[7.] When he had by these means put the greater number of them out of the way, he next had constructed a kind of machine,Nabis’s wife. if machine it may be called, which was the figure of a woman, clothed in costly garments, and made to resemble with extraordinary fidelity the wife of Nabis. Whenever then he summoned one of the citizens with a view of getting some money from him, he used first to employ a number of arguments politely expressed, pointing out the danger in which the city stood from the threatening attitude of the Achaeans, and explaining what a number of mercenaries he had to support for their security, and the expenses which fell upon him for the maintenance of the national religion and the needs of the State. If the listeners gave in he was satisfied; but if they ever refused to comply with his demand, he would say, “Perhaps I cannot persuade you, but I think this lady Apéga will succeed in doing so.” Apéga was the name of his wife. Immediately on his saying these words, the figure I have described was brought in. As soon as the man offered his hand to the supposed lady to raise her from her seat, the figure threw its arms round him and began drawing him by degrees towards its breasts. Now its arms, hands, and breasts were full of iron spikes under its clothes. When the tyrant pressed his hands on the back of the figure, and then by means of the works dragged the man by degrees closer and closer to its breasts, he forced him under this torture to say anything. A good number of men who refused his demands he destroyed in this way.[53]
[8.] The rest of his conduct was on a par with this beginning. He made common cause with the Cretan pirates,The beginning of the war between Nabis and the Achaeans. and kept temple-breakers, highway-robbers, and murderers all over the Peloponnese; and as he shared in the profits of their nefarious trades, he allowed them to use Sparta as their base of operations. Moreover, about this time some visitors from Boeotia, who happened to be staying at Lacedaemon, enticed one of his grooms to make off with them, taking a certain white horse which was considered the finest in the royal stud. They were pursued by a party sent by Nabis as far as Megalopolis, where the tyrants found the horse and groom, and took them off without any one interfering. But they then laid hands on the Boeotians, who at first demanded to be taken before the magistrate; but as no attention was paid to the demand, one of them shouted out “Help!” Upon a crowd of the people of the place collecting and protesting that the men should be taken before the magistrate, Nabis’s party were obliged to let them go and retire. Nabis, however, had been long looking out for a ground of complaint and a reasonable pretext for a quarrel, and having seized on this one, he harried the cattle belonging to Proagoras and some others; which was a commencement of the war.[54]...
ANTIOCHUS IN ARABIA, B.C. 205-204
[9.] Labae, like Sabae, is a city of Chattenia, which is a territory of the Gerraei.... In other respects, Chattenia is a rugged country, but the wealth of the Gerraei who inhabit it has adorned it with villages and towers. It lies along the Arabian Sea, and Antiochus gave orders to spare it....
In a letter to Antiochus the Gerraei demanded that he should not destroy what the gods had given them—perpetual peace and freedom; and this letter having been interpreted to him he granted the request....
Their freedom having been confirmed to the Gerraei, they presented King Antiochus at once with five hundred talents of silver, one thousand of frankincense, and two hundred of oil of cinnamon, called stacte, all of them spices of the country on the Arabian Sea. He then sailed to the island of Tylos, and thence to Seleucia....