The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Histories Of Polybius Vol. II, by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, M.A..

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.

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. 9, 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.

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.

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:—

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.

Publius Cornelius Scipio ob. in Spain B.C. 212.
│
P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus	=	Aemilia, sister of Lucius Aemilius Paulus		=	Papiria
ob. B.C. 187.	│	ob. B.C. 162.	ob. B.C. 160.	│
	│	┌───────────┬───────────┐
	│ │ │ │	Quintus Fabius Maximus adopted by Q. F. M.	Scipio Aemilianus B.C. 185		two daughters
┌────────┬──────────────┐
P. Scipio Nasica = Cornelia(1).	Cornelia(2)= Tib. Sempronius Gracchus		Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus ob. s. p. adopted his cousin who became Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ob. B.C. 129.