HKB
which the Senate has decreed.” This had been extracted from the Senate by vehement complaints reaching Rome of the cruel extortions of the Roman officers in the previous two years.
[158] Polybius seems to mean the smaller council, not the public assembly, though Livy evidently understood the latter (43, 47).
[159] The expedition of Perseus into Illyricum apparently took place late in the year B.C. 170 and in the first month of B.C. 169. Livy, 43, 18-20.
[160] Hyscana, or Uscana, a town of the Illyrian tribe Penestae.
[161] That is, the war between Antiochus and Ptolemy.
[162] The Antigoneia was a festival established in honour of Antigonus Doson, who had been a benefactor of the Achaeans. In 30, 23, it is mentioned as being celebrated in Sicyon. The benefactions of this Macedonian king to the Achaeans are mentioned by Pausanias (8, 8, 12).
[163] See 27, 19; 18, 1, 17.
[164] Seleucus Nicanor, B.C. 306-280.
[165] Livy (44, 8) calls it the Enipeus (Fersaliti), a tributary of the Peneus.
[166] In a previous part of the book now lost. See Livy, 44, 25.
[167] The extract begins in the middle of a sentence at the top of a page. I have supplied these words at a guess, giving what seems the sense.
[168] P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum was afterwards Pontifex Maximus (B.C. 150). See Cic. de Sen. 3, 50.
[169] Of the two eldest sons of Aemilius, the elder was adopted by Quintus Fabius Maximus, the second by P. Cornelius Scipio, son of the elder Africanus, his maternal uncle.
[170] From Plutarch, Aemilius, 15, who adds that Polybius made a mistake as to the number of soldiers told off for this service, which to judge from Livy, 44, 35, Polybius probably stated at 5000. Plutarch got his correction from an extant letter of Nasica (8000 Roman infantry, with 120 horse, and 200 Thracians and Cretans).
[171] From Plutarch, who again contradicts this last statement, on the authority of Nasica, who said that there was a sharp engagement on the heights.
[172] The Roman was saved from a scare by the eclipse being foretold by Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, famous for his knowledge of Greek literature and astronomy. He is represented by Cicero as explaining the celestial globe (sphaera) which Marcellus brought from Syracuse. He was consul in B.C. 166. Livy, 44, 37; Cicero, Brut. § 78; de Repub. 1, § 21.
[173] ἐν ἀγορᾷ. The objection, though it served to divert the magistrates from going on with the proposition at the time, seems to have been got over before the meeting at Sicyon; unless, indeed, the latter was considered to be of a different nature in regard to the age of those attending. But we have no information as to this restriction of thirty years of age,—whether it was universal, or confined to particular occasions. This passage would seem to point to the latter alternative.
[174] Livy says viginti millia. By χρυσοῦς Polybius appears to mean “staters,” worth about 20 drachmae (20 francs). This would give a rough value of the present as £8000, or on Livy’s computation twice that amount.
[175] Called by Polybius in previous books Conope, 4, 64; 5, 6. Its name was changed to Arsinoe, from its having been rebuilt and enlarged by Arsinoe, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Strabo, 10, 2, 22). It was on the east bank of the Achelous. Its modern name is Angelokastro. The civil war in Aetolia alluded to here is mentioned in Livy, 41, 25 (B.C. 174). This particular massacre appears to have taken place in B.C. 168-167. Livy (45, 28) narrates that Aemilius was met during his Greek tour in B.C. 167 by a crowd of Aetolians, in a miserable state of destitution, who informed him that five hundred and fifty Aetolian nobles had been massacred by Lyciscus and Tisippus, besides many driven into exile, and that the goods of both had been confiscated.