54 This year died Philip, king of the Macedonians, being worn out with old age, and grief occasioned by his son’s death. He spent the winter at Demetrias, in great anguish of mind, occasioned both by regret for his son and contrition for his own cruelty. His other son also disquieted his mind, who, both in his own opinion and that of others, was undoubtedly king. The eyes of all were turned to him, and his own old age was desolate. Some only waiting for his death, while others did not even wait for that event. By which circumstance he was still more distressed, and with him Antigonus, son of Echecrates, named after his uncle Antigonus, who had been guardian to Philip, a man of royal dignity, and famed also for a remarkable battle which he fought against Cleomenes the Lacedæmonian. The Greeks called him the Guardian, to distinguish him from the other princes of that surname.[66] His nephew Antigonus, of all the friends whom Philip had honoured with his favours, alone remained uncorrupted; and this faithful attachment to him had made Perseus, who had been in no wise his friend, become now his most inveterate enemy. He, foreseeing in his mind with what danger to himself the inheritance of the kingdom would fall to Demetrius, as soon as he perceived the king’s mind to waver, and that he sometimes sighed with regret for the loss of his son; at one time by listening, and at another by making mention of the deed, as being rashly done, he himself was at hand, adding his complaint to the frequent lamentations of the king;—and, as the truth usually affords many traces of itself, he assisted with the most zealous diligence, in order that the whole might be brought to light as speedily as possible. Of the agents employed in that business, those who were most generally supposed guilty, were Apelles and Philocles, who had gone ambassadors to Rome, and had brought the letter under the name of Flamininus, which had proved so ruinous to Demetrius. They generally murmured in the palace, that it was a forgery, falsified by the secretary, and that the seal was counterfeited.
55 But while this thing was rather a matter of suspicion than of certainty, Antigonus accidentally met Xychus, whom he seized and brought to the palace; then leaving him in custody of guards, Antigonus went on to the apartment of Philip, to whom he said, “I think I understood from many conversations, that you would value it highly, if you could ascertain the whole truth respecting your sons, which of the two was assailed by the other’s deceit and secret machinations. Xychus, the only man in the world who can unravel this mystery, is now in your power. I met him by accident, and I have brought him to the palace; order him to be called into your presence.” On being brought in, he at first denied; but with such irresolution, as showed that by a slight application to his fears he would become a ready informer. He did not withstand the sight of the executioner and the instruments of torture, but disclosed the whole process of the villany of the ambassadors, and his own services therein. Persons were instantly despatched to seize the ambassadors, and they apprehended by surprise Philocles, who was present, but Apelles, who had been sent in pursuit of a person called Chærea, having heard of the information given by Xychus, went over into Italy. With respect to Philocles, no certain account has been published: some say, that for a time he boldly denied all knowledge of the matter; but that when Xychus was confronted with him, he persisted no longer; others, that he even suffered the rack without confessing. Philip’s grief was renewed and doubled; and he felt his unhappiness, with regard to his children, press the heavier on him, because one of them was not.
56 When Perseus was told that all was discovered, he was too powerful to think that flight was necessary. He only took care to keep out of the way, intending to guard himself, in the mean time, during the remainder of Philip’s life, from the flame, as it were, of his burning resentment; who, having lost hopes of subjecting the person of Perseus to punishment, meditated on this, as the last resource, that he would not, besides impunity, enjoy the reward of his wickedness also. Therefore he addresses himself to Antigonus, to whom he was obliged for the discovery of the fratricide; and whom he supposed the Macedonians, considering the fresh renown of his uncle Antigonus, would neither be ashamed nor displeased at having for their king. “Antigonus,” says he, “since I have been brought into such a situation that the being childless, a state which other parents reckon a curse, ought to be wished for by me, I am resolved to transfer to you the kingdom which I received from your uncle, and which his faithful and resolute guardianship not only preserved for me, but even enlarged. You are the only friend I have, whom I can judge worthy of the throne; and, if I had not one such, I should wish it to perish and become extinct, rather than be a prize to the treacherous villany of Perseus. I shall think Demetrius recalled from the dead, and restored to me, if I can leave you substituted in his room, who alone have wept for his innocent death, and for my unhappy error.” After this discourse he did not fail to advance him by conferring on him honours of every kind; and, as Perseus was absent in Thrace, he went round the cities of Macedon, and recommended Antigonus to the chief men; and, had his life been prolonged, there is no doubt but that he would have left him in possession of the throne. After leaving Demetrias, he staid a very long time at Thessalonica; and when he had gone thence to Amphipolis, he was there seized with a severe sickness. Yet it was evident that it was a disorder of the mind rather than of the body, and that, owing to his anxieties and want of sleep, for apparitions and phantoms of his innocent murdered son ever and anon disquieted him, he breathed his last uttering awful imprecations on the other. Nevertheless Antigonus might have been first acquainted with the death of the king, had it not been immediately divulged. Calligenes, the physician, who had the charge of his treatment, not expecting the king’s death, sent to Perseus, on the first appearance of desperate symptoms, messengers who had been previously stationed at different places; and till his arrival he concealed the death of the king from all but those who were in the palace.
57 Perseus therefore surprised them all, when not expecting, and totally ignorant of, his arrival, and seized on the throne, which was obtained by wickedness. The demise of Philip happened very seasonably for the purpose of gaining time and collecting strength for the support of a war: for, in a few days after, the nation of the Bastarnians, in consequence of long solicitation, set out from their own abodes, with a large force of infantry and cavalry, and crossed the Danube. Antigonus and Cotto (the latter was a Bastarnian of distinction, and Antigonus had been sent, much against his will, with this same Cotto, as ambassador, to persuade his countrymen to take arms) went forward, to carry intelligence of this to the king; but at a small distance from Amphipolis a rumour, and then authentic information, acquainted them with the king’s death; which event disconcerted the whole arrangement of their plan. It had been arranged in this manner;—Philip was to procure for the Bastarnians a safe passage through Thrace, and supplies of provisions. In order to be able to effect this, he had courted the chieftains in that country by presents, having pledged his faith that the Bastarnians should march through it in a peaceable body. It was proposed to exterminate the nation of the Dardanians, and to establish settlements for the Bastarnians in their country: from which measure a double advantage would accrue, if both the Dardanians, a nation ever hostile to Macedonia, and anxiously looking to the unfortunate periods of its kings, would be removed out of the way; and the Bastarnians, having left their wives and children in Dardania, might be sent to ravage Italy. That the road to the Adriatic Sea and Italy was through the country of the Scordiscians, and that the army could not be led by any other way; that the Scordiscians would readily grant a passage to the Bastarnians, for they would have no dislike to people resembling themselves in language and manners and would probably join them in an expedition, when they saw that they were on their way to the plunder of a most opulent nation. The remaining plans were accommodated to every kind of event that might take place; for if the Bastarnians would be cut off by the Romans, still the removal of the Dardanians, and the booty to be gained from the remains of the former, and the full possession of Dardania, would prove a consolation; or if they should be successful, then, while the Romans would be employed in the Bastarnian war, he might recover what he had lost in Greece. Such had been the designs of Philip.
58 The Bastarnians commenced their march in a peaceable array, relying on the word of Cotto and Antigonus. But, not long after the report of Philip’s death, neither the Thracians were easily dealt with, nor would the Bastarnians be content with what they could purchase; nor could they be kept in a body, so as not to go out of the road. In consequence, injuries were committed on both sides; and, from the daily multiplication of these, war at last burst forth. When at last the Thracians were unable to withstand the great strength and numbers of the enemy, having deserted their towns in the plains, they betook themselves to a high mountain (they call it Donuca). When the Bastarnians wished to come up, such a tempest there discomfited them, when in vain approaching the summit of the mountain, as, we are told, destroyed the Gauls, when plundering Delphi. They were not only overwhelmed with a deluge of rain, followed by prodigious thick showers of hail, accompanied by tremendous noises in the sky, thunder, and lightning which dazzled their sight; but the thunderbolts, also, fell so frequently on all sides, that their bodies seemed to be aimed at: and not only the soldiers, but their officers also, being struck by them, fell. When therefore, in hasty flight, they, rushing on blindly, were scattered, and tumbling over very high rocks, and the Thracians also attacked them when already in dismay, they themselves then said, that the gods were the cause of the flight, and that the sky was falling on them. When, being dispersed by the storm, as by a shipwreck, they had returned (most of them half armed) to the camp whence they had set out, they then began to consider what they should do; on which a disagreement ensued, some advising to return home, and others to advance to Dardania. About thirty thousand men, under the command of Clondicus, arrived at that place; the rest marched back, by the same road through which they came, to the country beyond the Danube. Perseus, having got possession of the kingdom, ordered Antigonus to be put to death; and, until he could settle his affairs on a firm foundation, sent ambassadors to Rome, to renew the treaty concluded by his father, and to request the senate to give him the title of king. These were the transactions of that year in Macedon.
59 One of the consuls, Quintus Fulvius, triumphed over the Ligurians; which triumph, it was agreed, was granted rather to the greatness of his influence, than to that of his exploits. He carried in the procession a vast quantity of arms, taken from the enemy, but no money; yet he distributed to each soldier three hundred asses, double that sum to a centurion, triple it to a horseman. There was nothing in this triumph more remarkable, than that it happened to be celebrated on the same day of the year on which he had triumphed, after his prætorship, the year before. After the triumph he proclaimed the assembly of election, in which were chosen consuls, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Aulus Manlius Vulso. Afterwards, a storm interrupted the election of prætors, though three had been already elected; but on the following day, the fourth before the ides of March,[67] the other three were elected, Marcus Titinius Curvus, Tiberius Claudius Nero, and Titus Fonteius Capito. The Roman games were renewed by the curule ædiles, Cneius Servilius Cæpio, and Appius Claudius Centho, on account of the prodigies which had occurred. In the public forum, where a lectisternium was being celebrated, there was an earthquake, and the heads of the gods who were on the couches turned away their faces, and the cloak and robes placed on Jupiter fell off. It was also construed as a prodigy, that the mice gnawed the olives on the table. For the expiation of these, nothing more was done than repeating the celebration of the games.
BOOK XLI.
The sacred fire was extinguished in the temple of Vesta. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus conquered the Celtiberians and received their submission, and built the town Gracchuris in Spain, as a memorial of his exploits. The Vaccæans and Lusitanians also were subdued by the proconsul Postumius Albinus. Both generals triumphed. Antiochus, the son of Antiochus, having been delivered to the Romans by his father, as a hostage, on the death of his brother Seleucus, who had succeeded his father on his demise, being sent from Rome to the sovereignty of Syria, acted the part of a very worthless king, with the exception of his attention to religion, owing to which he erected many magnificent temples in various places; at Athens to Olympian, and at Antioch to Capitoline Jupiter. The lustrum was closed by the censors. Two hundred and sixty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-four citizens are said to have been rated. Quintus Voconius Saxa, tribune of the people, proposed a law, that no one should make a woman his heir. Marcus Cato advocated the law: his speech is extant. This book contains besides the successes against the Ligurians, Istrians, Sardinians, and Celtiberians, and the commencement of the Macedonian war, which Perseus, the son of Philip, was planning; for he had sent an embassy to the Carthaginians, which had been heard by them at night; and besides he was tampering with different states of Greece.[68]