Then Heracleides entered the Senate, bringing Laodice and Alexander with him.Laodice and Alexander Balas. See ch. [15]. The youthful Alexander first addressed the Senate, and begged the Romans “to remember their friendship and alliance with his father Antiochus, and if possible to assist him to recover his kingdom; or if they could not do that, at least to give him leave to return home, and not to hinder those who wished to assist him in recovering his ancestral crown.” Heracleides then took up the word, and, after delivering a lengthy encomium on Antiochus, came to the same point, namely, that they ought in justice to grant the young prince and Laodice leave to return and claim their own, as they were the true-born children of Antiochus. Sober -minded people were not all attracted by any of these arguments. They understood the meaning of this theatrical exhibition, and made no secret of their distaste for Heracleides. But the majority had fallen under the spell of Heracleides’s cunning, and were induced to pass the following decree: The Senate’s decree in favour of Alexander and Laodice. “Alexander and Laodice, children of a king, our friend and ally, appeared before the Senate and stated their case; and the Senate gave them authority to return to the kingdom of their forefathers; and help, in accordance with their request, is hereby decreed to them.” Seizing on this pretext, Heracleides immediately began hiring mercenaries, and calling on some men of high position to assist him. He accordingly went to Ephesus and devoted himself to the preparations for his attempt.[215]...
[19.] Demetrius, who, when residing as a hostage at Rome, had fled and become king in Syria,Demetrius’s intemperance. was a man so much addicted to drunkenness that he spent the greater part of the day in drinking....
[20.] When once the multitude feel the impulse to violent love or hatred of any one, any pretext is good enough for indulging their feelings....
However, I am afraid I may fall under the common dilemma, “Which is the greater fool, the man who milks a he-goat, or the man who holds a sieve to catch the milk?” For I seem to be doing something of this sort in arguing and writing an essay on what every one acknowledges to be false. It is, then, waste time to speak of such things, unless one cares to write down dreams, or look at dreams with one’s eyes open....
BOOK XXXIV
GEOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENTS
Polybius devoted one book of his history to a separate treatise on the geography of the continents. Strabo, 9, 1, 1.
[1.] In their Greek histories Eudoxus gave a good, but Ephorus the best, account of the foundations, blood connexions, migrations, and founders of states; but I shall now give some information on the position of countries and their distances, which are the subjects most properly belonging to the science of Geography....