The Histories of Polybius (Vol.1&2). Polybius

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СКАЧАТЬ that it had been ordered by Sosigenes and Diopeithes, as judges, from feelings of personal spite, and without any act of Eumenes unfriendly to the league. He carried his point, and thus avoided offending a king who at that time was on very friendly terms with Rome.22 But while thus minded to avoid unnecessary offence, Polybius and his party were in favour of strengthening the league by alliances which could be entered upon with safety. Egypt at this time was under the joint government of two Ptolemies, Philometor and Physcon, who were being threatened with an invasion by Antiochus Epiphanes. The friendship of the league with the kings of Egypt had been of long standing, as far back as the time of Aratus; and though that friendship had been afterwards interrupted by the Macedonian policy of Aratus, just before his death the father of these kings had presented the league with ten ships and a sum of money. The two kings now sent to beg for aid; and asked that Lycortas should come as commander-in-chief, and Polybius as hipparch. Lycortas and Polybius were in favour of supplying the assistance asked.23 But the measure was opposed by Callicrates and his partisans, on the specious ground that their whole efforts should be directed to aid the Romans against Perseus. Lycortas and Polybius replied that the Romans did not require their help; and that they were bound, by gratitude, as well as by treaty, to help the Ptolemies. They carried with them the popular feeling: but Callicrates outwitted them by obtaining a dispatch from Q. Marcius, urging the league to join the senate in effecting a reconciliation between Antiochus and the kings of Egypt. Polybius gave in, and advised compliance. Ambassadors were appointed to aid in the pacification; and the envoys from Alexandria were obliged to depart without effecting their object. They contented themselves with handing in to the magistrates the Royal letters, in which Lycortas and Polybius were invited by name to come to Alexandria.24

      B.C. 167.

      Careful, however, as he had ever been to avoid giving just offence to Rome, he and his party had long been marked by the Senate as opponents of that more complete interference in the details of Achaean politics which it wished to exercise. This was partly owing to the machinations of Callicrates; but it was also the result of the deliberate policy of the Senate: and it was doubtless helped by the report of every Roman officer who had found himself thwarted by the appeal to legality, under the influence of the party in the league with which Polybius was connected.25 Accordingly, soon after the final defeat of Perseus by Aemilius Paulus in B.C. 168, and the consequent dismemberment of Macedonia, the Senate proceeded to execute its vengeance upon those citizens in every state in Greece who were believed to have been opposed to the Roman interests. The commissioners entrusted with the settlement and division of Macedonia were directed to hold an inquiry into this matter also. From every city the extreme partisans of Rome were summoned to assist them, men who were only too ready to sacrifice their political opponents to the vengeance of the power to which they had long been paying a servile and treacherous court. From Boeotia came Mnasippus; from Acarnania, Chremes; from Epirus, Charops and Nicias; from Aetolia, Lyciscus and Tisippus; and from Achaia, Callicrates, Agesias, and Philippus.26 Instigated by these advisers, the commissioners ordered the supposed covert enemies of Rome in the several states to proceed to Italy to take their trial. To Achaia two commissioners, Gaius Claudius and Gnaeus Domitius, were sent. An Achaean assembly being summoned to meet them, they announced that there were certain men of influence in the league who had helped Perseus by money and other support. They required that a vote should be passed condemning them all to death; and said that, when that was done, they would publish the names. Such a monstrous perversion of justice was too much for the assembly, who refused to vote until they knew the names. The commissioners then said that all the Strategi who had been in office since the beginning of the war were involved. One of them, Xeno, came forward, declared his innocence, and asserted that he was ready to plead his cause before any tribunal, Achaean or Roman. Upon this the commissioners required that all the accused persons should go to Rome. A list of one thousand names was drawn up, under the guidance of Callicrates, of those who were at once to proceed to Italy27 (B.C. 167). The court of inquiry, before which they were to appear, was never held. They were not allowed even to stay in Rome, but were quartered in various cities of Italy, which were made responsible for their safe custody: and there they remained until B.C. 151, when such of them as were still alive, numbering then somewhat less than three hundred, were contemptuously allowed to return.28 Among these detenus was Polybius. We do not hear that Lycortas was also one, from which it has been with some probability supposed that he was dead. More fortunate than the rest, Polybius was allowed to remain at Rome. He had made, it seems, the acquaintance of Aemilius Paulus and his two sons in Macedonia, and during the tour of Aemelius through Greece after the Macedonian war.29 And on their return to Italy he was allowed by their influence to remain in Rome; and, acting as tutor to the two boys,30 became well acquainted with all the best society in the city. The charming account which he gives31 of the mutual affection existing between him and the younger son of Aemilius (by adoption now called Publius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus) bears all the marks of sincerity, and is highly to the credit of both. To it we may add the anecdote of Plutarch, that “Scipio, in observance of the precept of Polybius, endeavoured never to leave the forum without having made a close friend of some one he met there.”

      But much as he owed to the friendship of the sons of Aemilius, he owed it also to his own energy and cheerful vigour that these sixteen years of exile were not lost time in his life. He employed them, not in fruitless indulgence in homesickness, or in gloomy brooding over his wrongs, but in a careful and industrious study of the history and institutions of the people among whom he was compelled to reside32; in ingratiating himself with those members of the Senate who he thought might be useful to his countrymen; and in forming and maturing his judgment as to the course of policy they ought to pursue. Nor was he without means of gratifying lighter tastes. He was an active sportsman: and the boar-hunting in the district of Laurentum not only diverted his attention from the distressing circumstances of his exile, and kept his body in vigorous health, but obtained for him the acquaintance of many men of rank and influence. Thus for instance his intimacy with the Syrian prince Demetrius, afterwards king Demetrius Soter, was made in the hunting-field33: and the value which this young man attached to his advice and support is some measure of the opinion entertained generally of his wisdom, moderation, and good judgment. We have no further details of his life in Rome; but we have what is better,—its fruits, in the luminous account of its polity, the constitution of its army, and the aims of its statesmen.

      B.C. 151. Release of the detenus.

      At last the time came when he was once more free to visit his own country, or to extend his knowledge by visiting the countries which he wished to describe. After repeated applications to the Senate by embassies from Achaia, made without avail, in B.C. 151 Polybius appeared in person to plead the cause before the Fathers. There was now, it was thought, no reason for retaining these unfortunate men. The original thousand had shrunk to less than three hundred; middle-aged men had become in sixteen years old and decrepit; they had lost connexions and influence in the Peloponnese; they had learnt by bitter experience the impossibility of resisting the power of Rome, and were no longer likely to venture on organising any opposition. Their longer detention could only be a measure of vengeance, and useless vengeance. Still the debate in the Senate was long and doubtful, until it was brought to a conclusion by the contemptuous exclamation of Cato: “Are we to sit here all day discussing whether some old Greek dotards are to be buried by Italian or Achaean undertakers?” Polybius, elated by a concession thus ungraciously accorded, wished to enter the Senate once more with a further request for a restitution of their property in Achaia. But Cato bluntly bade him “remember Ulysses, who wanted to go back into the cave of the Cyclops to fetch his cap and belt.”34

      Coss. L. Marcius Censornius, Manius Manilius, B.C. 149. Polybius sent for to Lilybaeum.

      Polybius seems to have returned to the Peloponnese at once, and to have remained there until B.C. 149, when he was suddenly summoned to serve the government whose enforced guest he had been so long. It was the year in which the Senate had determined to commence their proceedings against Carthage, which were not to be stayed until she was levelled with the ground. In B.C. 150 the victory of Massanissa had restored the oligarchs, who had been superseded by the popular anti-Roman party in Carthage. These men hastened to make every possible offer of submission to Rome. The Senate СКАЧАТЬ