[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.
[176] From Athenaeus, xiv. 4, p. 615. It seems to be part of some strictures of Polybius on the coarseness of the amusements of the Romans. This noisy and riotous scene in a theatre would strike a Greek as barbarous and revolting; and may remind us of the complaints of the noise and interruption to their actors so often found in the prologues to the plays of Plautus and Terence. Though the substance of this extract is doubtless from Polybius, Athenaeus has evidently told the anecdote in his own language.
[177] Menalcidas was one of the Romanising party, who appears to have been Strategus of the league in B.C. 153 [Pausan. 7, 11, 7], and to have committed suicide in B.C. 148-147, in despair at his failure to wrest Sparta from the league.
[178] Haliartus had been taken by the praetor L. Lucretius Gallus in B.C. 171, its inhabitants sold into slavery, and its houses and walls entirely destroyed. Its crime was siding with Perseus. Livy, 42, 63. Supra bk. 27, ch. 5; 29, 12.
[179] A drachma may be taken as between a sixth and a seventh of an ounce.
[180] Hultsch prints in parallel columns the text of this fragment as it appears in Athenaeus and Diodorus. The English translation attempts to combine them.
[181] He means that, they being no longer able to decide in mercantile affairs independently of Rome, the prestige (προστασία), and consequently the popularity, of this harbour is destroyed.
[182] Demetrius had been exchanged for his uncle Antiochus Epiphanes in B.C. 175, just eleven years before.