1. The principle that a historian should have his books cover the affairs of states or of kings in their entirety, from beginning to end, applies to every work of history. There is no better way, in my opinion, to make one’s account memorable and comprehensible to one’s readers. [2] After all, when events are half finished, with beginning and end cut off from each other, the reader’s desire to learn is frustrated, but when events are expounded in an unbroken account from beginning to end, the account is a rounded whole. And whenever events in themselves make the historian’s task easier, then one must cleave without fail to this principle.*
[3] So, now that it is time for me to write about the affairs of Philip, the son of Amyntas, I intend to cover the affairs of this one king in just this one book,* since he ruled Macedon for twenty-four years. In the course of his reign, starting with the most meagre resources, he made his kingdom the greatest power in Europe; the Macedon he inherited was enslaved by the Illyrians, but he made it the master of many great peoples and cities. [4] His abilities were such that he gained the hegemony of all Greece, with the cities willingly submitting to him,* and because he protected the oracle and defeated those who had plundered the sanctuary at Delphi, he was given a seat on the Amphictyonic Council, and in recognition of his piety was awarded the votes of the defeated Phocians.
[5] Not content with subduing the Illyrians, Paeonians, Thracians, Scythians,* and all their neighbours, he planned to overthrow the Persian kingdom. He sent a force across to Asia and set about freeing the Greek cities, and, although Fate cut him short, he left an army of such competence and calibre that his son, Alexander, completed the overthrow of the Persian empire without needing further reinforcements.* [6] And it was not Fortune, but his own abilities that enabled him to achieve all this.* For Philip was a brilliant strategist and outstandingly brave,* and he had exceptional nobility of spirit. But I do not want to anticipate his achievements in the preface, so I shall proceed with my sequential account of events, after a brief summary of the background.
2. In the year of the Archonship of Callimedes in Athens, the 105th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Porus of Cyrene the victor in the stade race,* and the Romans appointed as their consuls Gnaeus Genucius and Lucius Aemilius.* In this year:
Philip, the son of Amyntas, and the father of Alexander, the conqueror of the Persians, inherited the Macedonian throne. This is how it came about. [2] After Amyntas had been defeated by the Illyrians, he was compelled to pay tribute to them, as his conquerors, and the Illyrians received his youngest son, Philip, as a hostage and committed him to the care of the Thebans. The Thebans entrusted the young man to the father of Epaminondas, with instructions to take good care of his charge and see to his upbringing and education. [3] Since Epaminondas’ tutor was a Pythagorean philosopher and Philip was being raised as Epaminondas’ foster-brother,* he was exposed to a great deal of Pythagoreanism. Both of them were naturally talented and assiduous students, and each of them proved to be men of uncommon ability. Through the great battles and conflicts he endured, Epaminondas almost miraculously conferred the hegemony of Greece on his native city, while the fame that Philip won, with the same resources to draw on, was no less than that of Epaminondas.*
[4] This is what happened. After Amyntas’ death, his eldest son, Alexander, succeeded to the throne, but was assassinated by Ptolemy of Alorus, who took over the kingdom. Perdiccas then did away with Ptolemy in the same fashion and made himself king, but when Perdiccas was defeated by the Illyrians in a major battle and lost his life in the course of the action, his brother, Philip, escaped from detention and took over the kingdom.*
Macedon was in a bad way. [5] More than four thousand Macedonians had been killed in the battle, and everyone else was in a state of shock, terrified of the Illyrian forces and with no stomach for continuing the war. [6] At much the same time their Paeonian neighbours were plundering the land, expecting no trouble from the Macedonians; the Illyrians were mobilizing in large numbers in preparation for a campaign against Macedon;* and a man called Pausanias, a member of the royal household, was planning to return and take the Macedonian throne with the help of the Thracian king. The Athenians, who were on bad terms with Philip, were up to something similar as well, since they were supporting Argaeus’ claim to the throne, and had dispatched their general, Mantias, with three thousand hoplites and a substantial naval force, to see to his restoration.*
3. The catastrophic defeat and the magnitude of the dangers threatening them had reduced the Macedonians to a state of utter helplessness. The threats and hazards looming over them were indeed large, and terrible danger awaited them, but Philip did not lose heart. He convened a series of assemblies at which he addressed the Macedonians with such skill that he aroused their courage and raised their morale. Once he had improved discipline within the ranks, he equipped his men with suitable weaponry and had them constantly out on manoeuvres and training under battlefield conditions. [2] Moreover, reflecting on the close shield formation adopted by the heroes at Troy,* he came up with the idea of packing the phalanx closely and devised its structure; the Macedonian phalanx was his creation.*
[3] He was a good diplomat, and he set about not only using gifts and promises to induce the general populace of Macedon to feel unswerving loyalty towards him, but also devising clever ways to counter all the many looming dangers. When he realized that the sole object of all the Athenians’ efforts was the recovery of Amphipolis* and that this was why they were trying to place Argaeus on the throne, he withdrew from the city of his own accord and left it independent. [4] Then he opened up negotiations with the Paeonians and, after winning them over with a combination of bribery and generous promises, he got them to agree to remain at peace for the time being. Likewise, he put an end to Pausanias’ bid for the throne by bribing the Thracian king who was intending to see to his restoration.*
[5] Mantias, the Athenian general, sailed into Methone and stayed there while sending Argaeus on to Aegae with the mercenaries.* Argaeus approached the city and called on the inhabitants to recognize his return and become the instigators of his kingship. [6] His words fell on deaf ears, however, so he turned back towards Methone—and Philip appeared with his troops and attacked. He killed many of the mercenaries, but the remainder, who found refuge on a hill, he let go with a guarantee of safe passage, once they had surrendered the exiles to him.* This was Philip’s first battle and he won it. Thanks to him, the Macedonians faced their next encounters with greater confidence.
[7] Meanwhile the Thasians founded a settlement at the place known as Crenides,* which the king subsequently named Philippi after himself and repopulated. [8] Among the historians, Theopompus of Chios made this year the start of his History of Philip, which consisted of fifty-eight books, of which five are lost.*
4. In the year of the Archonship of Eucharistus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Quintus Servilius and Quintus Genucius. In this year:
Philip sent ambassadors to Athens and persuaded the Athenians to enter into a peace treaty with him, since he was no longer claiming Amphipolis for himself.* [2] When the news arrived that Agis, the Paeonian king, had died, the fact that he was not encumbered by the war with Athens gave Philip what he regarded as an opportunity to go on the offensive against the Paeonians. He invaded Paeonia, defeated the barbarians in battle, and made them subjects of Macedon.*
[3] The Illyrians remained as enemies, however, and Philip was anxious to subdue them too. He convened an assembly at which he delivered a speech that effectively aroused his men’s enthusiasm for the coming war, and then he immediately invaded Illyris with an army of at least ten thousand foot and six hundred horse. [4] When Bardylis, the Illyrian king, heard of their arrival, his first reaction was to send ambassadors to negotiate an end to hostilities, with both sides retaining the towns currently in their possession. Philip, however, replied that although he desired peace, he would never agree to it unless the Illyrians withdrew from all the Macedonian towns they occupied. The Illyrian ambassadors returned empty-handed, and Bardylis, made confident by his earlier victories and his men’s valour, came out to meet Philip with an army of ten thousand foot, all picked men, and about five hundred horse.
[5] So the two armies drew near each other and their cries filled the air as they clashed. Philip, who was in command of the best of the Macedonian troops, who made up the right wing, ordered his cavalry to outflank the barbarians and attack them from the side, while he himself launched a frontal assault. A hard-fought battle ensued. [6] The Illyrians formed a square and put up a strong defence, and the battle became evenly balanced for a long while because of the extraordinary valour displayed by both sides. Many died and even more were injured as the battle inclined one way and then the other, swaying constantly back and forth thanks to the bravery of the contestants. But then, with the Macedonian cavalry exerting pressure on their flank and rear, and with Philip fighting heroically alongside his elite troops, the Illyrian army was forced to turn to flight. [7] The Macedonians pursued the enemy for a considerable distance, and many Illyrians lost their lives as they fled, but then Philip had the trumpet recall his men. He erected a trophy and buried his dead,* while the Illyrians asked for terms and obtained peace, once they had withdrawn their troops from all the Macedonian towns. More than seven thousand Illyrians lost their lives in this battle.*
5. Now that I have covered the conflict between Macedon and Illyris, I shall turn to events elsewhere. In Sicily, Dionysius the Younger, the Syracusan tyrant, who had succeeded to the throne some years earlier, was an indolent man, far inferior to his father,* with a tendency to use his indolence as a reason for claiming to be a man of peace, non-aggressive by nature. [2] So he brought the war he had inherited against the Carthaginians to an end with a peace treaty* and, since the most recent battles in the war against the Lucanians (which he had been pursuing just as sluggishly for some years) had delivered him the advantage, he happily brought this war to an end as well. [3] In an attempt to make the Ionian straits safe for shipping, he founded two towns in Apulia, because the barbarian inhabitants of the coastline were in the habit of putting to sea in their many pirate galleys and making the entire Adriatic inaccessible to traders. [4] Then he gave himself over to a life of peace. He released his troops from their military training, and although the empire he had inherited was the greatest power in Europe and, in his father’s words, was secured by adamantine bonds,* he was such a weakling that, impossible though it may seem, he lost it all. I shall do my best to record the reasons for the overthrow of his empire and the particular events that led to it.
6. In the year of the Archonship of Cephisodotus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Gaius Licinius and Gaius Sulpicius. In this year:
Dion, the son of Hipparinus and the most distinguished man in Syracuse, fled from Sicily* and, as a man of noble principles, liberated the Syracusans and the other Siceliots. This is how it happened. [2] Dionysius the Elder had children by two wives. From the first, who was a Locrian by birth, he had Dionysius, who succeeded to the tyranny, and from the second, whose father was Hipparinus (a very highly respected Syracusan), he had two sons, Hipparinus and Nysaeus. [3] Dion was the brother of this second wife.* He was an advanced philosopher,* and stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries in Syracuse for his courage and leadership. [4] But his high birth and the nobility of his spirit made him suspect to the tyrant, who believed him capable of overthrowing the tyranny. Out of fear, then, the tyrant decided to see to Dion’s removal by having him charged with a crime that carried the death penalty.
The plan came to Dion’s notice, however. At first, he hid in the homes of some of his friends, but then he fled from Sicily and went to the Peloponnese, along with his brother Megacles and Heracleides, whom the tyrant had put in charge of his army. [5] Dion sailed into Corinth* and asked the Corinthians to help him set about the freeing of the Syracusans, while he himself began to hire mercenaries and stockpile suits of armour. Many responded to his appeal, and before long he had plenty of suits of armour and mercenaries. He hired two transport ships, put the armour and the mercenaries on board, and then sailed to Sicily from Zacynthos (which is near Cephallenia), leaving Heracleides to come to Syracuse later with three triremes and further transport ships.
7. Meanwhile Andromachus of Tauromenium, a man of outstanding wealth and nobility of spirit (and the father of the historian Timaeus),* gathered together the survivors of the destruction of Naxos by Dionysius and settled them on a hill above Naxos called Taurus. After he had stayed there for quite a while, he named it Tauromenium after his ‘stay on Taurus’.* Tauromenium’s development was rapid, the inhabitants became very prosperous, and the city gained high status. But eventually, after Caesar* had expelled the people of Tauromenium from their homeland, it was made the site of a Roman colony. This happened in my own lifetime.
[2] Meanwhile the inhabitants of Euboea fell to fighting one another, and when one side called in the Boeotians and the other the Athenians war broke out all over the island. Several engagements took place, and some skirmishing, in which honours were divided between the Boeotians and the Athenians. No major pitched battle was fought, but the island was devastated by civil war, and many lives were lost on both sides before the Euboeans, chastised by their misfortunes, belatedly settled their differences and made peace with one another.
On their return home, the Boeotians lived at peace, [3] but the Athenians became involved in what is known as the Social War, when the Chians, Rhodians, Coans, and Byzantines seceded from their alliance.* The war lasted for three years. The Athenians sent out Chares and Chabrias, their designated generals, with an army. Their objective was Chios, but when they arrived there they found that the Chians had been reinforced by troops supplied by Byzantium, Rhodes, and Cos, and by Mausolus as well, the dynast of Caria. The Athenian generals deployed their forces and put the city under siege by land and sea. Chares, who was in command of the infantry, approached the walls by land and became embroiled in a struggle with the enemy troops who poured out of the city to attack him. Chabrias, meanwhile, sailed up to the harbour. In the fierce fighting that ensued, his ship was shattered by rams and he found himself in bad trouble. [4] The crews of the other ships bowed to circumstances and were saved, but Chabrias preferred death with glory to defeat and fought on in defence of his ship, until dying of his wounds.
8. In the same year, Philip, the king of Macedon, returned home after defeating the Illyrians in a major battle* and turning the inhabitants of all the territory up to Lake Lychnitis into his subjects.* He had concluded an honourable peace with the Illyrians and was acclaimed by the Macedonians for his successes and the courage that won them. [2] Next,* since the people of Amphipolis were hostile to him and were giving him many reasons to go to war, he marched against them in considerable force.* He brought siege engines up to the city walls and succeeded in bringing down a section of wall with his rams after continuous, determined assaults. He entered the city through the breach, killed many of those who offered resistance, and made the city his. He banished his enemies,* but treated the rest mercifully.
[3] Given the favourable situation of this city in relation to Thrace and Thrace’s neighbours, it made a major contribution towards the growth of Philip’s power. In fact, he immediately took Pydna, and then entered into an alliance with the Olynthians, one of the conditions of which was that he would give them Potidaea, a city which the Olynthians particularly wanted for their own.* [4] Since Olynthus was an important city, with a large enough population for it to tip the scales in warfare, it was always fought over by men who sought to increase their power. That is why the Athenians and Philip were in competition for alliance with the Olynthians. [5] Despite this rivalry, however, after Philip had assaulted and taken Potidaea, he allowed the Athenian garrison to leave the city unharmed, and sent them back to Athens. He always treated the Athenian people with great respect because of their city’s importance and standing.* Once he had sold the inhabitants of Potidaea into slavery, he turned the city over to the Olynthians, granting them at the same time all the city’s rural dependencies as well.
[6] He went next to the town of Crenides.* He enlarged it with many more settlers and renamed it Philippi after himself.* The gold mines attached to the city were wholly undeveloped and insignificant, but he built them up and increased their output until they were capable of providing him with an annual income of more than a thousand talents. [7] With the help of these mines he soon accumulated a lot of capital, and the ample supply of money enabled him to make the kingdom of Macedon ever more dominant. For with the gold coins he struck (which were named for him and known as ‘Philips’),* he not only mustered a large force of mercenaries, but also bribed many Greeks to betray their homelands. All this will become clearer when we come to the particular events, but I shall now resume my sequential account of events.
9. In the year of the Archonship of Agathocles in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Fabius and Gaius Publius. In this year:
Dion, the son of Hipparinus, returned to Sicily to overthrow Dionysius’ tyranny, and to everyone’s surprise, given that no one had ever had more meagre resources, he succeeded in overthrowing the greatest power in Europe. [2] Who could have believed it? He landed with only two transport ships, and overcame a tyrant who had four hundred warships and an army of about a hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse, and who had stockpiled all the weaponry, grain,* and money that he was likely to need in order to supply these forces handsomely—a tyrant, moreover, who ruled the greatest of the Greek cities, who controlled harbours, dockyards, and unassailable citadels,* and who had a great many powerful allies. [3] The factors contributing to Dion’s success were above all his noble spirit, his courage, and the support of his fellow freedom-fighters, but more important than all of these were the cowardice of the tyrant and the loathing his subjects felt for him. It was the conjunction of all these factors at a single critical moment that made it possible for Dion to succeed, contrary to expectations, where success had been considered impossible.
[4] But I must leave these reflections aside and turn to an account of the particular events.* Dion set sail with two transport ships from Zacynthos, which lies off Cephallenia, and put in at a place called Minoa, in the territory of Acragas. Minoa was founded in ancient times by Minos, the king of Crete, when, in the course of his hunt for Daedalus, he was made welcome by Cocalus, the king of the Sicanians.* At the time in question, it was subject to the Carthaginians, and its governor, a man called Paralus, was a friend of Dion, and readily let him in. [5] Dion brought five thousand suits of armour from the transport ships, gave them to Paralus, and asked him to convey them on carts to Syracuse, while he took the mercenaries, who numbered a thousand, and advanced on the city.
En route he persuaded the people of Acragas, Gela, some of the Sicanians and Sicels from the interior,* and also the people of Camarina to join his bid to free the Syracusans, and then he set out to overthrow the tyrant. [6] So many armed men poured into his camp from all quarters that soon an army had assembled of more than twenty thousand soldiers. Nevertheless, the Italian Greeks and the Messanians were sent for as well, in large numbers, and their commitment to his cause was such that they lost no time in joining him.
10. When Dion reached the borders of Syracuse, he was met by a great many unarmed people from both the countryside and the city—unarmed because Dionysius was suspicious of the Syracusans and had largely disarmed the population. [2] At this moment in time, the tyrant was on the Adriatic coast, along with a sizeable force, staying in the towns there that he had recently founded.* The officers he had left behind in Syracuse to guard the city first tried to get the Syracusans to call off their rebellion, but then they gave up† in the face of the uncontainable determination of the citizens. Instead, they mustered their mercenaries and the tyrant’s sympathizers, and, once they were at full strength, decided to attack the rebels.
[3] Dion distributed the five thousand suits of armour to the unarmed Syracusans and equipped the rest as well as he could with whatever weaponry was available. Then he convened a general assembly of all his troops, at which he informed them that he had come to liberate the Greeks of Sicily and called on them to choose as their Generals men who were capable of seeing to the utter overthrow of the tyranny and the restoration of independence. And, as if from a single throat, the crowd roared out that they chose Dion and his brother Megacles as Generals Plenipotentiary.
[4] Immediately after the assembly, then, Dion drew up his forces and set out towards the city. He met no resistance in the countryside, and he passed unmolested within the city walls and made his way, still without meeting any opposition, through Achradina* to the agora, where he halted. [5] The soldiers under his command numbered at least fifty thousand and all of them, with garlands on their heads, marched down from Achradina into the city, following the lead of Dion, Megacles, and thirty Syracusans, who were the only ones, of all those† who had been banished to the Peloponnese,* who were willing to risk joining the venture.
11. Now that the whole city had exchanged the rags of slavery for the robes of freedom, and Fortune was replacing the frown of tyranny with holiday smiles, every house was filled with sacrificing and rejoicing, as people burnt incense on their domestic altars, thanked the gods for their present blessings, and prayed for their favour in the future. A great cry arose from the women too for their unexpected good fortune, and everywhere in the city they gathered in bevies. [2] Every free man, every slave, every resident foreigner rushed to set eyes on Dion, and all were inclined to regard the man’s abilities as more than human. Nor is it surprising that they should have felt like this, given the magnitude and unexpectedness of the change. After experiencing fifty years of slavery—after so much time had passed that they had forgotten that freedom existed—they had been released from their misery by the prowess of just one man.
[3] Dionysius, who at this time was at Caulonia in Italy,* summoned his general, Philistus,* from the Adriatic with his fleet and ordered him to Syracuse. Both men were racing to the same place, but Dionysius reached Syracuse seven days later than Dion.* [4] As soon as he arrived, in an attempt to dupe the Syracusans he opened negotiations about an end to hostilities and dropped a number of hints to the effect that he would surrender his tyranny to the people and, in return for significant honours, would restore democracy. He also asked them to send him envoys, with whom he could meet and negotiate an end to the fighting. [5] The Syracusans, buoyed up by their hopes, sent as their representatives the most important men among them, but Dionysius placed them under guard and shelved the meeting. Then, noticing that their hopes for peace had made the Syracusans slipshod in their posting of pickets and unprepared for battle, he suddenly opened the gates of the Island acropolis, and he and his troops streamed out in battle order.
12. There was a defensive wall, built by the Syracusans across the peninsula from sea to sea, and Dionysius’ mercenaries hurled themselves at it with loud and terrifying cries. They killed many of the guards and then, once they were inside the wall, they took on the reinforcements who were emerging from the city to join the fight. [2] The violation of the truce had taken Dion by surprise, but now he went to meet the enemy with his best men at his side, and in the engagement that ensued many died at their hands. Since the battle was taking place in a space no larger than a stadium, with men crammed together in a confined area, [3] it was the best fighters on both sides who chose to become involved in the mêlée. Incredible determination was displayed by both sides—Dionysius’ mercenaries because of the great rewards they had been promised, and the Syracusans because of their hopes of freedom. For a while, the battle was finely balanced, since there was nothing to tell between the valour of either side, and of the many men who died or were wounded, there was not one who was not struck on the front of his body. For the front ranks fearlessly allowed themselves to be killed in defence of the others, while the rear ranks, using their shields to protect their falling comrades and standing fast against the danger, risked their lives to win victory.
[4] Then Dion, who wanted to put on a display of prowess and was determined to be personally responsible for victory, forced his way into the midst of the enemy. Many fell before his heroic onslaught, but by the time he had hacked his way right through the mercenary lines, he found himself cut off and surrounded by a large number of enemies. Missiles rained down on him, striking his shield and helmet, and his well-made armour protected him from them, but then he was wounded in the right arm, and the force of the blow was such that he fell to the ground and only just avoided falling into enemy hands. [5] The Syracusans, fearing for their General’s safety, packed closely together and slammed into the mercenaries, and they not only rescued Dion from his desperate plight, but the pressure they exerted on the enemy troops also forced them to turn and flee. Since the Syracusans also had the upper hand at the other stretch of the wall, the tyrant’s mercenaries were all driven back inside the gates of the Island acropolis. This was a brilliant victory for the Syracusans, allowing them to recover and secure their freedom, and they erected a trophy to mark their defeat of the tyrant.
13. Dionysius had come to grief and was starting to think his tyranny a lost cause. Leaving substantial garrisons in the citadels,* he next arranged for the collection of his dead, who were eight hundred in number, and gave them a spectacular funeral. They were crowned with gold crowns and dressed in beautiful purple-dyed robes, because the tyrant hoped that the trouble he took over them would encourage the rest to be willing to risk their lives in defence of his tyranny. Likewise, those of the survivors who had fought with distinction received generous rewards.
He also sent men to the Syracusans with a view to negotiating an end to hostilities. [2] But Dion kept coming up with plausible excuses for postponing the meeting with the envoys, while in the meantime he quietly completed the building of the remainder of the wall—and only then asked for a meeting with Dionysius’ envoys, once he had used his enemy’s hopes of peace to outmanoeuvre him. When the envoys raised the matter of the terms of the settlement, Dion replied that there was only one condition, that Dionysius should resign his tyranny and be content with certain ordinary honours and offices.
Faced with such a presumptuous response, however, Dionysius convened his officers to consider how best to resist the Syracusans. [3] Since he was well supplied with everything except grain, and since he was dominant at sea, he set about raiding farmland and, given the difficulty of supplying himself with food by means of these foraging raids, he also sent out freighters and money to purchase grain. But, although the Syracusans had few warships,† they kept appearing at the critical locations and making off with a good proportion of what Dionysius’ merchants had purchased. That was how things stood in Syracuse.
14. In Greece, Alexander, the tyrant of Pherae, had been assassinated by his wife Thebe and her brothers Lycophron and Tisiphonus. At first, these three met with a high degree of popularity as tyrant-slayers, but later they changed, and their bribing of the mercenaries* showed them to be tyrants themselves. They killed many of their opponents, built up a noteworthy army, and held on to power by force. [2] Resistance to the tyrants came from the Aleuadae, as this Thessalian family is called, who were well known and highly regarded for their noble lineage.* But since on their own they did not stand a chance against the tyrants, they entered into an alliance with King Philip of Macedon. Philip returned† to Thessaly, subdued the tyrants, and demonstrated the depth of the goodwill he felt for the Thessalians by giving the cities back their freedom. That is why, in the years that followed, not only Philip, but also, later, his son Alexander, always had the support of the Thessalians.
[3] Among the historians,* Demophilus, the son of the historian Ephorus, wrote an account of the war—the Sacred War, as it is called—that his father had failed to cover.* Demophilus’ account started with the capture of the sanctuary at Delphi and the despoiling of the oracular shrine by Philomelus of Phocis, which initiated eleven years of warfare* until those who had taken the sacred property for their own purposes were eliminated. [4] Callisthenes’ history of Greece in ten books* ended with the capture of the sanctuary and Philomelus of Phocis’ crime, [5] while Diyllus of Athens* began his history with the plundering of the sanctuary and wrote twenty-six books, covering everything that happened in this period in both Greece and Sicily.
15. In the year of the Archonship of Elpines in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Publius Laenates and Gnaeus Maemilius Imperiosus, and the 106th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Porus of Malis* the victor in the stade race. In this year:
In Italy, masses of people came together in Lucania from all over the place—people of all sorts, but mostly runaway slaves. For a while, they took up a life of brigandage, but as they became trained and accustomed to warfare by the experience of living in the wild as marauders, they began to win their battles with the local inhabitants and their situation materially improved. [2] The first town they took was Terina, which they looted, but subsequently they took over Hipponium, Thurii, and a number of other towns, and formed a federation. They were called ‘Bruttii’ because the majority of them were slaves and in the local dialect ‘Bruttii’ was the word for runaway slaves.* That is how the Bruttian hordes became a distinct political entity in Italy.
16. As for Sicilian affairs, Philistus, Dionysius’ general, sailed into Rhegium and brought a detachment of more than five hundred cavalry to Syracuse. Once he had added more than the same number again, and two thousand foot soldiers, he marched against Leontini, which had revolted from Dionysius. Under cover of darkness, he slipped inside the city and occupied a part of it, and a savage battle ensued. But when a relieving force arrived from Syracuse, Philistus was defeated and driven out of the city.
[2] Heracleides, the admiral of Dion’s war fleet, who had been left by Dion in the Peloponnese, was delayed by storms and arrived (with twenty warships and 1,500 foot soldiers) too late for Dion’s return and the liberation of Syracuse. Since he was a man of great distinction and acknowledged competence, the Syracusans made him their admiral, and it was as joint leader with Dion that he fought in the war against Dionysius.
[3] Next, Philistus, Dionysius’ commander-in-chief, led sixty refitted triremes into battle with the Syracusans, who had more or less the same number of ships. A hard-fought battle ensued, and although at first Philistus’ valour gave him the upper hand, his ship was later cut off and surrounded by the enemy. The Syracusans were anxious to take him alive, but Philistus killed himself to avoid being captured and tortured. After all, he had not only very often rendered the greatest of services to the tyrants, but he had also been their most reliable friend. [4] After this victory, the Syracusans dismembered Philistus’ corpse, dragged it through the streets of the city, and threw it out unburied. Dionysius, who had lost the most effective of his friends and had no other general of sufficient calibre, found himself hard pressed in the war and sent emissaries to Dion. In the early stages of the negotiations, he offered to share power, but later he was prepared to relinquish it altogether.
17. Dion’s position was that Dionysius should surrender the acropolis to the Syracusan people and receive certain specially selected valuables and honours in return, and when Dionysius proved willing to do that if he could take his mercenaries and money and move to Italy, Dion advised the Syracusans to accept this offer. However, the assembly speakers made a nuisance of themselves, and under their influence the Syracusan people turned down Dionysius’ offer, in the belief that they could take the tyrant in his citadel by storm. [2] Dionysius therefore left the best of his mercenaries to guard the acropolis, while he loaded his property and all his regal paraphernalia on a ship, discreetly set sail, and came to land in Italy.
[3] There were two factions among the Syracusans. Some wanted to entrust the Generalship to Heracleides and make him the highest authority in the state, because it was thought that he would never try to make himself tyrant, while others insisted that Dion should have supreme power. Another issue was that the Peloponnesian mercenaries who had liberated Syracuse had not been paid their wages and had banded together. They were owed a lot of money, but the city was strapped for cash. There were more than three thousand of these mercenaries, they had all been chosen for their prowess, and they were all battle-hardened veterans, so they far outclassed the Syracusans.
[4] When the mercenaries suggested to Dion that he join their insurrection and repay the Syracusans, their common enemy, for the wrong they had done him, at first Dion refused, but later circumstances left him no choice* and he accepted the command of the mercenaries, joined them, and decamped for Leontini. [5] The Syracusans set out en masse after the mercenaries and engaged them while they were still on the way to Leontini, but withdrew after sustaining serious losses. Dion’s victory was so spectacular that he could afford to be generous towards the Syracusans. In fact, when they sent a herald to him to arrange for the collection of their dead, he not only gave them permission to do so, but also freed the prisoners he had taken without ransom. And there were a lot of these prisoners, because, threatened with imminent death during the rout, many Syracusans had declared themselves to be sympathetic to Dion’s cause, and all those who had done so had escaped death.
18. Dionysius next sent his general Nypsius of Naples to Syracuse, a man of exceptional courage and an excellent strategist, and along with him freighters filled with grain and other supplies. So Nypsius set sail from Locri* and was on his way to Syracuse. [2] Meanwhile, on the acropolis the tyrant’s mercenaries, who had run out of grain and were suffering badly from the shortage of provisions, endured the ordeal bravely for a while, but eventually their plight became more than human nature could bear. No longer capable of seeing how they could otherwise survive, they convened an assembly by night and voted to surrender the acropolis and themselves to the Syracusans at daybreak. [3] Night was drawing to a close when the mercenaries sent heralds to the Syracusans to bring hostilities to an end, but as the sun rose Nypsius sailed in with his flotilla and anchored close to the Arethusa spring.* All at once, shortage of provisions was replaced by plenty. Nypsius, therefore, as commanding officer, convened a general assembly, including his troops once he had disembarked them, and, by pitching his words perfectly for the situation, he stiffened their resolve to face the coming dangers.
Thus the acropolis was unexpectedly saved, just as it was about to be surrendered to the Syracusans. [4] But the Syracusans manned all their triremes and sailed into the attack while the enemy were still busy unloading supplies from the ships. The suddenness of the attack, and the disorganized way in which the mercenaries from the acropolis lined up against the enemy triremes, gave victory in this sea-battle to the Syracusans, who sank some of the enemy ships, captured others, and harried the rest on to land. [5] Elated by their success, they performed magnificent sacrifices to the gods in thanks for the victory and gave themselves over to feasting and drinking—and, expecting no trouble from those they had defeated, they were slipshod in their posting of sentries.
19. But Nypsius, the commander of Dionysius’ mercenaries, wanted to renew the battle and redeem the defeat, and that night he drew up his forces and led them in a surprise assault on the newly built wall. Finding that the guards had fallen asleep—they were expecting no trouble and had been drinking—he brought up the ladders that had been made for this purpose, [2] and with their help the pick of the mercenaries scaled the wall, killed the guards, and opened the gates. The soldiers poured into the city. The Syracusan generals, sobering up, tried to resist, but their efforts were hampered by the wine they had drunk, and their men either fled or were killed. Once almost all the soldiers from the acropolis were inside the wall and the city was in their hands, and seeing that the Syracusans were stunned by the unexpectedness of the assault and in disarray, a great slaughter took place. [3] The tyrant’s troops numbered more than ten thousand and they were drawn up in such good order that it was impossible for anyone to stand his ground against the pressure they exerted, especially since those who were on the receiving end were also hampered by the noise and confusion, and by their lack of good leaders.
[4] As soon as the agora had been taken by the enemy, the victors turned their attention to the residential houses. A lot of valuable property was carried off, and many women, children, and slaves were taken to be sold. The streets and alleys where the Syracusans offered resistance were scenes of relentless fighting, and many men were killed or injured. And so they spent the night killing one another blindly in the darkness, and there were corpses everywhere.
20. At daybreak, the extent of the catastrophe became visible. The only way the Syracusans could survive was if Dion came to their relief, so they sent riders to Leontini to ask him not to allow the city of his birth to fall, to forgive their mistakes, to take pity on their present misfortunes, and to remedy the terrible situation in which his native city found itself. [2] Now, Dion had a noble spirit, and his education in philosophy had given his mind a humane cast, so he bore no grudge against his fellow citizens. He won over his mercenaries and immediately set out for Syracuse, covering the ground to the city in very good time. When he reached the Hexapylon,* [3] he drew up his men in battle order and approached the city itself at a smart pace. He was met by an exodus of women, children, and elders, more than ten thousand of them—all of whom came up to him with tears in their eyes and begged him to avenge their suffering.
The mercenaries from the acropolis had by now attained their objective. After ransacking the houses around the agora they had set them on fire, and then they had turned to the remaining houses and were currently busy robbing them. [4] That was when Dion entered the city, at several points at once. He fell on the enemy as they were engaged in plundering the houses, and killed all the looters he met, who were carrying off various artefacts on their shoulders. The unexpectedness of his arrival, and the disorder and disorientation of the looters, made it easy for him to overpower them. Eventually, after more than four thousand had been killed, some in the houses and some in the streets, the rest saved their lives by fleeing en masse back to the acropolis and closing the gates.
[5] This was Dion’s finest hour. He saved the burning houses by extinguishing the flames and had the defensive wall thoroughly repaired, which simultaneously strengthened the city and walled off the enemy, making it impossible for them to gain the mainland. After clearing the city of corpses and erecting a trophy, he sacrificed to the gods in gratitude for his preservation. [6] An assembly was convened, at which the grateful Syracusans elected Dion their General Plenipotentiary and instituted his worship as a hero.* In keeping with his past behaviour, Dion mercifully released all his political enemies from the charges outstanding against them, calmed the masses, and ushered in a period of general concord. And the Syracusans honoured their benefactor with unanimous accolades and ovations, as the only saviour of their homeland. That was how things stood in Sicily.
21. In Greece, the Chians, Rhodians, Coans, and Byzantines were fighting the Social War against the Athenians, and both sides were making large-scale preparations for what they wanted to be the decisive sea-battle of the war. Earlier, the Athenians had sent Chares on ahead with sixty ships,* and at the time in question they manned another sixty and placed them under the command of the most eminent men in Athens, Iphicrates and Timotheus. Then they dispatched this fleet as well, to join Chares and prosecute the war against their rebel allies.
[2] The Chians, Rhodians, Byzantines, and their allies ravaged the Athenian islands Imbros and Lemnos with their fleet of a hundred ships, and then they sent a strong force against Samos, where they plundered the farmland and put the city under siege by land and sea. They also raised money for the war by raiding a number of other islands that were subject to Athens. [3] Once all the Athenian generals had joined forces, they decided to prioritize the siege of Byzantium. Later, however, the Chians and their allies abandoned the siege of Samos and came to the aid of Byzantium—and that meant that all the fleets were together in the Hellespontine region. But a strong wind arose just as the battle was about to take place and frustrated their designs. [4] Chares wanted to fight even though the elements were against him, and when Iphicrates and Timotheus argued that the swell was too great for them to proceed, Chares called on the soldiers to act as witnesses and accused his colleagues before them† of treachery. Then he wrote a dispatch about them to the Athenian people, accusing them of having deliberately abstained from battle. The Athenians were furious. They prosecuted Iphicrates and Timotheus, fined them an enormous sum of money,* and relieved them of their commands.
22. So Chares inherited the command of the entire fleet, and in his desire to spare the Athenians the costs, he embarked on a risky endeavour. Artabazus, who was in rebellion against the Persian king, was about to challenge the seventy thousand men under the command of the satraps with only a small force. So what Chares did was add his entire force to Artabazus’, and once they had defeated the king’s army, Artabazus expressed his gratitude for Chares’ help by giving him a large amount of money, enough for him to maintain his entire army.* [2] At first, the Athenians thought Chares had done well, but they changed their minds later, after the Persian king had sent emissaries and denounced Chares, because it became widely known that the king had promised the Athenians’ enemies three hundred warships to help them secure victory. The Athenians therefore chose caution and decided to bring the war against their rebel allies to an end. It turned out that the rebels wanted peace too, so a settlement was easily reached. So that was how the Social War, as it is known, came to an end, after a duration of four years.
[3] As for Macedonian affairs, three rulers joined forces against Philip—the Thracian king, the Paeonian king, and the Illyrian king.* They all shared borders with Macedon and therefore looked with suspicion on Philip’s increasing power. Individually, they were no match for him and had been defeated by him before, but they thought it would be easy to get the better of him if they fought together. So Philip confronted them while they were still mustering their troops, before they had linked up, and they were terrified into alliance with the Macedonians.
23. In the year of the Archonship of Callistratus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Fabius and Gaius Plautius. In this year:
The so-called Sacred War broke out; it was to last nine years.* The war was ignited by Philomelus of Phocis, a particularly bold and lawless individual, when he seized the sanctuary of Delphi. This is how it happened.*
[2] After the Lacedaemonians had lost the Leuctran War against the Boeotians,* the Thebans brought a major suit against them in the Amphictyonic Council for having occupied the Cadmea* and succeeded in getting them condemned to pay a hefty fine. [3] The Phocians were also tried before the Council, for having cultivated a large tract of the so-called Cirrhaean sacred land,* and were also fined a very large sum of money. When the Phocians failed to pay what they owed,* the delegates* brought charges against them and demanded that, unless they paid the money to the god, the Council should declare their land sacred, on the grounds that they were stealing from the god.* At the same time, they said that any other state that had been condemned to pay a fine—and that included Sparta—should also discharge its debt, and that any state that disobeyed should be censured by all the Greeks in common as a malefactor.
[4] The Greeks* ratified these decrees of the Amphictyonic Council, and the Phocians’ land was about to be consecrated when Philomelus, the most eminent man in Phocis, addressed the federal assembly. He explained that the fine was too much for them to pay, and that to allow their land to be consecrated would not only be cowardly, but also life-threatening, in the sense that they would lose the means of living that they all currently enjoyed. [5] He also argued, as persuasively as he could, that the verdicts handed down by the Amphictyonic Council were unfair, because a very large fine had been imposed for the cultivation of a very small amount of land. On these grounds, he advised them to regard the fine as invalid, and said that, in his view, the Phocians had strong reasons for defying the Council, because in ancient times it was the Phocians who had controlled and protected the oracle. And he said that this was proved by Homer, the most ancient and the greatest of the poets, in the lines that read:*
Now the Phocians, to whom Cyparissus belonged
And rocky Pytho,* were led by Schedius and Epistrophus.
[6] He argued, therefore, that they should lay claim to the right to protect the oracle, on the grounds that it was theirs by tradition. And he promised that, if they elected him General Plenipotentiary and made him responsible for the whole enterprise, he would see it through to a successful conclusion.
24. So the Phocians, alarmed by the size of the fine that had been imposed on them, elected Philomelus their General Plenipotentiary,* and he energetically set about doing what he had promised to do. He went first to Sparta, where he held private talks with Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian king.* Philomelus argued that his attempt to annul the verdicts handed down by the Amphictyonic Council concerned Archidamus as much as anyone, because the Lacedaemonians too had had severe and unfair judgements passed down against them by the Council. So he let Archidamus know that he planned to seize Delphi, and told him that if he gained the right to protect the shrine, he would annul the Council’s decrees.
[2] Archidamus liked what Philomelus was saying, and replied that, although he would not openly help for the time being, Philomelus would have his full cooperation in secret, and that he would provide him with both money and mercenaries. Philomelus was given fifteen talents by Archidamus, added the same or more himself, and used the money to hire mercenaries and create an elite force of a thousand Phocians, whom he called peltasts. [3] And once he had gathered a sizeable army, he seized the oracular shrine. Opposition was spearheaded by the Thracidae, as this Delphian family is known, so he killed them and confiscated their property. This made all the other Delphians fearful, but Philomelus assured them, when he heard about it, that they had nothing to worry about.
[4] As soon as news of the seizure of the sanctuary had got around, the neighbouring Locrians marched against Philomelus, and a battle was fought at Delphi, in which the Locrians sustained heavy losses. Defeated, they fled back home, while Philomelus, filled with pride at his victory, chiselled the Amphictyonic decrees out of the stones on which they had been engraved, and obliterated the letters* that recorded the fines. [5] He let it be known that he had no intention of plundering the oracle or of committing any other crime, and he said that, in claiming the Phocians’ ancient right of protection of the shrine and wanting to annul the unfair decisions taken by the Amphictyonic Council, all he was doing was resurrecting the Phocians’ ancestral customs.
25. The Boeotians voted in assembly to defend the oracular shrine, and before very long they sent troops into the field.* Meanwhile, Philomelus surrounded the sanctuary with a defensive wall and began to collect a large force of mercenaries by raising their pay to one and a half times the usual rate.* He also enlisted a picked force of the best Phocians, and before long he had a substantial army of more than five thousand men. With this force defending Delphi, Philomelus was already a formidable opponent for anyone who wanted to make war on him.
[2] Next, he invaded Locris. After ravaging much of the enemy’s farmland, he halted near a river that flowed past a strong hill-fort. He repeatedly assaulted this place, but found it impossible to take and abandoned the attempt. He had lost twenty men fighting the Locrians, but the bodies were out of his reach, so he sent a herald for permission to collect them.* But the Locrians refused him permission, and replied that it was a universal Greek custom that the bodies of temple-robbers should be cast out and left unburied. [3] The refusal irritated Philomelus and he joined battle with the Locrians. Fighting with the utmost determination, he killed some of the enemy soldiers and took possession of their bodies, thus forcing the Locrians to make an exchange of corpses. He was master of the countryside, and since his men had ravaged much of Locris, they returned to Delphi laden with booty. Then, because he wanted to hear what the oracle had to say about the war, he forced the Pythia to mount her tripod and go about her oracular business.
26. Since I have mentioned the tripod, it would not be inappropriate, I think, for me to retell the old, traditional story in which it features. In ancient times, the story goes, goats discovered the oracular shrine—and this is why, even now, the Delphians chiefly use goats for consultations of the oracle.* The discovery happened, we are told, as follows. [2] There was a fissure in the rock, at the place where nowadays there is the area of the temple which is called ‘inaccessible’,* and that was where the goats had been grazing, since Delphi was not yet inhabited. Any goat that went near the fissure and looked into it started to gambol about in a striking fashion and make a sound that was quite different from its usual bleating. [3] The man responsible for the goats was astonished by this weird behaviour and approached the fissure himself—and when he looked down into it, he had the same experience as the goats: they were acting as though they were possessed, and he began to foretell the future.
After this, when word got around among the locals about what happened when one approached the fissure, more and more people began to visit the place. The weirdness of the experience meant that everyone put it to the test, and indeed whenever anyone approached the place he did become possessed. That is how the oracular shrine became recognized as a place of wonder, and it was believed that it was the site of the oracle of the Earth.
[4] For a while, anyone who had a question about the future approached the fissure and people prophesied to one another. Later, however, after a number of people had leapt into the fissure in their frenzy, never to reappear, the local inhabitants decided, as a way of preventing further deaths, to station a woman there as a prophetess—just one prophetess for all comers—and to have her give voice to the oracles. And they constructed a device for her to mount, where she could safely become possessed and prophesy to those who sought answers.* [5] This device had three legs, and so it was called a ‘tripod’, and all† the bronze tripods that are made even to this day are, presumably, imitations of this original.
I think I have said enough about the discovery of the oracle and the making of the tripod. [6] In the old days, apparently, it was unmarried women who were the soothsayers, because of their physical purity and their similarity to Artemis,* and because such women were held to be able to keep the secrets of the prophecies. Some time between then and now, however, Echecrates of Thessaly visited the sanctuary. They say that when he set eyes on the maiden who was speaking the oracles, her beauty made him lust after her, and he abducted her and raped her. Because of this, the Delphians made a rule that, from then on, it should not be an unmarried woman who did the prophesying, but a woman aged over fifty, whom they dress up as though she were unmarried, to commemorate the prophetesses of old.
So much for the legend of the discovery of the oracle. Now I shall resume my account of Philomelus’ exploits. 27. With the oracle in Philomelus’ hands, he instructed the Pythia to continue prophesying from the tripod in the traditional way. When she refused,† he threatened her and compelled her to mount the tripod. To this display of excessive force, she responded by declaring that he could do whatever he wanted—and he was pleased by this and declared that he had the oracle that suited him.* He immediately had the oracle inscribed and set up for all to see, in order to make it clear that he had the god’s permission to do whatever he wanted, [2] and he convened an assembly at which he boosted morale in the ranks by telling them about the prophecy. Then he turned his attention to the war.
He received another omen in the sanctuary of Apollo, when an eagle which was flying over the temple swooped down to the ground in pursuit of the doves which were kept in the sanctuary, and snatched some of them from the altars. According to the professional interpreters, the omen meant that Philomelus and the Phocians would control Delphi and its business.
[3] With his confidence riding high as a result of these portents, he appointed as ambassadors those of his friends who were best qualified, and sent them to Athens, Sparta, and Thebes,* as well as to the most eminent cities elsewhere in the Greek world. They were to explain that, so far from seizing Delphi because he had designs on the consecrated treasures, he had done so because he was laying claim to the right to protect the sanctuary, which had long ago been declared to belong to the Phocians. [4] As for the treasures, he promised to give an accounting of them to all the Greeks, and he said that, if anyone wanted to inspect the weight and the number of the dedications, he would gladly let him do so. He also asked them to join forces with him, or at least to remain neutral, if anyone, out of hatred or envy, made war on the Phocians. [5] After the ambassadors had carried out their missions, some states, including Athens and Sparta, entered into an alliance with him and promised their support; but the Boeotians, Locrians, and others voted to do the opposite, and went to war against the Phocians in defence of the god.
These were the events that took place in this year.
28. In the year of the Archonship of Diotimus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Gaius Marcius and Gnaeus Manlius. In this year:
Philomelus could tell that this was going to be a major war, so he started to hire mercenaries in large numbers and to enlist all Phocians who were fit for military service. [2] Although he still needed money for the war, he kept his hands off the sacred dedications, but he levied a large sum of money from the wealthiest and most prosperous Delphians, which was enough to cover the mercenaries’ wages. Once he had built up a respectable army, he advanced into the countryside and made it clear that he was ready to take on any or all of the Phocians’ enemies.
[3] The Locrians marched against him, and a battle was fought near the cliffs called the Phaedriades,* which Philomelus won after inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy and taking many prisoners, some of whom he forced off the edge of the cliffs. After this battle, the Phocians were filled with pride at their success, but the humiliated Locrians sent emissaries to Thebes to request aid from the Boeotians for both themselves and the god. [4] Acting out of piety—but also because it was in their interests for the decrees of the Amphictyonic Council to remain in force—the Boeotians sent envoys to the Thessalians and the other members of the Amphictyonic Council, asking them to join forces and make war on the Phocians. And the Amphictyonic Council did vote for war against the Phocians, but this caused a great deal of confusion and dissension throughout Greece, as some decided to take the god’s part and to try to punish the Phocians as temple-robbers, while others were inclining towards supporting the Phocians.
29. So the confederacies and cities* were split into two camps. The Boeotians, Locrians, Thessalians, and Perrhaebians decided to defend the sanctuary, and they were joined by the Dorians and Dolopians, and also by the Athamanians, Phthiotic Achaeans, Magnesians, Aenianes, and a few others. But the Athenians, Lacedaemonians, and some other Peloponnesian states joined the Phocians.* [2] The most determined support came from the Lacedaemonians, because, after defeating them in the Leuctran War,* the Thebans had brought a suit against the Spartiates in the Amphictyonic Council, on the charge that one of their number, Phoebidas, had occupied the Cadmea, and had got the Council to assess the crime at five hundred talents. They were duly sentenced to pay this fine, but when they failed to do so within the legally stipulated time, the Thebans brought another suit, for double damages. [3] With the fine imposed by the Amphictyonic Council standing at a thousand talents, the immensity of the debt was inducing the Lacedaemonians to echo the Phocians in protesting that the verdict handed down by the Amphictyonic Council was unfair. [4] Seeing that they and the Phocians had the same interest in the matter—and given that they were reluctant to initiate war themselves over the fine—they decided to use the Phocians as front men, judging that a more dignified way to get the Amphictyonic decrees annulled. So that is why the Lacedaemonians were so strongly motivated to support the Phocians in the war and to help them secure the right to protect the sanctuary.
30. When it became clear that the Boeotians were going to attack the Phocians in force, Philomelus decided to hire a large number of mercenaries. In need of further funds for the war, he had no choice but to lay his hands on the sacred dedications and to steal from the oracular shrine.* Given that he had set their pay at one and a half times the usual rate, it did not take him long to gather plenty of mercenaries, since many men responded to the call-up because of the high wages.* [2] But religious sensibility prevented any man of decent character from enlisting for the campaign, and only the worst kind, in whom greed had ousted reverence for the gods, rushed eagerly to join Philomelus, so that before long there existed a strong force of men whose object was to despoil the shrine.
[3] As soon as Philomelus had raised a substantial army with the help of his extensive resources, he invaded Locris with more than ten thousand men under his command, including both infantry and cavalry. When the Locrians, with Boeotian support, confronted him, a cavalry engagement took place which the Phocians won. [4] Next, the Thessalians and their allies from neighbouring states gathered an army of some six thousand men and advanced into Locris, but they were defeated by the Phocians in a battle at a hill called Argolas. Then the Boeotians appeared with thirteen thousand soldiers, and the Achaeans from the Peloponnese came with fifteen hundred to support the Phocians, and the armies encamped opposite each other, in close proximity.
31. The next thing to happen was that Boeotians captured quite a few of the mercenaries as they were out foraging, led them in front of the town,* and had their herald announce that, by order of the Amphictyonic Council, the men were to be executed for having fought alongside temple-robbers. Action followed immediately on words, and they were all massacred. [2] This made the mercenaries on the Phocian side furious, and they demanded that Philomelus should treat the enemy soldiers to the same punishment. With vengeful determination, they captured a good number of those who were serving with the enemy as they roamed around the countryside and brought them back—and Philomelus duly massacred them all. This act of revenge put an end to their adversaries’ insolent and terrible reprisals.
[3] After this, the two armies went elsewhere, and as they were marching through rough and wooded countryside the vanguards suddenly encountered each other. This initial clash was followed by a tough battle, but with their considerable numerical superiority the Boeotians defeated the Phocians, [4] and many of the Phocians and their mercenaries were cut down as they beat a hasty retreat through the precipitous and trackless countryside. Philomelus, who had fought with spirit and had been wounded a number of times, found himself trapped among crags and cliffs. There was no escape and, not wanting to face torture after he was taken prisoner, he hurled himself down from the rocks, punished by the gods with this terrible end to his life. [5] His command was inherited by his fellow general, Onomarchus, who retreated along with the survivors and then set about recovering his men as they returned from flight.
[6] Meanwhile, Philip, the Macedonian king, first besieged Methone into submission, ransacked it, and left it in ruins, and then took Pagae* and forced it to recognize his authority. On the Black Sea, Leucon, the king of Bosporus, died after a reign of forty years, and was succeeded by his son Spartacus,* who ruled for five years. [7] The Romans fought a war against the Falisci,* with no significant or memorable outcome, but Faliscan farmland was raided and plundered. In Sicily, Dion, the Syracusan General, was murdered by some mercenaries from Zacynthos, and Callippus,* who had arranged the assassination, took over and ruled for thirteen months.
32. In the year of the Archonship of Eudemus* in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Publius and Marcus Fabius. In this year:
Since the Boeotians had defeated the Phocians, and since they believed that Philomelus, the man chiefly responsible for despoiling the temple, had been punished by gods and men so severely that others would be deterred from similar iniquity, they decamped and returned home.* [2] The Phocians too returned to Delphi, given the current lull in the fighting, and they convened a general assembly, including their allies, at which they discussed what to do about the war. The moderates among them were inclining towards peace, but the opposite policy was favoured by the predatory hotheads who cared nothing for the gods, and they were looking around for someone to argue for their lawless position.
[3] Onomarchus then swayed the masses towards war with a carefully worded speech in favour of keeping to their original plan, but he did so not really because he had any concern for the common good, but because he was putting his own interests first. After all, he had been repeatedly and severely condemned by the Amphictyonic Council, just as they all had been, and had not discharged his debt. So, since in his view a state of war was better for him than peace, he used his eloquence to get the Phocians and their allies to keep to Philomelus’ plan. [4] Once he had been elected General Plenipotentiary, he began to hire large numbers of mercenaries. He filled the gaps in the ranks left by the dead, enlarged his army by recruiting a great many mercenaries, and equipped himself on a massive scale with allies and everything that he might need for war.
33. Onomarchus was encouraged in this undertaking by a dream, which seemed to hint at great growth and glory.* In his sleep he saw himself remaking the colossal bronze statue which the Amphictyonic Council had erected in the sanctuary of Apollo, and making it much taller and larger. He thought that this was a sign from the gods that his Generalship would cause Phocian glory to grow, but that was not so, and in fact it indicated the opposite: because the Amphictyonic Council had used money raised by fining the Phocians to erect† the statue—the reason for the fine was that the Phocians had desecrated the shrine—what the dream was indicating was that the Phocian fine would increase thanks to Onomarchus’ work. And so it proved.
[2] Once Onomarchus had been elected General Plenipotentiary, with the bronze and iron dedications he made a great store of weapons, and with the silver and gold he minted coins, which he distributed to the allied cities and which he used, above all, to bribe the leading men. He even bribed a number of his enemies, and either persuaded them to support his war effort or required them to remain neutral, [3] and human greed made it easy for him to get his way in everything. In fact, he even bribed the Thessalians to remain neutral,* and they enjoyed the highest status among the allies. As for his opponents among the Phocians, he had them arrested and put to death, and confiscated their property. Then he invaded Locris, where he took Thronium,* sold the population into slavery, and frightened the people of Amphissa into recognizing his authority. [4] In Doris he sacked the cities and laid waste their farmland, and then he invaded Boeotia, where he took Orchomenus and tried to put Chaeronea under siege, but returned home after losing a battle to the Boeotians.
34. Meanwhile, Artabazus,* who was in rebellion against the Persian king, was fighting the satraps who had been sent by the king to prosecute the war. For a while he had the support of Chares, the Athenian general, and he resisted the satraps energetically, but after Chares had left* and he was reduced to his own resources, he persuaded the Thebans to send him auxiliaries. The Thebans gave Pammenes the command and five thousand soldiers and sent him off to Asia. [2] Pammenes’ support for Artabazus, and his defeat of the satraps in two major battles, made himself and the Boeotians celebrities. It seemed amazing that the Boeotians, who had been abandoned by the Thessalians and were facing great danger in the Phocian War, should be sending forces overseas and prevailing, for the most part, in their battles.
[3] Meanwhile, war broke out between the Argives and the Lacedaemonians. A battle was fought near the town of Orneae, which the Lacedaemonians won, and once they had assaulted and taken Orneae, they returned to Sparta.* Chares, the Athenian general, sailed to the Hellespont, where he took Sestus, massacred the adult males, and sold the rest of the population into slavery.* [4] Cersobleptes, the son of Cotys, who was an enemy of Philip and on good terms with the Athenians, entrusted the cities of the Chersonese, with the exception of Cardia,* to the protection of the Athenians, and the Athenians sent cleruchs* out to the cities.*
When it came to Philip’s attention that the people of Methone were allowing their city to be used as a base for his enemies, he put the place under siege.* [5] For a while, the Methoneans held out, but Philip was too strong for them, and eventually they were compelled to surrender the city to him, on the condition that citizens of Methone should leave with just a single item of clothing each.* Then he razed the city to the ground and distributed the farmland to Macedonians. During this siege Philip lost the sight of one of his eyes, which was struck by an arrow.
35. Next, Philip led his forces to Thessaly in response to a request from aid from the Thessalians. At first, his help consisted in fighting Lycophron, the tyrant of Pherae,* but then Lycophron called for support from the Phocians and they sent Phayllus, Onomarchus’ brother, with six thousand men. Philip defeated the Phocians and drove them out of Thessaly, [2] but before long Onomarchus came to Lycophron’s assistance, bringing every available man with him, in the belief that he would gain control of all Thessaly. Philip and the Thessalians gave battle to the Phocians, but Onomarchus outnumbered them and defeated them twice,* with considerable loss of life on the Macedonian side. Philip’s situation could not have been more hazardous, and his troops’ morale was so low that there were desertions. But he finally managed to instil fresh hope in the majority of them and to make them obedient to his orders.
[3] Philip then withdrew back to Macedon, and Onomarchus invaded Boeotia, overcame the Boeotians in battle, and took the city of Coronea. In Thessaly, however, Philip had just returned from Macedon with his forces, and he marched against Lycophron, the tyrant of Pherae. [4] Since he stood no chance against Philip, Lycophron requested aid from the Phocians, and promised to help them establish their regime in Thessaly. Onomarchus therefore lost no time† in coming to his support with an army of twenty thousand foot and five hundred horse. Philip, however, who had persuaded the Thessalians to support his war effort, raised an army totalling more than twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse. [5] A fierce battle took place, which Philip won thanks to the numbers and exceptional skill of the Thessalian cavalry.*
Onomarchus fled to the coast, and Phocians were slaughtered there in droves. What happened was that Chares of Athens happened to be sailing by* with a fleet of triremes, and those who were trying to escape—Onomarchus was one of them—shed their armour and tried to swim over to the triremes. [6] In the end, more than six thousand Phocians and their mercenaries lost their lives, one of whom was the General himself, and at least three thousand were taken prisoner. Philip crucified Onomarchus’ body and drowned the rest of the prisoners as temple-robbers.*
36. After Onomarchus’ death, his brother Phayllus took over as leader of the Phocians. Wanting to remedy the disaster, he raised a large force of mercenaries, at double the usual rate of pay,* and summoned help from his allies. He also had a great many weapons made and minted both gold and silver coinage. [2] At much the same time, Mausolus, the dynast of Caria, died after a reign of twenty-four years, and was succeeded by Artemisia, his sister and wife,* who reigned for two years. [3] Clearchus, the tyrant of Heraclea, was killed as he was on his way to the theatre for the festival of Dionysus, after a reign of twelve years, and his rule passed to his son Timotheus, who reigned for fifteen years.* [4] The Etruscans continued their war against the Romans; they despoiled a lot of farmland and marauded right up to the river Tiber,* before returning home. [5] In Syracuse, factional fighting broke out, with Dion’s friends against Callippus, and Dion’s friends came off worst and fled to Leontini. A short while later, however, Hipparinus, the son of Dionysius, sailed into Syracuse* with an army. Callippus was defeated and expelled from the city,* and Hipparinus recovered his father’s throne and reigned for two years.
37. In the year of the Archonship of Aristodemus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Gaius Sulpicius and Marcus Valerius, and the 107th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Micrinas of Tarentum the victor in the stade race. In this year:
Phayllus, the Phocian General, built Phocis back up again after the death and defeat of his brother; its affairs were in a sorry state because of the defeat and the loss of so many soldiers. [2] With inexhaustible funds, he hired a large number of mercenaries and persuaded not a few of his allies to help him wage war. In fact, his unrestrained use of such an enormous amount of money not only won him the active support of many individuals, but also attracted the cooperation of the greatest states in Greece. [3] The Lacedaemonians, for instance, sent him a thousand soldiers, the Achaeans two thousand, and the Athenians five thousand foot and four hundred horse, commanded by Nausicles.*
The death of Onomarchus left Lycophron and Peitholaus, the tyrants of Pherae, without allies. They therefore surrendered Pherae to Philip, but they were allowed under a truce to collect their remaining mercenaries, two thousand in number. With these men, they found refuge with Phayllus and fought alongside the Phocians. [4] Quite a lot of the smaller towns also supported the Phocians, because of the amount of money that was being distributed. Under the influence of gold, that arouser of men’s rapacity, they deserted to where they could advance their interests with financial gain.
[5] Phayllus led his forces into Boeotia, but he was beaten in a battle near the city of Orchomenus, with considerable loss of life. Then another battle took place by the Cephisus river, and the Boeotians won again. They killed more than five hundred of the enemy and took at least four hundred prisoners. [6] And a few days later, the Boeotians won another victory near Coronea; they killed fifty of the Phocians, and took 130 prisoners. Now that I have covered the Boeotians and Phocians, I shall return to Philip.
38. After his glorious defeat of Onomarchus, Philip dissolved the tyranny in Pherae and gave the city back its freedom. Once he had completed the reorganization of Thessaly,* he advanced to Thermopylae to fight the Phocians— [2] but the Athenians blocked his way through the pass,* and Philip returned to Macedon.* A combination of military success and reverence for the gods had enabled him to increase the extent of his kingdom.
[3] Phayllus invaded Locris—Epicnemidian Locris, as it is called*—and captured all the cities except one, Naryx. It was betrayed to him one night by treachery, but he was driven out again with the loss of at least two hundred lives. [4] Next, while he was encamped near a place called Abae,* the Boeotians attacked under cover of darkness and killed quite a few of his men. Elated by their success, they crossed the border into Phocis, plundered a considerable portion of their farmland, and collected a great quantity of booty. [5] On their way back, they were trying to relieve the city of Naryx, which was under siege, when Phayllus appeared and put them to flight. Then he took the city by storm, ransacked it, and left it in ruins.
[6] However, Phayllus succumbed to a wasting disease* and died after an illness that was as long and painful as his sacrilege deserved. He bequeathed the Phocian Generalship to Phalaecus, the son of Onomarchus, the man who had ignited the Sacred War.* Phalaecus was only a teenager, so Phayllus assigned him one of his friends, Mnaseas, as both his guardian and commander-in-chief. [7] But next the Boeotians launched a night attack on the Phocians and killed both Mnaseas and about two hundred others. A short while later, a cavalry battle took place near Chaeronea in which Phalaecus was beaten and lost quite a few men.
39. Meanwhile, the Peloponnese was racked by disturbances and upheavals.* These began when the Lacedaemonians, who were enemies of the Megalopolitans, overran their farmland with an army under the command of King Archidamus.* The Megalopolitans urgently wanted to respond, but on their own they stood no chance against the Lacedaemonians, so they requested help from their allies.* [2] The Argives, Sicyonians, and Messenians quickly sent help in the form of their full levies, and the Thebans sent four thousand foot and five hundred horse, under the command of Cephison. [3] So the Megalopolitans took to the field with their allies and encamped near the springs that are the sources of the Alpheius river.*
The Lacedaemonians were reinforced by three thousand foot from the Phocians and 150 horse from Lycophron and Peitholaus, the exiled tyrants of Pherae. Since the army they had assembled was combat-ready, they first threatened Mantinea, [4] but then descended on the city of Orneae in Argive territory, which was allied to Megalopolis, and quickly besieged it into submission before a relieving force could arrive. When the Argives took to the field against them, the Lacedaemonians defeated them in battle, killing more than two hundred men. [5] Then the Thebans arrived, who outnumbered the Lacedaemonians by a factor of two, but had poor discipline, and a closely fought engagement ensued. Once it was clear that there was going to be no outright winner, the Argives and their allies returned to their various cities, and the Lacedaemonians invaded Arcadia, took and plundered the town of Helissus,* and then returned to Sparta.
[6] Some time later,* the Thebans and their allies won a battle at Telphousa,* in which they inflicted serious casualties on the Lacedaemonians, and took more than sixty prisoners, including the commanding officer, Anaxander. Not long afterwards, they came off best in two further battles and slew quite a lot of their opponents. [7] But eventually the Lacedaemonians won a significant victory, and the forces of both sides returned to their various cities. Then, once the Lacedaemonians had made a truce with the Megalopolitans, the Thebans returned to Boeotia.
[8] Phalaecus was still in Boeotia, however. Chaeronea fell to him, but he was driven out when the Thebans came to the relief of the city. Then the Boeotians invaded Phocis in great strength, ravaged most of it, and ransacked farms. After taking some of the smaller towns as well, they returned to Boeotia, laden with booty.
40. In the year of the Archonship of Thessalus* in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Fabius and Titus Quinctius. In this year:
The Thebans were overtaxed by the war against the Phocians and were running out of funds, so they sent an embassy to the Persian king, asking him to supply the city with a generous sum of money. [2] Artaxerxes was happy to comply and gave them three hundred talents of silver. The Boeotians and Phocians skirmished and raided each other’s land, but did nothing memorable in the course of this year.
[3] In Asia, the Persian king, who had often campaigned against Egypt earlier without success, fought the Egyptians again in the current year, and this time his determination brought important results: he regained Egypt, Phoenicia, and Cyprus.* [4] But to ensure that my account of these events is comprehensible, I shall briefly return to the relevant period and explain the causes of the war.
The Egyptians were in revolt from the Persians, and earlier Artaxerxes, surnamed Ochus, had done nothing himself, not being a man of war. He repeatedly dispatched armies and generals, but he failed because of the cowardice and incompetence of his officers. [5] Hence, despite incurring the contempt of the Egyptians, his lethargic and unwarlike temperament left him no choice but to put up with the situation. In the current year, however, the Phoenicians and the Cypriot kings were induced by their contempt for him to follow the Egyptian example and set out on the path of rebellion, and in response Artaxerxes decided to make war on the insurgents. [6] He chose to fight for his empire in person, rather than send out generals, and accordingly, once he had equipped himself with great quantities of weaponry, artillery, grain, and men, he mustered an army of three hundred thousand foot, thirty thousand horse, three hundred triremes, and five hundred cargo and other ships to transport supplies.*
41. The war with the Phoenicians began as follows. In Phoenicia, there is an important city called Tripolis. Its name suits its nature, because it consists of three communities, those of the Aradians, Sidonians, and Tyrians,* at a distance of a stade from one another. It is the most important of the Phoenician cities, and it is the place where the Phoenician council used to meet to discuss issues of major concern.* [2] The Persian satraps and governors lived in the Sidonian quarter and behaved, in their management of affairs, in an overbearing and arrogant manner towards the Sidonians. This abuse was resented by its victims and they decided to revolt from the Persians. [3] They persuaded the rest of the Phoenicians to make a bid for independence as well, and they sent a delegation to the Egyptian king Nectanebo, an enemy of the Persians, and got him to accept them as allies. Then they set about preparing for war.*
[4] Sidon was an especially prosperous city, and trade had made its citizens extremely wealthy, so before long a good number of triremes had been built and a large mercenary force had been hired, and in addition they had rapidly equipped themselves with weaponry, artillery, grain, and all other military necessaries. [5] Hostilities began when they destroyed the royal park, where the Persian kings used to come for rest and recreation, by cutting down the trees. Then they burnt the fodder that had been collected by the satraps to feed their horses in wartime, and finally they seized the Persians who had perpetrated the abuses and punished them. [6] That was how the war against the Phoenicians began. When Artaxerxes learnt of what the insurgents had dared to do, he warned all the Phoenicians, but especially the Sidonians, of the consequences of their actions.
42. As soon as he had mustered his infantry and cavalry in Babylon, he set out with them against the Phoenicians. While he was still on his way, Belesys and Mazaeus, the satraps respectively of Syria and Cilicia, joined forces and opened the Phoenician War. [2] But Tennes, the king of Sidon, had received from the Egyptians four thousand Greek mercenaries under the command of Mentor of Rhodes, and with them and his citizen soldiers he defeated these two satraps in battle and drove them out of Phoenicia.
[3] Meanwhile, war broke out on Cyprus, the course of which was intertwined with the war in Phoenicia. [4] The island contained nine important cities,* under which were ranged smaller communities that were their dependencies. Each of the nine had a king, who ruled his city, but was answerable to the Persian king. [5] All nine of these kings collaborated and, following the lead of the Phoenicians, rose up in rebellion, made their preparations for war, and declared their kingdoms self-governing. [6] In response, Artaxerxes wrote to Idrieus, the dynast of Caria, ordering him to collect a land army and a fleet with which to make war on the Cypriot kings. Idrieus, who had just recently acceded to the position,* was a friend and ally of the Persians, as his family had been for generations, [7] and he quickly got ready forty triremes and a force of eight thousand mercenaries, and sent them off to Cyprus under the command of Phocion of Athens* and Evagoras, who had formerly been one of the kings of the island.
[8] As soon as these two reached Cyprus, they led their forces against Salamis, the largest of the cities. They built a camp and fortified it, and then set about besieging Salamis by land and sea at once. Since the whole island had enjoyed peace for a long while and the farmland was flourishing, control of the countryside enabled the mercenaries to collect plenty of booty. [9] But when news of their enrichment got around, a lot of mercenaries from the coastlines of Syria and Cilicia which faced the island began to pour over of their own accord in the hope of gain, until the army of Evagoras and Phocion had doubled in size, to the alarm and terror of the Cypriot kings. That was how things stood in Cyprus.
43. Next, the Persian king decamped from Babylon and advanced on Phoenicia. When Tennes, the dynast of Sidon, learnt how large the army was that the king had brought with him, it seemed to him that the rebels did not stand a chance, and he decided to secure his own safety. [2] So, without the knowledge of the Sidonians, he sent the most trustworthy of his servants, a man called Thessalion,* to Artaxerxes, promising to betray Sidon to him. He also assured Artaxerxes of his support for the campaign against Egypt, and of his great usefulness, because he was acquainted with Egypt and had precise knowledge of where the landing places were along the Nile.
[3] When the king heard the details of Thessalion’s message, he was overjoyed; he declared Tennes free of the charges arising from the rebellion, and promised that he would be richly rewarded if he did what he had undertaken to do. But when Thessalion mentioned that Tennes had also asked for a hand-token,* the king, angered by the suggestion that he was untrustworthy, handed Thessalion over to his minions and told them to remove his head. [4] But as Thessalion was being taken away to be punished, he said merely: ‘You will do what you want, your majesty, but because you are refusing him a pledge Tennes will do nothing of what he has promised, even though he is capable of keeping his word in every particular.’ This changed the king’s mind back again. He recalled his subordinates, told them to release Thessalion, and gave him the hand-token, which is the most binding form of pledge for Persians. Thessalion then returned to Sidon and reported back to Tennes, without the Sidonians getting wind of it.
44. Because of his earlier defeat, the conquest of Egypt was a high priority for the Persian king, and he sent ambassadors to the most important cities in Greece, asking for their support in his war against Egypt. The Athenians and Lacedaemonians replied that, without wishing to jeopardize their friendship with the Persians, they were opposed to sending him auxiliaries. [2] But the Thebans sent a thousand hoplites under the command of their designated general, Lacrates, and the Argives sent three thousand men. The Argives had left their men without a commanding officer, but when the king asked specifically for Nicostratus, they complied. [3] Nicostratus was effective both in battle and in the council chamber, but he combined good sense with eccentricity: he was exceptionally strong, and he used to imitate Heracles when he was out on campaign by wearing a lionskin and carrying a club during battles. [4] The Greeks who inhabited the coastline of Asia also sent six thousand soldiers, bringing the total number of Greek auxiliaries up to ten thousand.
Before these troops joined him, the king advanced into Phoenicia via Syria, and halted not far from Sidon. [5] While he had been slowly on his way, the Sidonians had painstakingly made themselves ready as regards grain, weaponry, and artillery, and they had also surrounded the city with three deep trenches and had increased the height of the walls. [6] They had an adequate force of citizen soldiers, who had worked hard at their exercises and drills, and were especially fit and strong. In terms of wealth and other resources, Sidon was far superior to the other Phoenician cities, and, most importantly, it had a fleet of more than a hundred triremes and quinqueremes.
45. Tennes shared his plan to betray the city with Mentor, the commander of the mercenaries from Egypt, and left him to watch over part of the city and to cooperate with the men to whom he was entrusting the betrayal, while he left the city with five hundred soldiers, making out that he was going to attend a general assembly of the Phoenicians. He took with him as advisers the hundred most eminent citizens of Sidon, [2] and when they were near Artaxerxes’ camp, he seized these men and handed them over to him. The king welcomed Tennes as a friend, and had the hundred Sidonians executed as the instigators of the rebellion.
When five hundred of the foremost Sidonians came to meet him, carrying olive-branches as suppliants, he called Tennes back into his presence and asked if he was in a position to betray the city to him. The king was particularly anxious not to gain Sidon by making any kind of deal. He wanted the Sidonians to suffer cruelly at his hands; he wanted their punishment to terrify the other cities. [3] When Tennes assured him that he would deliver up the city, the king, whose anger was no less implacable than before, had all the five hundred executed, with the suppliant branches still in their hands. And then Tennes approached the mercenaries from Egypt and prevailed upon them to open the city to him and the king.* [4] So Sidon fell into Persian hands by this act of treachery, but the king felt that he had no further use for Tennes and put him to death.
The Sidonians, however, had burnt all their ships before the king reached them,* to stop anyone in the city securing his own personal safety by sailing away, and when they saw that the city and the walls had been occupied and surrounded by tens of thousands of soldiers, they locked themselves and their families inside their houses and burnt them to the ground. [5] The tally, we hear, of those who died in the flames on that day exceeded forty thousand, including slaves. After this disaster struck the Sidonians and the entire city* was obliterated by fire, along with its residents, the king sold the funeral pyre for a very large sum of money—[6] and the prosperity of the inhabitants was such that a great deal of silver and gold was discovered, melted by the fire. That was the last act of the Sidonian tragedy; the other cities were terrified into surrendering to the Persians.
[7] Shortly before this, Artemisia, the ruler of Caria, died after a reign of two years, and was succeeded by her brother Idrieus, who reigned for seven years. [8] In Italy, the Romans made a truce with the people of Praeneste* and entered into a treaty with the Samnites;* they also carried out the public execution in the Forum of 260 men from Tarquinii.* [9] In Sicily, Leptines and Callippus, the Syracusan power-possessors,* took Rhegium,† threw out the garrison that had been installed by the tyrant Dionysius the Younger, and gave the people of Rhegium back their independence.
46. In the year of the Archonship of Apollodorus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Valerius and Gaius Sulpicius. In this year:
In Cyprus, Salamis was being invested by Evagoras and Phocion; all the other cities submitted to the Persians, and the only man to hold out against being besieged was Protagoras,* the king of Salamis. [2] Evagoras wanted to recover his father’s rulership of Salamis and was trying to get himself restored to his kingdom with the help of the Persian king. But later, when calumnies about Evagoras reached Artaxerxes’ ears, the king lent his support to Protagoras and Evagoras’ hopes of restoration vanished. However, once he had defended himself against the calumnies, he was granted another charge, a more important one, in Asia.* [3] But his management of affairs in his domain was so bad that he fled once again to Cyprus, where he was arrested and punished as it was felt he deserved.* From then on, Protagoras, who had voluntarily submitted to the Persians, ruled undisturbed over Salamis.
[4] After the capture of Sidon, the Persian king mustered his entire army—including the auxiliaries from Argos, Thebes, and the Asiatic Greek cities, once they had arrived—and advanced against Egypt. [5] When he came to the great marshes where the so-called Pits are, his ignorance of the place caused him to lose some of his men. Since I have already described what the marsh is like and its strange properties in my first book,* I shall not repeat myself now.
[6] The king and his army marched past the Pits and came to the city of Pelusium, which lies on the first of the mouths of the Nile, where the river issues into the sea. While the Persians made camp about forty stades from Pelusium, the Greeks halted right by the city. [7] The Persians had left the Egyptians plenty of time to prepare, so they had all the mouths of Nile well fortified, but especially the one by Pelusium, because it was the first and therefore critical. [8] There was a garrison of five thousand soldiers in the city, under the command of a Spartiate† called Philophron.
The Thebans, wanting to be recognized as the best of the Greek auxiliaries, initiated the action when, with no support, they boldly risked crossing a deep and narrow canal. [9] Once they had made it across and were assailing the walls, the soldiers from the Pelusian garrison poured out of the city and battle was joined. The determination of both sides was such that a ferocious struggle ensued, which continued for the rest of the day, and the combatants were separated only by nightfall.
47. The next day the king divided his Greek forces into three. Each division had a Greek general, with a Persian as his co-commander, a man specially selected for his abilities and loyalty. [2] The forward position was held by the Boeotians, with Lacrates of Thebes as general and Rhosaces as the Persian officer. Rhosaces was descended from one of the seven who had overthrown the Magi;* he was the satrap of Ionia and Lydia, and had brought with him a large cavalry contingent and a respectable force of native infantry. [3] The second division consisted of the Argives, with Nicostratus as general and Aristazanes as his Persian colleague. Aristazanes, the king’s Grand Chamberlain and the most trusted of his Friends after Bagoas, had been assigned five thousand elite soldiers and eighty triremes. [4] The third division had as its general Mentor, the man who had betrayed Sidon, with the same mercenaries under his command as before, and his colleague was Bagoas, an exceptionally bold and lawless individual, who was closer than anyone else to the king. Bagoas had as his command the Greek mercenaries attached to the king, an adequate force of native troops, and a fair number of ships. [5] The king himself stayed on the sidelines of the whole affair, with the rest of the army under his command as reserves. These were the divisions of the Persian forces.
Nectanebo, despite being greatly outnumbered, was dismayed neither by the numbers of the enemy nor by their overall disposition, [6] because he had twenty thousand Greek mercenaries, about the same number of Libyan troops, and sixty thousand of the Warriors, as these Egyptians are called there.* He also had an incredible number of river boats, suitable for battles and engagements on the Nile, [7] and he had fortified the densely settled eastern bank of the river and entirely cut it off from the rest of the country with ramparts and trenches. The preparations he had made for the war in other respects as well were equally thorough, but, thanks to his poor judgement, he soon met with complete disaster.
48. He owed his defeat mainly to his inexperience as a general and to his triumph over the Persians in the previous campaign, [2] when his generals had been Diophantus of Athens and Lamius the Spartiate, both first-rate men, exceptionally brave, and brilliant strategists. His earlier success had been entirely due to them, but he imagined himself to be a competent general, and so at the time in question he shared the command with no one and his inexperience rendered him totally ineffective in military terms. [3] The towns he had under close guard by the large garrisons that he had installed in them, and the forces under his direct command—thirty thousand Egyptians, five thousand Greeks, and half the Libyans—he kept in reserve at the most critical of the mouths of the Nile.
That was the disposition of the troops on either side. Nicostratus, the Argive general, guided by Egyptians whose children and wives were hostages in the Persian camp, sailed along the coast with his fleet and found passage through a certain canal into a secluded part of the country, where he disembarked his troops, built a strong encampment, and bivouacked his men. [4] As soon as the mercenaries on the Egyptian side who were responsible for protecting the district realized that the enemy had arrived, they sallied forth, numbering at least seven thousand, [5] and Cleinius of Cos, their commanding officer, drew them up for battle. Once the disembarked troops had deployed opposite them, a fierce battle ensued in which the Greeks on the Persian side put on a dazzling display of martial prowess, killing the general Cleinius and cutting down more than five thousand of his men. [6] Nectanebo, the Egyptian king, was terrified when he heard of the annihilation of his men, because he thought the rest of the Persian forces would find it easy to cross the river as well. [7] He did not doubt that the enemy would reach the very gates of Memphis* and he decided to make its protection his priority. He therefore returned to Memphis with his troops and began to prepare for a siege.
49. Meanwhile, Lacrates of Thebes, the commander of the first division of the Persian army, embarked on the siege of Pelusium. He diverted the water of the canal to other parts, and when the bed was dry he filled it with earth and brought siege engines up to the city. A long section of wall came down, but the soldiers of the Pelusian garrison speedily erected further fortifications against the breach, and tall towers made of wood. [2] For some days a relentless battle was fought for the walls. At first, the Greeks in Pelusium defended themselves stoutly against the besiegers, but when they heard that the king had retreated to Memphis they lost heart and opened negotiations to end hostilities. [3] Lacrates assured them on oath that if they surrendered Pelusium they would all be shipped back to Greece with whatever they could carry out of the city, and on these terms they capitulated.
[4] The next thing Artaxerxes did, however, was send Bagoas* with some native troops to occupy Pelusium, and these soldiers, whose arrival at the place coincided with the departure of the Greeks, began to confiscate a lot of the items that the Greeks were carrying out of the city. [5] The injustice of this made the Greeks angry and they cried out loud to the gods, as guardians of oaths. Lacrates was furious and he came to the defence of the victims of the truce-violation by scattering the native troops, some of whom died during the rout. [6] Bagoas fled to the king and denounced Lacrates, but Artaxerxes judged that Bagoas and his men had got their just deserts, and he put to death the Persians who were guilty of the thefts. So that is how Pelusium was surrendered to the Persians.
[7] Mentor, the commander of the third division of the Persian army, used a single stratagem to capture Bubastis and a lot of other cities, and make them subject to the Persian king. Since all the cities were garrisoned by two peoples, Greeks and Egyptians, Mentor spread the word among them that King Artaxerxes had decided to be lenient towards those who voluntarily surrendered their cities, but those who had to be subdued by force would receive the same punishment as had been meted out to the Sidonians; and he urged the men guarding the gates of the cities to allow anyone who wanted to desert from their side to do so. [8] Since Egyptian prisoners of war were being released from the Persian camp, Mentor’s message was carried rapidly to all the cities in Egypt, and before very long the mercenaries and the native troops fell out with one another, and there was conflict between them throughout Egypt, as each group was striving to be the one to surrender its post and was hoping to benefit in exchange for rendering this service.
The first city to fall in this way was Bubastis. 50. Without telling the Greeks, the Egyptians in the city sent one of their number to Bagoas, since his and Mentor’s camp was near by, promising to betray the city if they had a guarantee of safety from the Persians. [2] When the Greeks found out what was going on, they set out after the messenger and threatened him until he told them the truth. Enraged by the Egyptians’ scheming, the Greeks attacked them. Some of the Egyptians were killed and some were wounded, and the rest were trapped in one of the quarters of the city.
[3] The victims of the assault let Bagoas know what had happened, and asked him to come quickly and take possession of the city from them. But what the Egyptians did not know is that the Greeks had been negotiating with Mentor, and Mentor had secretly encouraged them to attack the Persians when Bagoas entered the city. [4] Consequently, when Bagoas and the Persians began to enter the city without the Greeks’ approval, the Greeks waited until a number of soldiers were inside, and then suddenly shut the gates and attacked them. They killed all of those who were within the walls, except for Bagoas, who was taken alive. [5] Seeing that his hopes of safety lay with Mentor, Bagoas pleaded for his life and promised that in the future he would do nothing without consulting him, [6] and Mentor persuaded the Greeks to release Bagoas. He also persuaded them to entrust the negotiations for the betrayal of the city to him, so that he got all the credit for this coup.
As the man who had saved Bagoas’ life, he imposed upon him a formal pact of cooperation, confirmed by an exchange of oaths. Mentor stuck by the agreement until the end of his life, [7] and the upshot was that, thanks to the concord between them in Artaxerxes’ presence, these two later turned out to be the most influential of the Friends and Kinsmen at court. Mentor was chosen by Artaxerxes to govern the coastal regions of Asia, and in that capacity he performed very valuable services for the king by collecting mercenaries from Greece and sending them to him, and in general by the fearless and loyal way in which he handled all his tasks. [8] And Bagoas managed all the king’s affairs in the upper satrapies and rose to such a position of power as a result of his partnership with Mentor that he became master of the kingdom* and Artaxerxes did nothing without consulting him. But where these matters are concerned, I shall cover the details in the appropriate years.*
51. In the current year, however, the surrender of Bubastis was followed by the surrender of the remaining cities, all of which were cowed into coming to terms with the Persians. The Egyptian king, Nectanebo, remained in Memphis, and even though he could see that the cities were heading towards capitulation, he considered it too risky to fight to preserve his kingship. He therefore abdicated and fled to Ethiopia with most of his fortune.
[2] Now that he had taken over all Egypt,* Artaxerxes demolished the walls of the most important cities, and collected plenty of gold and silver by plundering the temples. He also stole the archives from the ancient temples—the archives which Bagoas later returned to the Egyptian priests in exchange for a great deal of redemption money. [3] After generously rewarding the Greek auxiliaries, giving each man what he thought he deserved, Artaxerxes dismissed them to return to their homes. He installed Pherendates as satrap of Egypt* and returned to Babylon with his army, laden with treasure and spoils, and with his reputation greatly enhanced by his successes.
52. In the year of the Archonship of Callimachus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Gaius and Publius Valerius. In this year:
In view of the great services that his general Mentor had rendered him during the Egyptian war, Artaxerxes promoted him more than any of his other Friends. [2] Reckoning that the man deserved the prize for valour,* he gave him a hundred talents of silver and the pick of the valuable artefacts;* he appointed him satrap of the coastal regions of Asia; and he entrusted him with the war against the rebels, giving him supreme command. [3] Moreover, since Mentor was related to Artabazus and Memnon,* both of whom had earlier fought against the Persians, but by then were staying with Philip as fugitives from Asia, he begged the king to release them from the charges against them, and the king granted his request. Mentor immediately asked the two of them to come to him, and to bring their entire families with them—[4] for Artabazus and the sister of Mentor and Memnon had eleven sons and ten daughters. Charmed by the number of Artabazus’ children,* Mentor promoted his sons, giving them positions of the greatest distinction within the armed forces.
[5] Mentor’s first campaign this year* was against Hermias, the tyrant of Atarneus, who was in rebellion against the Persian king and had many strongholds and towns under his sway. [6] He got him to come to a meeting by promising that he would persuade the king to drop the charges against him—but it was a lie, and he had him arrested.* This meant that Hermias’ seal-ring fell into his hands. Mentor then wrote a letter to the towns, to the effect that with Mentor’s help peace had been made with the king, sealed the missives with Hermias’ ring, and sent them off along with the men to whom these places were to be surrendered. [7] Seeing no reason to doubt the letters, and pleased that peace had been made, the inhabitants duly surrendered all the garrison-posts and towns. Mentor had found a rapid and risk-free way of recovering the rebel towns, and he stood high in the king’s favour, since he was clearly a competent and effective commander; [8] and before long, either by force or deception, he had also subdued all the other leading men who were defying the Persians.*
So much for events in Asia. [9] In Europe, Philip, the Macedonian king, campaigned against the cities of Chalcidice. He besieged the fortress at Zereia*† into submission and razed the place to the ground, and several other towns submitted to him out of fear; then he went to Pherae in Thessaly and expelled Peitholaus, the dynast of the city.* [10] Meanwhile, on the Black Sea, Spartacus, the king of Pontus,* died after a reign of five years, and his brother Parysades succeeded to the kingdom and ruled for thirty-eight years.
53. At the beginning of the following year, Theophilus became Archon in Athens, and Gaius Sulpicius and Gaius Quinctius were elected consuls in Rome, and the 108th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Polycles of Cyrene the victor in the stade race. In this year:
[2] Philip, in pursuit of his ultimate goal of gaining the Hellespontine cities, took Mecyberna and Torone—the towns were betrayed to him, at no risk to himself—and then marched in force against the greatest of the cities in that part of the world,* Olynthus. In the early stages of the campaign, he defeated the Olynthians twice and pinned them inside the city under a siege. But the continuous assaults he was making on the walls cost him a lot of men, and in the end he bribed the leading men of Olynthus, Euthycrates and Lasthenes, and it was their treachery that enabled him to take the city.* [3] He then proceeded to sell as booty the spoils he plundered from the city and the enslaved inhabitants, which brought him plenty of money for the war and helped him to cow the other cities into submission. He rewarded those of his men who had fought valiantly in the battle as they deserved, and he freely distributed money to the men of power in the cities, thereby gaining the services of those—and there were plenty of them—who were prepared to betray their native cities. Philip himself used to say that the expansion of his kingdom owed far more to money than to arms.
54. The Athenians looked askance at Philip’s rising power, and whenever he was at war they supported his opponents. They sent emissaries to the cities, calling on them to preserve their independence and to punish with death the potential traitors among them, and they promised all of them military support. By openly declaring their hostility towards Philip, they committed themselves to all-out war against him. [2] No one did more than the orator Demosthenes, the most persuasive speaker of his day in Greece, to get the Athenians to take the lead in defending the Greeks. Nevertheless, there was such a crop of traitors, so to speak,* at that time in Greece that it was impossible for Athens to check the impulse of members of the Greek cities towards treachery. [3] There is a story that once, when Philip wanted to take a particularly well fortified city and one of the locals claimed that the place was impregnable, he responded by asking whether the walls were unscalable by cash. [4] Experience had taught him that anything that could not be subdued by force of arms could be overcome by gold. So, by using bribery to make sure that he had traitors inside the cities, and by calling those who took his money his guest-friends and familiars,* he corrupted men’s morals with this pernicious form of diplomacy.*
55. After the capture of Olynthus, he celebrated the Olympia,* at which he performed magnificent sacrifices to thank the gods for his victory. This was a major festival that he organized, with spectacular contests, and he invited many of the foreigners who were visiting Macedon to the banquet. [2] He was particularly courteous to his guests during the symposium:* he presented many of them with the cups that he raised to their health, bestowed gifts on quite a few of them, and gave the company at large a lengthy account of his activities, agreeably told. The upshot was that he made many of them desire his friendship.
[3] At one point in the course of the symposium, he noticed a frown on the face of the actor Satyrus* and asked why he was the only one who chose not to benefit from his generosity. When Satyrus replied that in fact there was a gift he would like from him, but he was afraid of being refused if he revealed what his chosen request was, Philip was overjoyed and assured him that, whatever it was, his request would be granted. So Satyrus said that among the captives were two daughters of a close friend of his, who were of an age to be married, and that it was these girls he wanted to be given, not so that he could profit from the gift, but so that he could endow them both and find husbands for them, and not leave them in a condition that was inappropriate for their age. [4] Philip welcomed this request from Satyrus and immediately gave him the girls. But the return he got from the numerous and various favours and gifts that he spread around was worth many times more than his outlay, because a contest arose, with many participants tempted by the prospect of his generosity, to see who could be the first to attach themselves to him and to subject the cities of their birth to him.
56. In the year of the Archonship of Themistocles in Athens, in Rome Gaius Cornelius and Marcus Popilius were the next to be appointed to the consulate. In this year:
The Boeotians plundered a lot of the farmland near a Phocian city called Hya* and won a battle in which they killed about seventy of the enemy. [2] They clashed with the Phocians again at Coronea, but this time they lost and took heavy casualties. Then, when the Phocians occupied several important towns in Boeotia,* the Boeotians marched out and destroyed the grain in the enemy’s fields, but they were badly mauled on their way back home.*
[3] Meanwhile, Phalaecus, the Phocian General, was accused of the wholesale theft of the consecrated treasures and was relieved of his post.* He was replaced by three generals,* Deinocrates, Callias, and Sophanes. An inquiry was instituted into the theft of the consecrated treasures and the Phocians asked those who had been responsible for them for an accounting. [4] Philon was the man chiefly responsible, and since he was unable to produce proper accounts he was found guilty. The generals had him tortured on the rack until he revealed the names of his accomplices in the theft, and then he was subjected to the most excruciating torments, so that he died the death that his sacrilege deserved. [5] The other thieves returned what remained intact of the treasures they had taken, and were then put to death as temple-robbers.
Of the earlier Generals, the first to hold the post, Philomelus, kept his hands off the dedications, but the second, whose name was Onomarchus, the brother of Philomelus,* helped himself freely to the god’s treasures, and during his term of office the third, Phayllus, the brother of Onomarchus, turned a lot of the dedications into coin to pay his mercenaries. [6] The gold ingots dedicated by Croesus, the king of Lydia, of which there were 120, each weighing two talents, were turned into coin, and so were 360 golden goblets, each weighing two mnas, and golden statues of a lion and a woman,* together weighing thirty talents.* It follows that the amount of gold that was turned into coin, expressed as its equivalent in silver,* amounted to four thousand talents. As for the silver artefacts, whether dedicated by Croesus or anyone else, we hear† that what all the Generals together got through weighed more than six thousand talents, so that, including the golden dedications, they spent more than ten thousand talents. [7] Some historians say that the amount they stole was no less than the amount acquired by Alexander from the Persian treasuries.*
Phalaecus’ captains even tried to dig up the temple. Someone told them there was a vault which held a great deal of silver and gold, and they determinedly set about digging up the ground around the hearth and the tripod. The man who gave them this information said that it was confirmed by Homer, the most distinguished and ancient of the poets, in the lines which read:*
Not even all the wealth contained within the stone floor
Of the archer god Phoebus Apollo, in rocky Pytho.
[8] But as the soldiers set about digging near the tripod, severe tremors shook the earth and terrified the Phocians, since it was clear that the gods were warning them that temple-robbers would be punished, and they stopped what they were doing. But it was not long before the man who instigated this crime, the aforementioned Philon, paid the appropriate penalty to the god.
57. The destruction of the sacred treasures was attributed entirely to the Phocians, but the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were partly responsible for the Phocians’ decision, because they fought alongside the Phocians and were paid disproportionately well for the number of soldiers they supplied. [2] In fact, this was not the only occasion in these years when the Athenians were tempted to commit sacrilege. Not long before the Delphian affair, when Iphicrates was stationed at Corcyra with a fleet, Dionysius, the ruler of Syracuse, sent chryselephantine statues to Olympia and Delphi, which fell into Iphicrates’ hands when he chanced upon the ships that were carrying them. He wrote to the Athenian people asking for instructions, and the Athenians ordered him not to concern himself with the gods’ business, but to ensure that his men were well fed. [3] These were his official instructions, and Iphicrates therefore obediently sold treasures that belonged to the gods as though they were war booty.
Incensed at the Athenians, the tyrant wrote them a letter, as follows:
Dionysius to the Athenian Council and Assembly. It would not be appropriate for me to wish you well,* since on land and sea you are stealing from the gods. You have seized and melted down for coin the statues sent by me for dedication to the gods, and you have committed sacrilege against the greatest of the gods, Apollo of Delphi and Zeus of Olympia.
[4] So much for the Athenian sacrilege, committed even though they claim Apollo as their ancestral deity and their forebear.* As for the Lacedaemonians, although it was through consulting the Delphic oracle that they gained their universally admired constitution,* and although even today they look to the god for answers to their most important questions, they still presumed to be partners in the lawless behaviour of those who violated the temple.
58. In Boeotia, the Phocians held three strongly fortified cities—Orchomenus, Coronea, and Corsiae—which they used as bases for their campaigns against the Boeotians. They were well supplied with mercenaries, so they freely plundered the farmland, and they came off best whenever they and the Boeotians clashed and fought. [2] The Boeotians therefore sent ambassadors to Philip to appeal for help; they were hard pressed by the war, they had lost thousands of men, and they were short of money. [3] The king, however, viewed their reduction with pleasure and, wanting to curb their post-Leuctra pride,* he sent a few soldiers, just enough to ensure that he was not taken to be indifferent to the violation of the oracular shrine. [4] The Phocians were building a hill-fort at Abae, where there is a sanctuary of Apollo, when the Boeotians marched out against them. Some of the Phocians immediately scattered and beat a hasty retreat to the nearest towns, while others, numbering about five hundred, sought refuge inside the temple of Apollo and died.
[5] There were a number of other occasions too in this period when the gods expressed their will concerning the Phocians, but the one I am about to relate was one of the most significant. The men who sought refuge in the temple imagined that they would be kept safe with the help of the gods, but exactly the opposite happened: the gods made sure that they met with the punishment appropriate for temple-robbers. [6] There was a lot of straw in the vicinity of the temple, and when the men fled they left a fire burning in their camp. The straw caught fire, and such an inferno suddenly blazed up that the temple was devoured and the Phocians who had taken refuge inside it were burnt to death. The gods, then, were held to have refused the temple-robbers the protection conventionally accorded to suppliants.
59. In the year of the Archonship of Archias in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Aemilius and Titus Quinctius. In this year:
The Phocian War, which had gone on for ten years, came to an end. This is how it happened. The length of the war had left the Boeotians and Phocians prostrate, and the Phocians sent envoys to Sparta to ask for help. The Spartiates sent a thousand hoplites and gave King Archidamus the command.* [2] By the same token, the Boeotians sent envoys to Philip to negotiate an alliance, and Philip arrived in Locris in force, having enlisted the Thessalians on his way. He caught up with Phalaecus (who had been reinstated to the Generalship), who had a respectable† force of mercenaries, and got ready to decide the war with a pitched battle.
But Phalaecus, who was stationed in Nicaea, could see that he was outclassed, so he opened negotiations with Philip about bringing the war to an end. [3] An agreement was reached whereby Phalaecus and his troops could leave and go wherever they wanted, and Phalaecus withdrew under a guarantee of safe passage to the Peloponnese along with his mercenaries, who were eight thousand in number. The Phocians’ last hopes vanished and they surrendered to Philip. [4] Having unexpectedly brought the Sacred War to an end without having to fight, Philip held a meeting with the Boeotians and Thessalians, as a result of which he decided to convene the Amphictyonic Council and leave it to the councillors to make the final decisions about everything.
60. What the councillors decided to do, then, was allow Philip (and then his descendants) to join the council, and they gave him the two votes that had formerly belonged to the Phocians, before their defeat. They also decided to demolish the walls of the twenty-three† towns of Phocis; to ban the Phocians from the sanctuary and the Amphictyonic Council; to make it illegal for them to own horses or weaponry until they had repaid the money that had been stolen; to lay a curse on those of the Phocians who had fled and on anyone else who was implicated in the violation of the temple, and declare them liable to summary arrest; [2] and to destroy all the Phocian towns and to relocate the people in villages, each of which was limited to fifty households at the most and was to stand at least a stade distant from its neighbours. The Phocians were to farm their land and pay each year to the god a tribute of sixty talents, until they had repaid the full value of the treasures as recorded in the archives at the time of the robbery;* Philip was to manage the Pythian games,* and to do so along with the Boeotians and Thessalians, since the Corinthians were implicated in the Phocians’ religious crimes;* [3] and the councillors and Philip were to break the arms and armour of the Phocians and their mercenaries against rocks, burn whatever remained after this, and sell their horses.* And, in keeping with these decisions, the Amphictyonic Council made arrangements for the care of the shrine and did everything else they could do to foster piety, universal peace, and concord among the Greeks.
[4] Then, once Philip had helped the Amphictyonic Council execute these decrees, dealing courteously with everyone throughout, he returned to Macedon. He had not only earned a reputation for piety and strategic skills, but he had also gone a long way towards laying the groundwork for the growth of his power in the future. [5] What he wanted was to be appointed General Plenipotentiary of Greece and as such to make war on the Persians. And that is exactly what happened. But where these matters are concerned, I shall cover the details in the appropriate years, and now I shall turn to sequential narrative.
61. I think it appropriate, however, first to record how the gods punished those who had sinned against the oracular shrine. In short, not only the actual perpetrators of the violation, but also all those who had the slightest connection with the crime, were visited with implacable punishment by the gods. [2] Philomelus, the instigator of the seizure of the sanctuary, hurled himself from a cliff at a critical point in the war; his brother Onomarchus, who took over the leadership of his now desperate people, was cut down in Thessaly, along with the Phocians and mercenaries who had fought alongside him, and crucified. [3] The third of them, Phayllus, who melted down a great many of the dedications to coin money, suffered from a lingering illness and found no quick release from his punishment.
And finally Phalaecus, who appropriated what remained to be stolen from the temple, spent a fair amount of time living as a vagabond, frequently afraid and frequently in danger. So far from making him luckier than his fellow desecrators, this ensured that his torment went on for longer than theirs, and that, once his misfortune had become widely known, his suffering would become a famous object lesson. [4] For a while, after he had come to terms with Philip† and fled with his mercenaries, he lived in the Peloponnese, supporting his men with the remainder of the loot from the sanctuary. Later, however, he hired some large transport ships in Corinth and got ready to sail to Italy and Sicily with them and four hēmioliae.* His thinking was that in that part of the world he would either seize some city or other, or would obtain service as a mercenary, since the Lucanians and Tarentines were at war, but he told his companions that he was making the voyage because people in Italy and Sicily had asked for their help.
62. After they had left harbour and were on the high sea, some of the soldiers who were being transported on the largest of the ships, which had Phalaecus on board as well, spoke to one another of their suspicion that no one had asked for their help, based on the fact that there were obviously no officers on board from the states which were supposed to have summoned them. They were also concerned that this was no short voyage they were on, but that a long and difficult journey lay ahead of them. [2] So, because they both mistrusted what they were being told and did not relish the prospect of an overseas campaign, they banded together, with the captains of the mercenaries as the ringleaders, and eventually they threatened Phalaecus and the helmsman with drawn swords, and forced them to turn around. Once their friends on the other ships had done the same, they returned to the Peloponnese.
[3] They gathered at Cape Malea in Laconia, and found there some envoys from Cnossus who had sailed in from Crete precisely in order to assemble a force of mercenaries. The Cretans held talks with Phalaecus and his officers and offered them a decent rate of pay, so then they all put to sea together. No sooner had they landed in Crete, at Cnossus, than they captured a city called Lyctus with their first assault.* [4] But the Lyctians, thrown out of their homeland, soon received help from an unexpected source. The Tarentines and the Lucanians were at war at this time, and the Tarentines sent envoys to the Lacedaemonians, from whom they were descended,* to appeal for help. Because of their kinship, the Spartans were keen to help, and they swiftly raised an infantry force and a fleet, and gave King Archidamus the command. Just as they were about to sail for Italy, the Lyctians arrived and asked them to prioritize their case.* The Lacedaemonians agreed, sailed for Crete, defeated the mercenaries, and restored the Lyctians to their homeland.
63. Then Archidamus sailed for Italy. He joined forces with the Tarentines, but lost his life in a battle, after putting on a dazzling display of martial prowess. People found nothing to criticize in his wartime leadership and his life in general, and he was censured only for the alliance with the Phocians, because this meant that a great deal of the responsibility for the seizure of Delphi was his. [2] Archidamus had been king of Sparta for twenty-three years, and he was succeeded by his son Agis, who reigned for fifteen years.* After Archidamus’ death, his mercenaries, who had taken part in the plundering of the shrine, were massacred by the Lucanians.
Phalaecus, meanwhile, who had been expelled from Lyctus, had Cydonia under siege. [3] He built siege towers and was in the process of bringing them up to the city when they were struck by thunderbolts. Not only were the devices consumed by this fire from heaven, but a lot of the mercenaries who came to try to save them were burnt to death—including their commanding officer, Phalaecus. [4] There is an alternative version, however, according to which he was killed by one of his mercenaries, whom he had insulted.
The surviving mercenaries were recruited by Elean exiles* and were shipped to the Peloponnese, where they set about fighting the Eleans alongside the exiles. [5] But then the Arcadians came in on the side of the Eleans, and a battle was fought in which many of the mercenaries died, and the survivors of the defeat, some four thousand in number, were taken alive. The Arcadians and Eleans divided up the prisoners between them, and the Arcadians sold as booty all those who had been assigned to them, but the Eleans killed their prisoners to avenge the violation of the shrine.
64. Thus those who had been involved in the plundering of the sanctuary were punished as they deserved by the gods. And, for having played a part in the atrocity, the most renowned cities in Greece were subsequently subdued by Antipater, and at a stroke lost both their influence in the Greek world and their freedom.* [2] The wives of the Phocian leaders, who had worn golden necklaces taken from Delphi, also met with the punishment their irreverence deserved. One of them, who had worn the necklace that had belonged to Helen, sank into a shameful life of prostitution and cast her beauty before any man who was disposed to degrade her. Another, who had put on Eriphyle’s necklace, was burnt to death in her house when her eldest son set fire to it in a fit of madness.*
So those who were reckless enough to treat the divine with disrespect were punished as they deserved by the gods. [3] Philip, however, had come to the aid of the oracle, and from this time onward he went from strength to strength until eventually, thanks to his reverence for the gods, he was appointed to the leadership of all Greece and made his kingdom the greatest in Europe. But now that I have sufficiently covered the Sacred War, I shall resume my account of events elsewhere.
65. In Sicily, there was civil unrest in Syracuse and the people were constantly being forced to submit to various tyrannies,* so they sent envoys to Corinth,* asking the Corinthians to send them a general who would take charge of the city and put an end to the insatiable rapaciousness of those who aspired to tyranny. [2] The Corinthians thought it only right that they should help their descendants and by official decree the job was given to Timoleon, the son of Timaenetus,* who was unrivalled in Corinth for his bravery and generalship, and had been blessed with every virtue.
There had been an extraordinary event in Timoleon’s life, which contributed towards his being chosen for this command. [3] His brother Timophanes was one of the wealthiest and most enterprising men in Corinth, and it had been clear for a long time that he wanted to be tyrant. In fact, at the time in question he was recruiting members of the lower classes, having suits of armour made for them, and going about in the agora accompanied by men of the worst sort; in short, he was acting like a tyrant* while maintaining the pretence that he was not one. [4] Now, there was nothing more repugnant to Timoleon than one-man rule, and at first he tried to persuade his brother to desist. So far from taking his advice, however, Timophanes every day became more and more committed to his brazen ways. And finding it impossible to reform his brother by argument, Timoleon murdered him as he was walking in the agora.
[5] There was uproar, and when the citizens ran up, drawn by the extraordinary and terrible nature of the incident, they fell to quarrelling. Some said that, as a murderer of his own kin, Timoleon should be punished as stipulated by law, but others, on the contrary, declared their intention† of officially commending the man as a tyrant-slayer.* [6] The Council of Elders met in their chambers and the dispute about how to respond to what Timoleon had done was referred to them. Timoleon’s enemies on the council denounced him, while men of the better sort spoke on his behalf and argued against killing him.
[7] A verdict had not yet been reached* when the envoys arrived from Syracuse, explained their mission to the Council of Elders, and asked them to send the military commander they required at the earliest possible opportunity. [8] So the council voted to send Timoleon, and in order to ensure his success they offered him a curious and unusual choice. They assured him that, if he proved to be a good ruler of Syracuse, he would be adjudged a tyrannicide—but a fratricide if he proved too rapacious. [9] And Timoleon did manage Sicilian affairs well and in the island’s best interests, not because he felt pressured by the council’s threat, but just because he was a good man. He defeated the Carthaginians, restored the Greek cities that had been destroyed by the barbarians to their original condition, and liberated all Sicily. In a word, he found Syracuse and the other Greek cities of the island empty, and left them brimming with people. But where these matters are concerned, I shall shortly be covering the details in the appropriate years, and I shall now resume my sequential account of events.
66. In the year of the Archonship of Eubulus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Fabius and Servius Sulpicius.* In this year:
Timoleon of Corinth, who had been chosen by his fellow citizens to take up the Generalship of Syracuse, got ready for his voyage to Sicily. [2] He hired seven hundred mercenaries, filled four triremes and three light galleys with soldiers, and set sail from Corinth. In the course of the voyage, he picked up three more ships from Leucas and Corcyra, and so it was with ten ships that he crossed the Ionian Sea.
[3] Timoleon had a curious and extraordinary experience during the voyage, when the gods lent their support to his enterprise and gave advance notice of the fame that would accrue to him and the splendour of his achievements. For throughout the night a blazing torch in the sky showed the fleet the way forward, all the way to Italy.* [4] In fact, while in Corinth Timoleon had been told by the priestesses of Demeter and Korē that the goddesses had appeared to them in a dream and announced that they would accompany him on his voyage to their sacred island.* [5] So Timoleon and his companions were overjoyed to see that they had the goddesses’ support, and he dedicated his best ship to them, giving it the name Demeter and Korē.
Just after the fleet arrived in Metapontum in Italy, after a trouble-free voyage, a Carthaginian trireme also put in there, with Carthaginian emissaries on board. [6] They held a meeting with Timoleon, at which they pleaded with him not to start a war or set foot on Sicilian soil. But the people of Rhegium were calling for Timoleon and promising an alliance, so he left Metapontum straight away, hoping to arrive before anyone knew of his coming, [7] since he was worried that the Carthaginians, with their dominance at sea, might stop him sailing over to Sicily.
So Timoleon was racing over the sea to Rhegium. 67. Now, a little earlier, when the Carthaginians had realized how great a conflict they were facing, they initiated a programme of generous treatment of the Sicilian cities that were allied to them, and brought their quarrels with the tyrants of the island to an end with treaties of friendship. The most significant of these tyrants, given his formidable strength, was Hicetas, the ruler of Syracuse.* [2] They now got ready a large fleet and a land army, gave the command to Hanno, and sailed over to Sicily. Their fleet consisted of 150 warships, and their army of fifty thousand foot, two thousand horse,† three hundred war chariots, and over two thousand pairs of horses for the chariots.* And this is not to mention all the varied weaponry, artillery pieces of every description, countless siege devices, and an incredible quantity of grain and other necessaries.
[3] The first place they went to was Entella, where they ravaged the farmland and pinned the local residents inside the city with a siege. The Campanian inhabitants of the city were terrified by the size of the enemy army and sent messengers to the other cities which were hostile to the Carthaginians to ask for help. In the event, none of them responded except for Galeria, which sent a thousand men armed as hoplites. But the Carthaginians intercepted this force, overwhelmed it with their superior numbers, and wiped it out. [4] The Campanians of Etna had started to muster auxiliaries to send to the people of Entella, on the basis of their kinship,* but then, when they heard what had happened to the Galerians, they judged it best to do nothing.
68. Dionysius was master of Syracuse* when Hicetas marched on the city at the head of a large army. As soon as he had built a camp at the Olympieium,* he took the fight to the tyrant, who held the city. [2] But the siege went on for so long that he ran out of supplies, so he decamped for Leontini, the city he had made his base. Dionysius went after him, caught up with the rearguard, and joined battle—[3] but Hicetas wheeled around to confront Dionysius, engaged him in battle, killed more than three thousand of his mercenaries, and routed the rest. He set out hot on the heels of the fugitives, burst into Syracuse along with them, and gained control of the entire city except the Island.
That was how things stood with Hicetas and Dionysius. [4] It was only three days after the capture of Syracuse by Hicetas that Timoleon sailed into Rhegium and anchored not far from the city. [5] The Carthaginians arrived as well, with twenty triremes*—but Timoleon was helped by the people of Rhegium. They convened a general assembly in the city to discuss the possibility of ending hostilities between the two sides, and since the Carthaginians felt certain that Timoleon would be prevailed upon to return to Corinth, they were careless in their posting of lookouts. Timoleon gave no indication of his intention to flee, and stayed close to the speaker’s platform—but he secretly gave orders for all but one of his ten ships to leave as quickly as possible. [6] Then, while the Carthaginians’ attention was occupied by the Rhegian speakers, who slyly prolonged their speeches, Timoleon stole off to the remaining ship and sailed rapidly away. The outmanoeuvred Carthaginians set out in pursuit, [7] but Timoleon had a good head start and the protection of darkness, and he reached Tauromenium before the Carthaginians could catch up with him. [8] The leading man of Tauromenium, Andromachus, had always favoured the Syracusans, so he let the escapees in and was largely responsible for their safety.
[9] Hicetas next put together a force consisting of his best five thousand men and marched against Adranum,* which was hostile towards him, and made camp near the city. Timoleon, however, reinforced by soldiers loaned by his hosts, set out from Tauromenium with a force numbering somewhat less than a thousand. [10] He left at nightfall, reached Adranum on the second day, and launched a surprise attack on Hicetas’ troops as they were busy with their evening meal. Once he had broken through the enemy’s defences, he killed more than three hundred men, took about six hundred prisoners, and captured the camp. [11] Following this forced march with another, he immediately set out against Syracuse, and he covered the ground so quickly that his attack was completely unexpected by the Syracusans, since he had outstripped the fugitives from the rout at Adranum.
These were the events that took place in this year.
69. In the year of the Archonship of Lyciscus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Popilius, and the 109th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Aristolochus of Athens the victor in the stade race. In this year:
The Romans and the Carthaginians for the first time entered into a treaty of friendship.* [2] In Caria, Idrieus, the ruler of the Carians, died after a reign of seven years; he was succeeded by his sister–wife Ada,* who ruled for four years.
[3] In Sicily, Timoleon gained the peoples of Adranum and Tyndaris as allies and received a fair number of soldiers from them. Syracuse was in utter chaos, with Dionysius holding the Island, Hicetas Achradina and New Town, and Timoleon the rest of the city, while the Carthaginians had sailed into the Great Harbour with 150 triremes and had fifty thousand men encamped on the shore.* The numbers of his enemies seemed overwhelming to Timoleon—but then the situation changed, against all odds and expectations. [4] First, Marcus,* the tyrant of Catane, came in on Timoleon’s side with a decent-sized army; then quite a few of the garrisoned towns, which were bidding for independence, showed an inclination to join him; and, finally, the Corinthians manned ten ships, supplied them with money, and dispatched them to Syracuse.* [5] All this gave Timoleon fresh hope, but the Carthaginians panicked, abandoned the harbour for no good reason,* and sailed away, back to their part of the island. [6] Hicetas was left isolated, and Timoleon overcame him and gained control of the entire city. He also immediately regained Messana, which had gone over to the Carthaginians. That was how things stood in Sicily.
[7] In Macedon, Philip, who had inherited hostility towards the Illyrians from his father and had done nothing to reduce its bitterness, invaded Illyris in force.* He ravaged the farmland, captured a number of towns, and returned to Macedon laden with booty. [8] Then he went to Thessaly, where he expelled the tyrants from their cities,* thereby earning the Thessalians’ gratitude and loyalty.* His hope was that, with the Thessalians as his allies, winning the goodwill of the Greeks as well would be a straightforward matter. And so it proved, because the Greeks who were neighbours of the Thessalians concurred with the Thessalians’ decision, and before long became Philip’s enthusiastic allies.
70. In the year of the Archonship of Pythodotus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Gaius Plautius and Titus Manlius. In this year:
The tyrant Dionysius became so alarmed by Timoleon’s strength that he surrendered the acropolis to him, abdicated, and retired to the Peloponnese with a guarantee of safe passage, taking his property with him. [2] So, because of his weakness and ignoble spirit, Dionysius lost the far-famed tyranny that was secured, it was said, by adamantine bonds.* He spent the rest of his days in reduced circumstances in Corinth,* with his life and his changed situation serving as a warning to anyone who was foolishly inclined to congratulate himself on his good fortune. [3] After all, a man who a short while earlier had possessed four hundred triremes sailed into Corinth in a little tub, drawing attention to the dramatic change in his fortunes.
[4] Once Timoleon had taken over the Island and received the surrender of the outlying garrisons that had formerly been loyal to Dionysius, he destroyed the fortifications and the tyrant’s mansion on the Island, and gave the garrisoned towns their independence. [5] He also immediately began to develop a new constitution for Syracuse, with democratic laws,* and he gave precise instructions about how the regulations governing private contracts and everything else should read, with his overriding objective being equality.
[6] One of the annual offices he created was the one that bears the most prestige in Syracuse, which they call the priesthood of Olympian Zeus. The first person to hold this post was Callimenes, the son of Alcidas, and from then on the Syracusans have always designated years by the names of these office-holders. In fact, at the time of my writing this history, they still do, even though the political system has changed. For when the Romans granted citizenship to the Siceliots,* the priesthood lost its importance, but it still exists, after more than three hundred years. That was how things stood in Sicily.
71. In Macedon, Philip launched an offensive against Thrace, hoping to earn the goodwill of the Greek cities there. Cersobleptes, the Thracian king, was persistently trying to gain control of the Hellespontine cities whose territories lay on his borders, [2] and Philip’s intention was to stop the barbarians in their tracks. He marched there at the head of a large army. After success in several battles against the Thracians, he ordered the defeated barbarians to pay a tenth of their revenues as tribute to Macedon, and by founding major cities at critical locations he curbed their aggressiveness.* The Greek cities now had nothing to fear, and they enthusiastically joined Philip’s alliance.
[3] Among the historians, Theopompus of Chios devoted three books of his History of Philip to Sicilian affairs. He started with the tyranny of Dionysius the Elder, wrote up the next fifty years, and ended with the expulsion of Dionysius the Younger.* These three books are numbers 41 to 43.
72. In the year of the Archonship of Sosigenes in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Valerius and Gnaeus Publius. In this year:
Arymbas, the king of the Molossians, died after a reign of ten years.* He left a son called Aeacides, the father of Pyrrhus, but it was Olympias’ brother Alexander who succeeded to the kingdom, with the support of Philip of Macedon.
[2] In Sicily, Timoleon marched against Leontini, since that was where Hicetas was holed up with a large number of men. At first, he targeted the suburb known as New Town, but later he broke off the siege, since he was making no progress; there were a great many soldiers trapped inside and it was easy for them to put up a defence from the walls. [3] He moved instead against the town of Engyum, which was ruled by the tyrant Leptines. With the objective of expelling Leptines and restoring freedom to the city, Timoleon launched a rapid series of assaults. [4] While Timoleon was preoccupied there, however, Hicetas marched out of Leontini at full strength and put Syracuse under siege, but his casualties were so heavy that he soon returned to Leontini. [5] Timoleon terrified Leptines into submission and shipped him off to the Peloponnese under a guarantee of safe conduct, so that the Greeks would know that the defeat of a tyrant would be followed only by his banishment. The town of Apollonia was also part of Leptines’ dominion, and once it fell into his hands Timoleon restored its independence, just as he had with Engyum.*
73. Timoleon was short of money with which to pay his mercenaries, so he sent a thousand men under the command of his most senior officers to the territories that were under Carthaginian control. They gathered plenty of booty from all the farmland they plundered and turned it over to Timoleon. He raised a great deal of money by selling it, which he used to pay his mercenaries for an extended period of service. [2] He also took Entella,* where he put to death the fifteen men who had been the ringleaders of the Carthaginian faction and gave the rest of the citizens back their freedom. As Timoleon’s power and reputation as a general grew, all the Greek cities of Sicily willingly submitted to him, because he never failed to restore their freedom. Moreover, many of the cities of the Sicels, Sicanians, and others who had been subjects of the Carthaginians opened negotiations with him, wanting to be accepted as his allies.
[3] Seeing that their generals in Sicily were making a pitiful job of the war, the Carthaginians decided to send replacements at the head of formidable armies. They set about it straight away. They recruited their best soldiers from the citizen body for the campaign, and drafted the most competent Libyans as well, and in addition, once they had set aside a large amount of money, they recruited Iberian, Celtic, and Ligurian mercenaries.* They also built warships, gathered a fleet of transport vessels, and made all the rest of their preparations on a vast scale.
74. In the year of the Archonship of Nicomachus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Gaius Marcius and Titus Manlius Torquatus. In this year:
Phocion of Athens defeated Cleitarchus, the tyrant of Eretria, who had been put in place by Philip.* [2] In Caria, Ada was thrown off her throne by Pixodarus, her younger brother, who then ruled for five years, until the arrival of Alexander in Asia.
Philip, who was going from strength to strength, marched against Perinthus, which was hostile to him and favoured the Athenians.* He instigated a siege and every day siege engines were brought up to the city in relays. [3] He built towers eighty cubits high, far taller than the Perinthian fortifications, and this advantage was enabling him to wear down the resistance of the defenders. At the same time, the walls were being weakened by his rams and sabotaged by his mines, and eventually a long stretch collapsed. But the Perinthians determinedly fought off the attackers and quickly built a counter-wall—and then the fighting and the onslaughts on the wall became unbelievably intense.
[4] Both sides displayed great determination. With his many bolt-shooting devices of various kinds, the king rained destruction down on his opponents on the battlements, but, although the Perinthians were losing many men every day, they received additional troops, missiles, and ordnance from the Byzantines. [5] Now that they were once again a match for the enemy, their spirits rose and they bravely endured all the dangers the defence of their homeland entailed. But the king’s determination never slackened. He divided his forces into several parts and had his men assault the walls unrelentingly, in relays, by day and night. Faced with thirty thousand soldiers, a huge amount of artillery and siege engines, and an incredible quantity of other devices, the defenders’ resistance was gradually crumbling.
75. As the siege dragged on, the numbers of dead and injured in the city mounted. When provisions began to run out as well, the fall of the city was expected imminently. But Fortune was not indifferent to the safety of the beleaguered Perinthians and saw to it that help arrived from an unexpected quarter. The growth of Philip’s power had been widely reported in Asia and the Persian king was concerned enough to write to the satraps of the coastal provinces, telling them to spare no effort in helping the Perinthians. [2] So the satraps, working together, sent a large force of mercenaries to Perinthus, along with plenty of money, a good quantity of grain, artillery pieces, and all other military necessaries. And the Byzantines too sent the pick of their officers and men.
With the two sides matched, the intensity of the fighting revived and the siege was once again fought with incredible determination. [3] The constant battering of the walls by Philip’s rams was starting to bring sections down, and since his artillery was also driving the defenders off the battlements, he had his men simultaneously force their way into the city in close formation through the breaches and bring their scaling ladders up to the cleared stretches of wall. In the hand-to-hand fighting that ensued, many died or fell with multiple wounds. The rewards of victory brought out the best in the fighters, [4] since the Macedonians, who were expecting to plunder a prosperous city and to be rewarded by Philip, were induced by their hope of gain to face danger without flinching, and the Perinthians, who could clearly imagine the horrors that would follow the fall of the city, stood undaunted in battle in the hope of securing their survival.
76. The defenders’ ability to maintain their struggle for survival was helped a great deal by the physical nature of the city. Perinthus is a coastal town, situated on a lofty peninsula† with a neck only a stade wide, and its houses are closely packed together and particularly tall. [2] As they climb the hill, these houses are always built to overtop one another, and so they give the city as a whole the appearance of a theatre.* This explains why the Perinthians were not being beaten even though stretches of wall were constantly collapsing. What they did was barricade the streets and then whichever houses happened to be lowest at the time acted as a good, strong wall. [3] This meant that, even after Philip had expended a great deal of effort and taken huge risks to gain control of the outside wall, he was faced with an even tougher proposition in the form of the ready-made wall formed by the houses. Moreover, since all the Perinthians’ military needs were being readily supplied by the Byzantines, Philip divided his forces into two.* One division he left at the siege under the command of his best officers, while he took the other and launched a surprise attack on Byzantium. He put the city under a close siege—[4] and the Byzantines found themselves in great difficulties, since everything that they might need, including soldiers and ordnance, was at Perinthus.
That was how things stood at Perinthus and Byzantium. [5] Among the historians, Ephorus of Cyme ended his work at this year with the siege of Perinthus. He covered almost 750 years of both Greek and non-Greek history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae,* in thirty books, each of which began with a preface. [6] Diyllus of Athens started the second part of his history where Ephorus left off, and gave a sequential account of both Greek and non-Greek history from then up until the death of Philip.
77. In the year of the Archonship of Theophrastus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius, and the 110th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Anticles of Athens the victor in the stade race. In this year:
[2] Since Philip had Byzantium under siege, the Athenians judged him to be in breach of the peace that they had concluded with him,* and before long they dispatched a substantial fleet to relieve the Byzantines. Reinforcements were also sent there from Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and some other Greek states. [3] Alarmed by the convergence of so many Greeks, Philip broke off both sieges and made peace with the Athenians and the other Greeks.*
[4] As for Sicilian affairs, the Carthaginians completed their extensive preparations for the war and conveyed their forces across to the island. Including the forces already there, they had more than seventy thousand foot soldiers, and at least ten thousand cavalry, chariots, and pairs of horses for the chariots; they also had two hundred warships, and more than a thousand transport ships for the horses, artillery, grain, and so on. [5] Timoleon was not dismayed, however, when he was informed of the enemy’s numbers, even though his own army had been reduced to just a few men.* He brought the ongoing war with Hicetas to an end, added Hicetas’ men to his own,* and immeasurably increased the number of men under his command.
78. He decided to fight the Carthaginians in their own territory, the idea being to prevent any harm being done to his allies’ farmland and to destroy only land that belonged to the barbarians. [2] He therefore immediately mustered his entire army—mercenaries, Syracusans, and all the auxiliaries—and convened a general assembly at which he delivered a speech that effectively aroused his men’s ardour for the decisive battle. His words met with unanimous approval, with every man there calling on him to lead them straight against the barbarians, and he took to the field at the head of an army of close to twelve thousand men in all.
[3] Unexpectedly, however, by the time he reached Acragas, the troops were restive and mutinous. One of the mercenaries was behind it, a particularly brutal hothead called Thrasius.* He was one of those who had plundered the Delphic sanctuary along with the Phocians, and the way he behaved now was perfectly in keeping with all the outrages he had committed earlier. [4] Even though everyone else, I dare say, who had been involved in the violation of the sanctuary had met with the appropriate punishment from heaven, as I described a short while earlier,* he alone escaped the gods’ notice, and now he set about encouraging the mercenaries to desert. [5] He said that Timoleon had lost his mind and was leading his troops to certain destruction. The Carthaginians had six times the number of men, he pointed out, and all their equipment was vastly superior, and yet Timoleon was promising victory, gambling with the lives of the mercenaries whose wages he had been too short of money to pay for a long time. [6] His advice was that they should return to Syracuse and demand their pay, and not accompany Timoleon any further on a doomed campaign.
79. The mercenaries agreed with Thrasius and committed themselves to mutiny, but by repeated appeals and promises of rewards Timoleon quelled their restiveness. A thousand men deserted with Thrasius, however. Timoleon deferred their punishment for a later occasion, and sent instructions to his friends in Syracuse that they were to treat the deserters well and pay them what they were due. This brought the last of the unrest to an end, although Timoleon stipulated that the mutineers were to have none of the credit for the victory. [2] Once his generous treatment had rekindled the rest of the men’s loyalty, he advanced on the enemy, whose camp was not far distant. He assembled his troops† and stiffened their resolve with a speech in which he described how cowardly the Carthaginians were and reminded them of Gelon’s victory.*
[3] As if from a single throat, the men were all calling on him to attack the barbarians and begin the battle, when it so happened that the supply train arrived with celery for their mattresses, and Timoleon said that they should see this as an omen of victory, because the crown of victory at the Isthmian games was made of celery. [4] At Timoleon’s urging, the men wove the celery into crowns* and joyfully advanced into battle with their heads wreathed, confident that the gods were predicting their victory. And so it proved, [5] since against the odds they got the better of the enemy, thanks to a combination of their own calibre and divine assistance.
Once Timoleon had drawn up his men for battle, he advanced down the slope of a line of hills towards the river,* which ten thousand of the enemy had already crossed, and immediately attacked these men, with himself positioned right in the centre of the phalanx. [6] A hard-fought battle ensued, but the Greeks’ martial spirit and battlefield skills were superior, and the barbarians sustained terrible losses. The enemy soldiers who had crossed the river turned to flight, but then the entire Carthaginian army crossed the river and remedied the situation.
80. The battle was on again. With their superior numbers the Carthaginians were beginning to overwhelm the Greeks, when suddenly the heavens opened in a violent cloudburst, large hailstones pelted down, and thunder and lightning, accompanied by powerful gusts of wind, crashed all around them. The freak storm struck the Greeks from behind, but it drove right in the faces of the barbarians, so that, while it was easily endurable by Timoleon’s men, it was all too much for the Carthaginians, and when the Greeks attacked they turned to flight.
[2] With the entire Carthaginian army wheeling and facing the river—horsemen and foot soldiers jumbled up together, and chariots adding to the chaos—they stood no chance at all. Some were trampled by their own side or were spitted by the swords and spears of their comrades, while others were driven like sheep into the river by the enemy cavalry and were struck down from behind. [3] The wounds that felled many of them were not even delivered by the enemy: what kept the bodies piling up were fear, congestion, and the hazards of the stream-bed. The worst thing was that the ferocity of the storm caused the river to bear down on them more violently than before, and many men were drowned as they tried to swim across in their armour.
[4] The upshot was that the soldiers of the Sacred Battalion—2,500 men, the foremost in Carthage for their calibre, prestige, and wealth—were annihilated, after putting on a dazzling display of martial prowess, [5] while from the other contingents of the army more than ten thousand were killed and at least fifteen thousand were taken prisoner. Most of the chariots were broken in the mȇlée, and two hundred were captured. The pack animals, the draught animals, and the majority of the carts with their supplies fell into Greek hands. [6] The arms and armour were mostly ruined by the river, but a thousand breastplates and more than ten thousand shields were delivered to Timoleon’s tent. Some of these were subsequently dedicated in Syracusan temples, while others were distributed to the allies, and Timoleon sent some to Corinth, to be dedicated in the temple of Poseidon. 81. A great deal of valuable property was also captured, particularly because the Carthaginians had owned a great many silver and gold goblets, and all of this, along with the rest of the treasure (of which there was an excessive quantity because the Carthaginians were so rich), Timoleon allowed the soldiers to keep to reward their valour.
[2] The Carthaginians who escaped from the battlefield struggled through to safety at Lilybaeum, but they were so bewildered and frightened that they did not dare to board their ships and sail away to Libya; the hostility of the gods towards them seemed so great that they thought they would be swallowed up by the Libyan Sea. [3] When news of the scale of the disaster reached Carthage, their spirits were crushed and they anticipated the imminent arrival of Timoleon and his army. The first thing they did was recall Gisco, the son of Hanno, from exile and give him the command of the armed forces; he was widely believed to be an exceptionally bold and talented general. [4] They also decided that in the future they would not risk the lives of Carthaginian citizens in war, but would hire foreign mercenaries, especially Greeks, who, they were sure, would respond in large numbers to the call-up because of the high rate of pay and the wealth of Carthage. Finally, they sent competent ambassadors to Sicily, with the job of obtaining peace on whatever terms they could get.
82. At the beginning of the following year, Lysimachides became Archon in Athens, and in Rome Quintus Servilius and Marcus Rutilius were elected consuls. In this year:
After returning to Syracuse, the first thing Timoleon did was banish as traitors the mercenaries who had deserted with Thrasius. [2] They sailed over to Italy, and in Bruttium they occupied and pillaged a village on the coast. In response, the Bruttii immediately marched against them in strength, stormed into the village, and massacred them—and so the mercenaries who had abandoned Timoleon came to a wretched end and were repaid for their wrongdoing.
[3] Timoleon next arrested and put to death Postumius of Etruria, who had been preying on shipping with a fleet of twelve corsairs and had put in at Syracuse in the belief that it was a friendly city. He also received the settlers sent out from Corinth, who were five thousand in number. Then, when the Carthaginians opened negotiations and fervently begged for peace, he granted it to them, with the terms being that the Greek cities should all be free; that the Lycus river* should be the border between their two realms; and that the Carthaginians should give no assistance to the tyrants who were at war with the Syracusans.
[4] After this, he defeated Hicetas and put him to death, and then took the town of Etna and wiped out the Campanian inhabitants. He browbeat Nicodemus, the tyrant of Centuripae, into leaving the city, put an end to the tyranny of Apolloniades, the ruler of Agyrium, and gave Syracusan citizenship to all those he had liberated. In a word, he uprooted all the Sicilian tyrants, freed the cities, and accepted them into his alliance. [5] He had heralds proclaim in Greece that the Syracusans were offering land and houses to anyone who wanted Syracusan citizenship, and many Greeks moved there to take possession of a farm. Eventually, forty thousand new settlers were allotted unassigned land in Syracuse, and Agyrian farmland was so extensive and fertile that another ten thousand were settled there.
[6] He also prioritized the making of certain improvements to the existing Syracusan law code, as drawn up by Diocles.* He left the laws on private contracts and inheritance unchanged, but he revised all the legislation that covered public business in accordance with his conception of the city’s best interests. [7] The person he made responsible for the revision of the laws was Cephalus of Corinth, who was well known as a man of culture and intelligence. And, once Timoleon had finished with that, he transferred the population of Leontini to Syracuse, and enlarged Camarina with a new batch of settlers.
83. In short, the peaceful conditions he established throughout Sicily made rapid economic progress possible for the cities. For a long time they had been drained of their inhabitants by civil strife and civil wars, and by the constant series of tyrants. Moreover, because their farmland had been left unworked it was running wild and was no longer producing domesticated crops. But now, thanks to the large number of new settlers all over the place, and to the longevity of the peace that was instigated by Timoleon, the fields were reclaimed by tillage and produced a wide variety of crops in large quantities. And by selling these crops to traders at profitable rates, the Siceliots rapidly recovered their prosperity.
[2] Hence, with the money that was raised in this way, a great many monumental edifices were built around this time. In Syracuse, for instance, there was built on the Island the hall known as ‘the Hall of Sixty Couches’.* Built by the dynast Agathocles, this was the largest and most magnificently appointed structure in Sicily, and was so imposing in its construction that it surpassed the gods’ temples—and therefore received a sign of divine displeasure when it was damaged by a thunderbolt. Then there were the towers fringing the Small Harbour, with inscriptions, made out of different kinds of stones,* proclaiming the name of the man who had built them: Agathocles. Likewise, there were the structures built a little later by King Hieronymus, the Olympieium in the agora and the altar by the theatre, which is a stade in length and proportionately tall and wide.
[3] Among the lesser cities, a category that includes Agyrium,* the town was able, thanks to its involvement in the assignment of farmland to new settlers (which was due to the productivity of its fields), to build a theatre which is the second most beautiful in Sicily after the one in Syracuse, temples, a council chamber, and an agora, not to mention other significant work, such as towers, and many large and beautifully wrought pyramidal grave-markers.
84. In the year of the Archonship of Chaerondas† in Athens, Lucius Aemilius and Gaius Plautius were the next to be appointed to the consulate. In this year:
King Philip, who had by now gained the friendship of most of the Greeks, was determined to put his leadership of Greece beyond dispute by cowing the Athenians into submission. [2] He therefore unexpectedly seized the city of Elatea, assembled his forces there, and committed himself to war with Athens.* Given that the Athenians were unprepared—there was, after all, a peace treaty in place between them and Philip*—he was expecting an easy victory, and that is exactly what transpired.
Some men arrived one night in Athens with news of Philip’s occupation of Elatea and of his imminent arrival in Attica with his forces. [3] The Athenian generals had not been expecting anything like this, and, in a state of shock, they summoned the trumpeters and told them to keep sounding the alarm all night long. By the time word had spread to every household, the city was alert with fear, and first thing in the morning the entire population converged on the theatre* without waiting for the customary proclamation by the Archons.* [4] When the generals arrived, they introduced one of the men who had brought the information, and after he had said his piece, a fearful silence gripped the theatre. None of the men who usually addressed the assembly dared to offer any advice, and although the herald called repeatedly for people to recommend courses of action that might save them all, not a single speaker came forward.*
[5] In a state of great uncertainty and fear, the people kept looking towards Demosthenes.* When he mounted the speaker’s platform, he argued that it was not all doom and gloom, and recommended that they should immediately send ambassadors to Thebes and call on the Thebans to join them in the struggle for freedom.* There was no time to get in touch with their other allies to request help, he said, because Philip was expected to reach Attica in two days’ time;* and given that his route would pass through Boeotia, the only course open to them was an alliance with the Boeotians, since Philip had a treaty of friendship and alliance with the Boeotians and therefore, as he passed through their territory, he was bound to try to enlist their help for the war against Athens.
85. The Athenians approved his proposal, and the decree authorizing the embassy was drafted by Demosthenes. Then the Athenians began to ask themselves who was best able to speak on their behalf—and Demosthenes voluntarily stepped up in their hour of need. To cut a long story short, he carried out his mission as ambassador promptly and returned to Athens with the allegiance of the Thebans.* The addition of the Thebans, doubling the size of their army, restored the Athenians’ confidence, [2] and before long they sent a full levy of their soldiers under arms to Boeotia, with Chares and Lysicles as their commanding officers. Since all the men of military age were firmly committed to the struggle, they wasted no time on the road and soon reached Chaeronea in Boeotia.* The Boeotians were impressed by the speed with which the Athenians had appeared and were equally prompt to arm themselves and join up with their allies. They set up camp together and awaited the approach of the enemy.
[3] Philip’s first move was to send ambassadors to the Boeotian federal council. The most senior of these ambassadors was Python, who was famous for his eloquence, and in the course of the alliance debate before the Boeotians it became clear that although he was superior to every other speaker, he came off worst when compared with Demosthenes. [4] And Demosthenes himself, in his published works, boasts of the speech he delivered in response to Python, counting it one of his major achievements, when he says: ‘On that occasion, with his confidence high Python bore down on you with a flood of words, but I stood firm.’*
[5] Despite having failed to win the alliance of the Boeotians, Philip was still committed to war, even against both the Athenians and Boeotians at once, so he waited for some of his allies to catch him up, and then marched to Boeotia with an army of more than thirty thousand foot and at least two thousand horse. [6] Both sides were ready for battle, resolute and determined, and both sides were evenly matched in valour, but Philip had superior numbers and was the better general; [7] he had fought many battles, under all sorts of conditions, and had usually been victorious, so that he had extensive experience of warfare. The finest Athenian generals—Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus—were already dead. The best of those who remained was Chares, but in terms of the forcefulness and planning required of a general, he was no better than the next man.
86. At daybreak the armies were drawn up for battle. Philip posted his son Alexander on one of the wings—he was only a teenager, but was already well known for his martial spirit and forceful energy—and gave him his most senior officers in support, while he took command of the other wing at the head of the crack troops and deployed all the other individual units as the situation demanded. [2] The Athenians, for their part, divided their forces by nationality, entrusting one wing to the Boeotians and taking command of the other themselves.*
A fierce and prolonged engagement ensued. So many men fell on both sides that for a while the battle allowed them both equally to anticipate victory. [3] But Alexander was anxious to put on a display of valour for his father, and he was in any case excessively ambitious—and, besides, there were many good men fighting alongside him in support—so it was he who was the first to create a breach in the enemy lines.* He slew so many of those who were ranged opposite him that the line was wearing thin, [4] and since his companions were being just as effective, the enemy formation as a whole was constantly in danger of being breached. The bodies were lying in heaps by the time Alexander was first able to force the troops facing him to turn and flee. Next it was Philip’s turn to bear the brunt of the fighting. Refusing to yield the credit for victory even to Alexander,* he first drove the enemy back by main force, and then compelled them to turn and flee. Victory was his.
[5] Athenian losses in the battle came to more than a thousand, and at least two thousand were captured alive. [6] The Boeotians too lost many men, and considerable numbers were taken prisoner. After the battle, Philip erected a trophy, gave permission for the enemy dead to be buried, sacrificed to the gods in thanks for the victory, and rewarded as they deserved those of his men who had distinguished themselves in the battle.
87. Some writers claim that, while celebrating, Philip imbibed a great deal of unmixed wine* and led his friends in a victory revel through the midst of the prisoners, sneering as he went at the misfortunes of these miserable men. It so happened, however, that the orator Demades was one of the prisoners, and he spoke his mind in terms that were able to check the king’s offensive behaviour. [2] Apparently, what he said was: ‘My lord, when Fortune has cast you in the role of Agamemnon, doesn’t it embarrass you to act like Thersites?’* Philip was shaken by the accuracy of the rebuke, they say, and so completely changed his attitude that he tore off his garlands and repudiated the tokens of arrogance that are part and parcel of a revel.* He was impressed by the freedom with which Demades had spoken his mind, and he released him from captivity and admitted him to an honoured position by his side. [3] The upshot was that, charmed by the Attic grace of Demades’ speech, he freed all the prisoners unransomed, renounced all traces of post-victory arrogance, sent emissaries to the Athenian people, and entered into a treaty of friendship and alliance with them. He made peace with the Thebans too, but he installed a garrison in the city.
88. Following their defeat, the Athenians condemned the general Lysicles to death, with the orator Lycurgus prosecuting. Lycurgus was the leading politician in Athens at the time. He had done admirable service for twelve years as manager of the exchequer* and as one who had lived a famously virtuous life he was a particularly harsh prosecutor. [2] One can gain an impression of his abilities as an orator, and of his sternness, from the passage in Against Lysicles where he says:
You were general, Lysicles. A thousand of your fellow citizens died and two thousand were taken prisoner. A trophy commemorates our defeat and all Greece has been enslaved. All of these things happened under your command, when you were general—and yet you have the effrontery to live and see the light of day, and even to thrust yourself into the agora, a constant reminder of our country’s shame and disgrace.
[3] A singular event took place in this year: at exactly the same hour of exactly the same day as the battle of Chaeronea, a battle was fought in Italy between the Tarentines, who had Archidamus, the Spartan king, on their side, and the Lucanians. Archidamus lost his life in the battle.* [4] He had been the king of Sparta for twenty-three years, and he was succeeded by his son Agis, who ruled for nine years. [5] Meanwhile, Timotheus, the tyrant of Heraclea Pontica, died after a reign of fifteen years and his brother Dionysius succeeded to the tyranny and ruled for thirty-two years.
89. In the year of the Archonship of Phrynichus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Titus Manlius Torquatus and Publius Decius. In this year:
King Philip was proud of his success at Chaeronea, and the fact that he had overpowered the most notable Greek cities* fuelled his desire to become the leader of Greece in its entirety. [2] He let it be widely known that he wanted to take on for the Greeks the job of waging war with the Persians and making them pay for their crimes against Greek sanctuaries.* This got him on the right side of the Greeks, and he continued to treat everyone with kindness both in private and in public. Then he told the cities that he wanted to hold talks with them on matters of mutual interest. [3] So a general congress was convened in Corinth, at which Philip addressed the issue of war against the Persians, and inspired them with such hopes that he won their commitment to war. The upshot was that the Greeks elected him General Plenipotentiary of Greece,* and he set about making extensive preparations for the Persian campaign. He stipulated the quota of auxiliaries that every city should supply, and then returned to Macedon. That was how things stood with Philip.
90. In Sicily, Timoleon of Corinth, the man who had changed everything in Syracuse and Greek Sicily for the better, died after eight years as General. The Syracusans, who had the highest regard for him—for his abilities, and for all the great good he had done—gave him a magnificent funeral. A crowd gathered as his body was being taken to the place of burial and the following decree was read out by the herald, Demetrius, who had the most powerful voice of any herald at the time:
It has been decreed by the people of Syracuse that Timoleon the son of Timaenetus is to be buried at a cost of two hundred mnas and is to be honoured in perpetuity with musical, equestrian, and athletic contests, because he defeated the barbarians† and repopulated the greatest of the Greek cities, and thereby made himself the architect of freedom for the Siceliots.
[2] In this year also Ariobarzanes died after a reign of twenty-six years, and was succeeded by Mithridates,* who ruled for thirty-five years. The Romans fought and won a battle against the Latins and Campanians near the city of Suessa, and confiscated a portion of the enemy’s land.* The consul Manlius, who was responsible for the victory, celebrated a triumph.
91. In the year of the Archonship of Pythodorus* in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Quintus Publius and Tiberius Aemilius Mamercus, and the 111th Olympic festival was celebrated, with Cleomantis of Cleitor the victor in the stade race. In this year:
[2] King Philip, whom the Greeks had appointed their leader, opened the war against the Persians by sending Attalus and Parmenion ahead to Asia with some of his armed forces and instructions to free the Greek cities.* Philip himself, meanwhile, consulted the Pythia, since he wanted to embark on the war with the gods’ blessing, and asked whether he would defeat the Persian king. The response he received from her was: ‘The bull is wreathed. Its end is nigh. The sacrificer is at hand.’
[3] Despite the enigmatic nature of this response, Philip was inclined to accept it as favourable to himself, as though the oracle were prophesying that the Persian king would be sacrificed like a ritual victim. In fact, however, that was not the case: the oracle’s meaning, on the contrary, was that Philip would be slaughtered in the course of a festival involving sacrifices to the gods, when he would be wreathed like the bull. [4] Still, he thought that the gods were on his side, and he was delighted at the prospect of Asia becoming the spear-won possession of Macedon.
He therefore lost no time in performing magnificent sacrifices to the gods and celebrating the marriage of Cleopatra, his daughter by Olympias, to Alexander, the king of Epirus and Olympias’ full brother.* [5] As well as honouring the gods, he wanted as many Greeks as possible to enjoy the festivities, so he laid on splendid musical contests and spectacular banquets for his friends and intimates. [6] From all over Greece he invited those who were closest to him, and he told his Friends to ask as many as possible of their acquaintances from abroad to come. For he particularly wanted to show favour to the Greeks, and to repay the honour they had granted him of supreme command with the appropriate courtesies.
92. The upshot was that large numbers of people poured in from every quarter to the festival—the contests and the marriage took place in Aegeae in Macedon—and Philip was awarded golden crowns* not just by distinguished individuals, but also by the majority of the important cities. Athens was one of them, [2] and when the herald proclaimed this crown, the last thing he said was that anyone who plotted against King Philip and sought refuge in Athens would be extradited to him. By means of this spontaneously prophetic utterance, the gods were clearly indicating, as though by divine foresight, that a plot was imminently to be launched against Philip’s life. [3] Likewise, some other things that were said also seem to have been divinely inspired forecasts of the king’s death.
During the royal symposium, for instance, Philip called on the tragic actor Neoptolemus, who had an unrivalled ability to project his voice and was the most popular actor of the day, to declaim some well-crafted verses, and especially any that related to the Persian expedition. The artist picked a passage that he felt could be interpreted as relevant to Philip’s invasion, intending it to reprove the Persian king for his prosperity and to suggest that, for all its far-famed magnitude, it could be overturned by Fortune. He began with the following lines:*
In your pride, now soaring higher than the sky,
You think of estates more extensive than great plains,
You think of palaces surpassing the dwellings of the gods,†
Foolishly predisposing your life from afar.
But the swift-footed one has you in his embrace,
Hades, source of much grief.* He walks a path
Shrouded in darkness, and of a sudden approaches
Unseen to rob mortals of their best hopes.
And he continued with the rest of the passage, all of which was in the same vein. [4] Philip enjoyed the recitation, and was completely and utterly carried away with thoughts of overthrowing the Persian king, especially since he was also taking into account the oracle he had received at Delphi,* which had much the same import as what the actor was saying.
[5] The symposium finally came to an end. Since the contests were scheduled for the next day, the general populace flocked to the theatre while it was still dark, and at daybreak the procession began. Along with all the other magnificent artefacts, Philip paraded images of the twelve gods,* exceptionally finely wrought pieces of work, marvellously enhanced by the sheen of precious metals, and he accompanied these with a thirteenth image, worthy of a god but of Philip himself, so that the king was representing himself as enthroned among the twelve gods.
93. The theatre had filled up by the time Philip himself entered, wearing a white himation.* He had ordered the bodyguards in his train to keep their distance from him, since he wanted to show everyone that he had no need of their protection when he was shielded by the goodwill of all the Greeks. [2] So high and mighty had he become, and so universal were the praises and plaudits he was receiving, that the plot against him, and his death, came as bolts out of the blue. [3] But in order to ensure that my account of this incident is comprehensible, I shall first explain the reasons for the plot.
Pausanias, a Macedonian from Orestis, was one of the king’s bodyguards and his good looks had attracted Philip’s friendship. [4] When he saw that another man, also called Pausanias, had become the object of the king’s affection, he lambasted this second Pausanias, calling him an effeminate slut who was ready to accept the sexual advances of all and sundry. [5] This insult was too much for Pausanias to endure, and although at the time he kept his mouth shut, he told Attalus, who was a friend of his, what he intended to do, and then he deliberately let himself be killed. It was a remarkable event. [6] What happened was that, a few days later, a battle was being fought between Philip and the Illyrians, under their king, Pleurias, and Pausanias, who was positioned in front of Philip, took on himself all the blows that were meant for the king and died from his wounds.
[7] Pausanias’ deed was widely praised, and Attalus, who was a courtier and highly influential with the king, invited the other Pausanias to dinner. After getting him drunk on a lot of unmixed wine, he handed his body over to his mule-drivers to be sodomized and abused as though he were a prostitute. [8] Pausanias was mortified by the rape and when he sobered up he denounced Attalus to the king.* Philip was outraged by the lawlessness of the act, but he was reluctant to condemn Attalus for it, because of their kinship and because Attalus was very important to him at the time. [9] It was not just that he was the nephew* of Cleopatra, Philip’s most recent bride, but he had also been chosen to command the forces that had been sent ahead to Asia and was formidable on the battlefield. So, while recognizing that Pausanias’ anger at what had happened was justified, the king tried to soothe him by giving him valuable gifts and promoting him to a higher rank in the corps of bodyguards.
94. Pausanias preserved his anger intact, however, and looked forward to punishing them both—the man who had wronged him and the man who was refusing to avenge him. The most important backing for the project came from the professor, Hermocrates. Pausanias was a student of his, and at one point during his studies he asked what was the best way of becoming truly famous. Hermocrates replied, ‘By killing the man with the most significant achievements to his name, because then, whenever anyone mentions him, his killer will also be mentioned.’* [2] In his current angry state, Pausanias took this notion to heart, and since he was too worked up to tolerate any delay to the execution of his plan, he put it into effect during the aforementioned festival.
This is what happened. [3] Pausanias left horses at the city gates and made his way to the entrance of the theatre with a Celtic dagger concealed about his person. When, on Philip’s orders, those of his Friends who were accompanying him preceded him into the theatre and at the same time the guards were some distance away, Pausanias saw that the king had been left alone, and he ran up and stabbed him through the ribs. The king fell lifeless to the ground, while Pausanias set out at a run for the gates and the horses he had prepared for his flight. [4] But, while some of the royal bodyguards immediately dashed over to the king, others, including Leonnatus, Perdiccas, and Attalus,* raced out of the theatre in pursuit of the assassin. Pausanias had a good start and would have reached his horse ahead of them and leapt on its back, had he not caught his foot in a vine and stumbled. This allowed Perdiccas and the others to catch up with him as he was getting to his feet, and together they stabbed him to death.*
95. So Philip met his end. In a reign of twenty-four years he had made himself greater than any other contemporary king, with an empire of such a size that he counted himself worthy to be enthroned among the twelve gods. [2] He is famous for having made himself king despite having started with the most meagre resources for such an enterprise; for having made his kingdom the greatest in the Greek world; and for having increased his empire more through his skill as a diplomat and his geniality than through his military valour. [3] Philip himself is said to have been prouder of his skills as a strategist and his diplomatic successes than of his abilities on the battlefield, [4] on the ground that while the army as a whole was partly responsible for his successes in battle, the credit for those which were the result of diplomacy was his alone.
[5] Now that I have reached the death of Philip, I shall end this book here, in accordance with my original plan. I shall start the next one with the accession of Alexander to the throne and try to cover all his exploits in a single book.*