[314] Livy, 22, 58-61.
[315] κακοὶ κακῶς, a phrase at once insulting and vulgar.
[316] Plutarch, Aratus, ch. 48.
[317] βαλανάγρας. The βαλανάγρα was a straight piece of wood with upright pins corresponding with those that fall into the bolt (the βάλανοι), and which are pushed up by it. It was thus used as a key which could be taken out and kept by the Commandant, as in Herod. 3, 155; Thucyd. 2, 4. But Polybius here seems to use it as equivalent to βάλανος. See Aeneas, Tact. 18-20, who recommends that the μόχλος should be sheeted with iron to prevent this very operation. Cp. 4, 57. What he means by ζύγωμα on the outside (here translated “fastenings”) is also somewhat doubtful. From Hesychius, s.v. ἐπιξευκτήρ, it might be conjectured that chains of some kind were intended. Casaubon supposed it to be a cross bar similar to the μόχλος inside, and Schw. to represent the posts and the lintel connecting them.
[318] See 5, [37]. According to Phylarchus the murder of Archidamus was against the wish of Cleomenes. Plut. Cleom. 5.
[319] To which proceedings may be referred a sentence of Polybius preserved by Suidas, s.v. διεσκευασμένην—“They send out certain Cretans, as though on a raid, giving them a sham despatch to carry.” See Livy, 24, 30-31.
[321] σκορπίδια, mentioned among a number of similar engines in 1 Macc. 6, 51. Plutarch calls them σκορπίοι, and explains that they only carried a short distance, but, being concealed, gave wounds at close quarters; hence, doubtless, their name.
[322] See also Athenaeus, 4, 166-167. Theopompus of Chius was a contemporary of Philip II. and Alexander, having been born about B.C. 376-372.
[323] The accusation of administering slow poisons is a very common one, as readers of mediæval history know. But the ignorance of the conditions of health was too great to allow us to accept them without question. It is doubtful whether drugs, acting in this particular way, were known to the ancients; and certainly spitting blood would be no conclusive evidence of the presence of poison. See Creighton’s History of the Papacy, vol. iv. Append.