Publius Cornelius
Scipio Gracchus. Scipio Africanus
Nasica ob. s. p.
adopted his cousin
who became
Publius Cornelius Scipio
Aemilianus Africanus
ob. B.C. 129.
[197] τῶν ἐπίπλων, the _ornamenta_ of a bride, consisting of clothes,
jewels, slaves, and other things, in accordance with her station. See
Horace, _Sat._ 2, 3, 214. For the three instalments in which it was
necessary to pay dowries, see Cicero _ad Att._ ii. 23; 2 _Phil._ § 113.
[198] ποιοῦντος τὴν διαγραφὴν seems a banker’s term for “paying,”
_i.e._ by striking off or cancelling a debt entered against a man. The
only other instance of such a use seems to be Dionys. Hal. 5, 28.
[199] Of his two younger sons one died five days before his Macedonian
triumph, the other three days after it. See Livy, 45, 40.
[200] The two sisters were both named Aemilia; the elder was married
to Q. Aelius Tubero, the younger to M. Porcius Cato, elder son of the
Censor. The daughters were prevented from taking the inheritance of
their mother’s property by the lex Voconia (B.C. 174), in virtue of
which a woman could not be a haeres, nor take a legacy greater than
that of the haeres, or of all the haeredes together. The object of the
law was to prevent the transference of the property of one gens to
another on a large scale. It was evaded (1) by trusteeships, Gaius, 2,
274; Plutarch, _Cic._ 41: (2) by the assent of the haeres, Cic. _de
Off._ 2, § 55. And it was relaxed by Augustus in favour of mothers of
three children, _Dio Cass._ 56, 10. See also Cicero _de Sen._ § 14; _de
legg._ 2, 20; _de Rep._ 3, 10; _Verr._ 2, 1, 42; Pliny, _Panegyr._ 42;
Livy, _Ep._ 41.
[201] That is, the morning from daybreak till about ten or eleven. The
_salutationes_ came first, and the law business in the third hour.
[202] Ariarathes V. had been expelled his kingdom by Demetrius, who, in
consideration of one thousand talents, had assisted his reputed brother
Orophernes, who had been palmed off on Ariarathes IV. by his wife, to
displace him. The Senate, when eventually appealed to, decided that the
two brothers should share the kingdom. Livy, _Ep._ 47; Appian, _Syr._
47.
[203] Ariarathes arrived in the summer of B.C. 158.
[204] τὴν Ἰακὴν καὶ τεχνητικὴν ἀσωτίαν. The translation given above
is in accordance with the explanation of Casaubon, who quoted Horace
(_Odes_ 3, 6, 21), _Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos matura virgo_.
Orophernes had been sent to Ionia, when Antiochis had a real son
(Ariarathes V.), that he might not set up a claim to the throne. He had
been imposed by Antiochis on her husband Ariarathes IV. before she had
a real son.
[205] Orophernes was soon deposed, and Ariarathes V. restored, but we
have no certain indication when this happened. See 3, 5.
[206] The episode of Oropus here referred to, Polybius’s account
of which is lost, was made remarkable by the visit of the three
philosophers to Rome as ambassadors from Athens. The story, as far as
Athens was concerned, as told by Pausanias, 7, 11, 4-7. The Athenians
had been much impoverished by the events of the war with Perseus (B.C.
172-168), and had made a raid or raids of some sort upon Oropus. The
Oropians appealed to Rome. The Romans referred the assessment of
damages to an Achaean court at Sicyon. The Athenians failed to appear
before the court at Sicyon, and were condemned by default to a fine of
five hundred talents. Thereupon Carneades the Academician, Diogenes
the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic were sent to plead for a
remission of a fine which the Athenians were wholly unable to pay. They
made a great impression on the Roman youth by their lectures, and Cato
urged that they should get their answer and be sent away as soon as
possible. The Senate reduced the fine to one hundred talents: but even
that the Athenians could not collect; and they seem to have managed to
induce the Oropians to allow an Athenian garrison to hold Oropus, and
to give hostages for their fidelity to the Athenian government. This
led to fresh quarrels and an appeal to the Achaean government. The
Achaean Strategus, Menalcidas of Sparta, was bribed by a present of
ten talents to induce an interference in behalf of Oropus. Thereupon
the Athenians withdrew their garrison from Oropus, after pillaging
the town, and henceforth took no part in the quarrels which ensued,
arising from the demands of Menalcidas for his ten talents; which the
Oropians refused to pay, on the ground that he had not helped them as
he promised; quarrels which presently centred round the question of the
continuance of Sparta in the Achaean league. The date of the original
quarrel between Athens and Oropus is not fixed, but the mission of the
philosophers was in B.C. 155. See Plutarch, _Cato_, 22; Pliny, _N. H._
7, 112-113; Aulus Gellius, 6, 14; Cic. _ad Att._ 12, 23; _Tusc._ 4, § 5.
[207] _C. Marcius consul adversus Dalmatas parum prospere primum,
postea feliciter pugnavit._ The war was continued in the next year
(B.C. 155), and the Dalmatians subdued for the time by the consul P.
Cornelius Scipio Nasica. Livy, _Ep._ 47.
[208] Temnus was in Mysia, s. of the river Hermus. Cynneius or Cyneius
Apollo seems to mean Apollo guardian of the shepherd dogs. There was,
according to Suidas (s. v. κυνήειος), a temple to Apollo at Athens with
that title, said to have been the work of Cynnis, a son of Apollo and a
nymph Parnethia.
[209] The battle, in which Prusias is here said to have conquered
Attalus, was a treacherous attack upon Attalus who was waiting, in
accordance with an arrangement made by Roman envoys Hortensius and
Arunculeius, to meet Prusias on his frontier, accompanied by only one
thousand cavalry. The Roman envoys even had to fly for their lives.
Appian, _Mithridates_, 3.
[210] Hultsch places an extract from Aulus Gellius (6, 14, 8) relating
to the mission of the three philosophers as ch. 2 of this book. The
substance is given in the note on p. 466. It is more in place there,
as Polybius expressly said that he would give the whole story together
(32, 25).
[211] This war appears to have arisen from a treacherous attack of the
Cretans upon the island of Siphnos. _Exc. de Virt. et Vit._ p. 588.
[212] See 32, 27, note.
[213] Ligurian tribes between Nice and Marseilles. Pliny, _N. H._ 3, §
47.
[214] Surnamed Philometor. He succeeded his uncle Attalus Philadelphus
in B.C. 138, and at his death in B.C. 133 left his dominions to Rome.
[215] Alexander Balas was an impostor of low origin set up by
Heracleides as a son of Antiochus Epiphanes. He entered Syria in
B.C. 152, defeated and killed Demetrius in B.C. 150, and was himself
defeated in B.C. 146 by Ptolemy Philometor (who also fell) in favour of
a son of Demetrius, and was shortly afterwards murdered. Livy, _Ep._
52. Appian, _Syr._ 67; Joseph. _Antiq._ 13, 2, 4.
[216] _Odyss._ 12, 95.
[217] _Odyss._ 12, 105.
[218] _Odyss._ 9, 82.
[219] Panchaia or Panchēa, the fabulous island or country in the Red
Sea or Arabian gulf, in which Euhemerus asserted that he had discovered
the inscriptions which proved the reputed gods to have been famous
generals or kings. Plutarch, _Is. et Osir._ 23, Diodor. fr. 6, 1.
The Roman poets used the word as equivalent to “Arabian.” See Verg.
_Georg._ 2, 139.
[220] That is “as great a liar as Antiphanes of Berga.” See below.
Strabo classes Antiphanes with Pytheas and Euhemerus more than once
(see 2, 3, 5). Hence came the verb βεργαΐζειν, “to tell travellers’
tales” (Steph. _Byz._). But there is considerable doubt as to the
identification of the traveller Antiphanes, some confounding him with
a comic poet of the same name, and others with the author of an essay
περὶ ἑταιρῶν. Berga was in the valley of the Strymon.
[221] Strabo here protests against Dicaearchus being treated as a
standard of geographical truth. For Pytheas see Appendix.
[222] Polybius proves his point by the demonstration of the proposition
“The square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled-triangle is equal to
the squares of the sides containing the right angle.”
[Illustration]
By applying this principle AD = 7745.9 ... and DC = 11019.9 ..., and
the whole AC = 18765.8; whereas AB + BC (_i.e._ the coasting voyage) =
19200 stades (a difference of 434.2 stades, not 500). Add to this the
3000 from the Peloponnese to the Straits, the total coast voyage is
22,200 stades, as against Dicaearchus’s 10,000.
[223] Strabo quotes this reckoning of the distance from the Peloponnese
to the head of the Adriatic to prove that Polybius, on his own showing,
is wrong in admitting that this distance (8250 stades) is greater than
that from the Peloponnese to the Pillars, which Dicaearchus said was
10,000 stades, and which Polybius showed to be 18,765 stades by the
shortest route.
[224] To enable the reader to follow this list of prices, a short table
is here sub-joined of Greek weights and money,—though he must be warned
that values varied at different times and places,—with approximate
values in English weights and money.
1 obol = 1/40 oz. = 1/8 shilling.
6 obols = 1 drachma = 3/20 oz. 9d.
100 drachmae = 1 mina = 15-1/2 oz. £3 : 18 : 6.
60 minae = 1 talent = 57 lbs. £235.
A medimnus = 11 gals. 4 pts. (dry measure).
A metreta = 8 gals. 5 pts. (liquid measure).
[225] Which member of the Cornelian gens this was is unknown. He
appears to have been at Marseilles in the 4th century B.C. inquiring as
to centres of trade open to Rome in rivalry with Carthage.
[226] Varro (_Serv. ad Æn._ 10, 13) adds a fifth by the Graian Alps,
_i.e._ Little St. Bernard.
[227] Strabo corrects this, saving that the distance is 3000 stades.
[228] The islands were called also _Vulcaniae_ and _Aeoliae_.
[229] Strabo reckons 8 stades to a mile, thus making the number of
stades 4280. The exact calculation by Polybius’s reckoning is 4458-1/3
stades. The miles are Roman miles of 5000 feet; therefore, by Strabo’s
calculation, the stade is 625 feet, by Polybius’s 600 feet.
[230] Strabo, however, supports the measurement of Artemidorus—6500,
explaining that Polybius is taking some practical measurement of a
voyage, not the shortest.
[231] Homer, _Odyss._ 4, 485.
[232] Probably in February, the month usually devoted by the Senate to
_legationes_.
[233] Since B.C. 195 up to B.C. 154 the two divisions of Spain had been
entrusted to Praetors.
[234] Livy, _Ep._ 48. _Provocatorem barbarum tribunus militum occidit._
[235] τῶν ἐκ συγκλήτου καὶ τῆς γερουσίας. The same distinction occurs
in 10, 18, and seems to refer to the two bodies known as the Hundred
and the Gerusia. See Bosworth Smith’s _Carthage and the Carthaginians_,
p. 27.
[236] The envoys first report to the Gerusia. Appian, _Pun._ 91.
[237] Phameas was afterwards persuaded by Massanissa to join the
Romans. Livy, _Ep._ 50.
[238] The incident referred to is narrated in Appian, _Punica_, 103.
Scipio relieved this body of men, who were beleaguered on the top of a
hill, by a rapid and bold movement of his cavalry.
[239] _Odyssey_, 20, 495. Cato had always been opposed to the
Scipios, but Livy seems to attribute his former criticisms of the
younger Africanus to his general habit of caustic disparagement (_vir
promptioris ad vituperandum linguae_), and we know that his elder son
had married a daughter of Paulus, sister to the younger Africanus.
[240] Livy, _Ep._ 49.
[241] He seems to have forgotten his namesake mentioned in 11, 15.
[242] For Callicrates, the author of the Romanising policy, see 26,
1-3. One of the statues raised to him by the Spartan exiles was at
Olympia, the base of which has been discovered. See Hicks’s _Greek
Inscriptions_, p. 330. To what the fragment refers is not clear, but
evidently to something connected with the popular movement against
Sparta, and a recurrence to the policy of Philopoemen as represented by
Lycortas, which eventually brought down the vengeance of Rome.
[243] Prusias was killed at Pergamum by his son Nicomedes with the
connivance of Attalus (Livy, _Ep._ 50).
[244] A considerable passage is here lost, with the exception of a few
words, insufficient to ground a conjectural translation upon.
[245] Demetrius II., son of Antigonus Gonatas.
[246] Pseudophilippus, after cutting to pieces a Roman legion under the
praetor Juventius, was conquered and captured by Q. Caecilius Metellus
in B.C. 148 (Livy, _Ep._ 50; Eutrop. 4, 6).
[247] Massanissa, feeling himself to be dying, had asked Scipio
to come to him. He left his sons strict injunctions to submit the
arrangements of the succession and division of his kingdom to Scipio.
Appian, _Punica_, 105; Livy, _Ep._ 50. Livy has adopted the statement
of Polybius as to the age of Massanissa at his death; and Cicero
(_de Sen._ § 34) has made Cato take the same reckoning, perhaps from
Polybius also. But it does not agree with another statement of Livy
himself, who (24, 49) speaks of him as being seventeen in B.C. 213, in
which case he would be in his eighty-second year in B.C. 148. It is,
however, proposed to read xxvii. for xvii. in this passage of Livy.
[248] Livy (_Ep._ 48) in speaking of this victory says that Massanissa
was ninety-two, and ate and enjoyed his bread without anything to
flavour it (_sine pulpamine_).
[249] The task of subduing the country in B.C. 147 was entrusted to the
proconsul Culpurnius Piso, while Scipio was engaged in completing the
investment of Carthage. Appian, _Pun._ 113-126.
[250] After the capture of Megara, the suburban district of
Carthage, by Scipio, Hasdrubal withdrew into the Byrsa, got made
commander-in-chief, and bringing all Roman prisoners to the
battlements, put them to death with the most ghastly tortures. Appian,
_Pun._ 118.
[251] τὰ χώματα, that is, apparently, the mole of huge stones
constructed by the Romans to block up the mouth of the harbour.
[252] μετὰ τῶν ἰδίων ἐνδυμάτων. The German translator Kraz gives up
these words in despair. Kampe translated them _in ihrer gewöhnlicher
Tracht_. Mr. Strachan-Davidson says, “προσειληφυῖα, etc., ‘folding them
in her own robe with her hands,’” which seems straining the meaning of
προσειληφυῖα. The French translator says, _deux enfans suspendus à ses
vêtemens_.
[253] According to Livy (_Ep._ 51) she had tried to induce her husband
to accept the offer described in 38, 2.
[254] Homer, _Il._ 6, 448.
[255] 4000 under Alcamenes, Pausan. 7, 15, 8.
[256] In the battle with Metellus at Scarphea.
[257] Pausanias on the contrary says that Pytheas was caught in Boeotia
and condemned by Metellus (7, 15, 10).
[258] The pit is the place dug out (σκάμμα) and prepared in the
gymnasium for leapers. To be in the pit is to be on the very ground of
the struggle, without possibility of escaping it.
[259] See note on 30, 17.
[260] For this proverb see Plutarch, _Themist._ 29; _de Alex. Virt._ 5;
_de Exil._ 7.
[261] Plutarch reports the same anecdote much more briefly in _Cato
Maj._ 12, as do others. Professor Freeman (_History of Federal
Government_, p. 142) seems to regard it as a serious indication that
the Amphictyonic council had become a body exercising some literary
authority, in default of any other. I think that Cato had no such
meaning. He mentioned any body of men, however unlikely to exercise
such an influence, which at any rate was Greek.
[262] Seems to mean “he lost before he began,” before he got even at
the threshold of his enterprise. There is nothing to show to what the
fragment refers.
[263] The base of a statue of Polybius has been discovered at
Olympia with the inscription ἡ πόλις ἡ τῶν Ἡλείων Πολύβιον Δυκόρτα
Μεγαλοπολείτην. But the statue mentioned in the text seems to be one
set up by the Achaeans. For the statues of Polybius, see Introduction,
pp. xxxi. xxxii.
[264] Thebae quoque et Chalcis, quae auxilio fuerant, dirutae. Ipse
L. Mummius abstinentissimum virum egit; nec quidquam ex iis opibus
ornamentisque, quae praedives Corinthus habuit, in domum ejus pervenit.
Livy, _Ep._ 52.
[265] Ptolemy Philometor, king of Egypt, is called, by way of
distinction, “King of Syria,” because that title was bestowed on him
by the people of Antioch during his last expedition in Syria. This was
undertaken in support of Alexander Balas, who repaid him by conniving
at an attempt upon his life. Whereupon Ptolemy joined Demetrius, the
son of Demetrius Soter, and supported his claim against Alexander
Balas. Joseph. _Ant._ 13, 3; 1 Maccabees 11, 1-13.
[266] Dionysius Hal. (1, 74) quotes this statement of Polybius with
the remark that it is founded on a single tablet in the custody of the
Pontifices. Various calculations as to the date were:—
Eratosthenes }
followed by}
Apollodorus }
Nepos } Olymp. 7, 1 B.C. 752.
Dionysius }
Lutatius }
Q. Fabius Pictor Olymp. 8, 1 B.C. 748.
Timaeus 38th year before Olymp. 1 B.C. 813.
L. Cincius Alimantus Olymp. 12, 4 B.C. 729.
M. Porcius Cato 432 years after the Trojan war. B.C. 752.
Varro }
Velleius Paterculus } Olymp. 6, 2 B.C. 755.
Pomponius Atticus Olymp. 6, 3 B.C. 754.
But even granting a definite act of foundation (on which see Mommsen,
_H. of R._ vol. i. p. 4), the Olympic register before 672 B.C. is a
very uncertain foundation on which to build. See _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, vol. ii. p. 164 _sq._
[267] From Eusebius. It may be noted that this statement of Polybius
is an earlier evidence than any other for the existence of an Olympian
register prior to B.C. 600. Pausanias also dates the register from the
year of Coroebus’s victory (5, 8, 6).
[268] I have translated this passage as it stands in the various
editions of Polybius. But I feel convinced that none of it belongs to
him except the first sentence. It comes from Athenaeus, 440 _E_.
[269] See Livy, i, 34. Dionys. Halic. 3, 46.
[270] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 40, νήπιοι· οὐδὲ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ
παντός.
[271] Polybius is perhaps referring to the Acrocorinthus especially.
But we must remember that many of the citadels in the third century
B.C. were in the hands of Macedonian garrisons.
[272] This has been referred by some to the account of Scipio
Aemilianus’s single combat with the Spaniard. See 35, 5.
[273] Perhaps L. Postumius, Livy, 23, 24 (Hultsch).
[274] B.C. 272. Plutarch, _Pyrrh._ 31-34.
[275] See Pausan. i. 9, 6. His disaster compelled him to give up his
dominions beyond the Danube. Another and more successful war in Thrace
seems referred to in Diod. Sic. 18, 14.
[276] Livy, however, records more than one success of Marcellus against
Hannibal, see 23, 16, 46; 27, 14. Scipio’s victory of course is at Zama.
[277] From Zosimus, 5, 20, 7. See 1, 26.
[278] Some refer this to a circumstance narrated in Livy, 41, 2. But
Hultsch points out that Livy is not using Polybius in that period.
[279] From _Constantine Prophyrogenneta de thematis, p. 18, ed.
Bonnensis (Hultsch). He says that there are two Cappadocias, great and
little. Great Cappadocia extending from Caesarea (Neo-Caesarea), and
Mount Taurus to the Pontus, bounded on the south-west by the Halys and
on the east by Melitene.
[280] See 6, 23. The excellence of Spanish steel has never perhaps been
surpassed even to our day.
[281] See 35, 2-4.
[282] Plutarch, _Pelop._ 17, who says that other authorities reckoned
it at 500 and 700 men. There were originally six morae in the Spartan
army. See Xenophon, _Rep. Lac._ 11, 4; _Hell._ 6, 4, 12-17.
[283] See 6, 25.
[284] This is referred by Nissen to the account of the origin of the
third Punic war. See 36, 3-5.
[285] This moderation in the number of slaves was perhaps imitated from
Cato. See Cato, _Orationum frgm._ 3 Ed. Jordan.
INDEX
_The references are to Books and Chapters, except where the volume and
page of this translation are indicated by vol. —p. —; Fr. indicates
the minor fragments at the end of vol. ii._
ABBA, town in Africa, +14+, 6, 7
Abia, town in Messenia, +23+, 17
Abila, town in Palestine, +5+, 71; +16+, 39
Abilyx, a Spaniard, +3+, 98, 99
Abrupolis, a Thracian prince, +22+, 8
Abydus, town in Asia Minor, on the Hellespont, +4+, 44; +5+, 111; +16+,
29-35;
its situation and fall, +18+, 2, 44; +34+, 7
Academy, the, +12+, 26_c_; +16+, 27
Acarnania, +4+, 6, 30, 63, 65, 66; +5+, 3-5; +9+, 34; +28+, 4, 5; +30+,
13; +32+, 20; +39+, 14
Acarnanians, +2+, 6, 10, 45, 65, 66; +4+, 5, 9, 15, 25, 30, 63; +5+,
3-6, 13, 96; +9+, 32, 38-40; +10+, 41; +16+, 32; +21+, 29, 32;
+24+, 12; +28+, 5
Acatides, a Theban runner, +39+, 7
Acerrae, a town of the Insubres, +2+, 34
Acesimbrotus of Rhodes, +18+, 1, 2
Achaeans, the, +1+, 3, passim;
appealed to by the Epirotes, +2+, 6, 9, 10, 12;
the rise of their league in the Peloponnese, +2+, 37-70;
assist Messenians against the Aetolians, and call in Philip V.,
+4+, 1-19, 22;
proclaim war with Aetolians, +4+, 25-27. _See also_ +36+, 59-85;
agree to furnish Philip with subvention, +5+, 1;
join Philip in his invasion of Laconia, +5+, 18-24;
harassed by Aetolians, +5+, 30, 35;
elect Aratus after the incapable Strategus Eperatus, +5+, 91-95;
make peace with the Aetolians, +5+, 101-105;
instructed in military exercises by Philopoemen, +10+, 23;
at war with Machanidas of Sparta, +11+, 11-18;
Philopoemen summons a levy at Tegea to invade Laconia, +16+, 36, 37;
incline to Philip’s part against Rome, +16+, 38;
send envoys to the congress at Nicaea, +18+, 1-8;
receive back Corinth by the advice of Flamininus, +18+, 45 fin.;
and Triphylia and Heraea, +18+, 47;
offer to help the Boeotians, who however abandon their alliance,
+20+, 4, 5;
Megara leaves their league, +20+, 6;
make alliance with Eumenes, +21+, 9;
Roman legates at the congress at Cleitor, +22+, 2;
Eumenes offers 120 talents to the congress at Megalopolis, Seleucus
10 ships of war, +22+, 10-12;
difficulty as to the renewal of a treaty with Ptolemy, +22+, 12;