This information is interesting, as an illustration of Macedonian manners and customs, which are very little known to us. In the last hours of the Macedonian monarchy, after the defeat at Pydna (168 B. C.), the pueri regii followed the defeated king Perseus to the sanctuary at Samothrace, and never quitted him until the moment when he surrendered himself to the Romans (Livy, xlv. 5).
As an illustration of the scourging, applied as a punishment to these young Macedonians of rank, see the case of Dekamnichus, handed over by king Archelaus to Euripides, to be flogged (Aristotle, Polit. v. 8, 13).
[141] Curtius, v. 6, 42; Diodor. xvii. 65.
[142] We read this about the youthful Philippus, brother of Lysimachus (Curtius, viii. 2, 36).
[143] Arrian, i. 6, 17.
[144] Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 247.
[145] Livy. xlii. 51; xliv. 46, also the comparison in Strabo, xvi. p. 752, between the military establishments of Seleukus Nikator at Apameia in Syria, and those of Philip at Pella in Macedonia.
[146] Justin, xi. 6. About the debt of 500 talents left by Philip, see the words of Alexander, Arrian, vii. 9, 10. Diodorus affirms (xvi. 8) that Philip’s annual return from the gold mines was 1000 talents; a total not much to be trusted.
[147] Diodor. xvii. 17.
[148] Diodor. xvii. 16.