The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Polybius

Three or four days after the death of Ptolemy Philopator, having caused a platform to be erected in the largest court of the palace,B.C. 205. The death of Ptolemy Philopator announced, and Epiphanes crowned. Agathocles and Sosibius summoned a meeting of the foot-guards and the household, as well as the officers of the infantry and cavalry. The assembly being formed, they mounted the platform, and first of all announced the deaths of the king and queen, and proclaimed the customary period of mourning for the people. After that they placed a diadem upon the head of the child, Ptolemy Epiphanes, proclaimed him king, and read a forged will, in which the late king nominated Agathocles and Sosibius guardians of his son. They ended by an exhortation to the officers to be loyal to the boy and maintain his sovereignty. They next brought in two silver urns, one of which they declared contained the ashes of the king, the other those of Arsinoe. And in fact one of them did really contain the king’s ashes, the other was filled with spices. Having done this they proceeded to complete the funeral ceremonies. It was then that all the world at last learnt the truth about the death of Arsinoe. For now that her death was clearly established, the manner of it began to be a matter of speculation. Though rumours which turned out to be true had found their way among the people, they had up to this time been disputed; now there was no possibility of hiding the truth, and it became deeply impressed in the minds of all. Indeed there was great excitement among the populace: no one thought about the king; it was the fate of Arsinoe that moved them. Some recalled her orphanhood; others the tyranny and insult she had endured from her earliest days; and when her miserable death was added to these misfortunes, it excited such a passion of pity and sorrow that the city was filled with sighs, tears, and irrepressible lamentation. Yet it was clear to the thoughtful observer that these were not so much signs of affection for Arsinoe as of hatred towards Agathocles.

The first measure of this minister, after depositing the urns in the royal mortuary, and giving orders for the laying aside of mourning,Agathocles propitiates the army and gets rid of the rivals. was to gratify the army with two months’ pay; for he was convinced that the way to deaden the resentment of the common soldiers was to appeal to their interests. He then caused them to take the oath customary at the proclamation of a new king; and next took measures to get all who were likely to be formidable out of the country. Philammon, who had been employed in the murder of Arsinoe, he sent out as governor of Cyrene, while he committed the young king to the charge of Oenanthe and Agathocleia. Next, Pelops the son of Pelops he despatched to the court of Antiochus in Asia, to urge him to maintain his friendly relations with the court of Alexandria, and not to violate the treaty he had made with the young king’s father. Ptolemy, son of Sosibius, he sent to Philip to arrange for a treaty of inter-marriage between the two countries, and to ask for assistance in case Antiochus should make a serious attempt to play them false in any matter of importance.

He also selected Ptolemy, son of Agesarchus, as ambassador to Rome: not with a view of his seriously prosecuting the embassy, but because he thought that, if he once entered Greece, he would find himself among friends and kinsfolk, and would stay there; which would suit his policy of getting rid of eminent men. Scopas the Aetolian also he sent to Greece to recruit foreign mercenaries, giving him a large sum in gold for bounties. He had two objects in view in this measure: one was to use the soldiers so recruited in the war with Antiochus; another was to get rid of the mercenary troops already existing, by sending them on garrison duty in the various forts and settlements about the country; while he used the new recruits to fill up the numbers of the household regiments with new men, as well as the pickets immediately round the palace, and in other parts of the city. For he believed that men who had been hired by himself, and were taking his pay, would have no feelings in common with the old soldiers, with whom they would be totally unacquainted; but that, having all their hopes of safety and profit in him, he would find them ready to co-operate with him and carry out his orders.

Now all this took place before the intrigue of Philip, though it was necessary for the sake of clearness to speak of that first, and to describe the transactions which took place, both at the audience and the dispatch of the ambassadors.

To return to Agathocles: when he had thus got rid of the most eminent men, and had to a great degree quietedThe debauchery of Agathocles. the wrath of the common soldiers by his present of pay, he returned quickly to his old way of life. Drawing round him a body of friends, whom he selected from the most frivolous and shameless of his personal attendants or servants, he devoted the chief part of the day and night to drunkenness and all the excesses which accompany drunkenness, sparing neither matron, nor bride, nor virgin, and doing all this with the most offensive ostentation. The result was a widespread outburst of discontent; and when there appeared no prospect of reforming this state of things, or of obtaining protection against the violence, insolence and debauchery of the court, which on the contrary grew daily more outrageous, their old hatred blazed up once more in the hearts of the common people, and all began again to recall the misfortunes which the kingdom already owed to these very men. But the absence of any one fit to take the lead, and by whose means they could vent their wrath upon Agathocles and Agathocleia, kept them quiet. Their one remaining hope rested upon Tlepolemus, and on this they fixed their confidence.

As long as the late king was alive Tlepolemus remained in retirement; but upon his death he quickly propitiated the common soldiers,Tlepolemus, governor of Pelusium, determines to depose Agathocles, B.C. 205-204. and became once more governor of Pelusium. At first he directed all his actions with a view to the interest of the king, believing that there would be some council of regency to take charge of the boy and administer the government. But when he saw that all those who were fit for this charge were got out of the way, and that Agathocles was boldly monopolising the supreme power, he quickly changed his purpose; because he suspected the danger that threatened him from the hatred which they mutually entertained. He therefore began to draw his troops together, and bestir himself to collect money, that he might not be an easy prey to any one of his enemies. At the same time he was not without hope that the guardianship of the young king, and the chief power in the state might devolve upon him; both because, in his own private opinion, he was much more fit for it in every respect than Agathocles, and because he was informed that his own troops and those in Alexandria were looking to him to put an end to the minister’s outrageous conduct. When such ideas were entertained by Tlepolemus, it did not take long to make the quarrel grow, especially as the partisans of both helped to inflame it. Being eager to secure the adhesion of the generals of divisions and the captains of companies, he frequently invited them to banquets; and at these assemblies, instigated partly by the flattery of his guests and partly by his own impulse (for he was a young man and the conversation was over the wine), he used to throw out sarcastic remarks against the family of Agathocles. At first they were covert and enigmatic, then merely ambiguous, and finally undisguised, and containing the bitterest reflections. He proposed the health of the scribbler of pasquinades, the sackbut-girl and waiting-woman; and spoke of his shameful boyhood, when as cupbearer of the king he had submitted to the foulest treatment. His guests were always ready to laugh at his words and add their quota to the sum of vituperation. Agathocles will anticipate him. It was not long before this reached the ears of Agathocles: and the breach between the two thus becoming an open one, Agathocles immediately began bringing charges against Tlepolemus, declaring that he was a traitor to the king, and was inviting Antiochus to come and seize the government. And he brought many plausible proofs of this forward, some of which he got by distorting facts that actually occurred, while others were pure invention. His object in so doing was to excite the wrath of the common people against Tlepolemus. But the result was the reverse; for the populace had long fixed their hopes on Tlepolemus, and were only too delighted to see the quarrel growing hot between them. The actual popular outbreak which did occur began from the following circumstances. Nicon, a relation of Agathocles, was in the lifetime of the late king commander of the navy....

[26.] (a) Another murder committed by Agathocles was that of Deinon, son of Deinon. But this, as the proverb has it,A fragment from the earlier history of Agathocles. was the fairest of his foul deeds. For the letter ordering the murder of Arsinoe had fallen into this man’s hands, and he might have given information about the plot and saved the Queen; but at the time he chose rather to help Philammon, and so became the cause of all the misfortunes which followed; while, after the murder was committed, he was always recalling the circumstances, commiserating the unhappy woman, and expressing repentance at having let such an opportunity slip: and this he repeated in the hearing of many, so that Agathocles heard of it, and he met with his just punishment in losing his life....

THE DEATH OF AGATHOCLES AND HIS FAMILY

[26.] (b) The first step of Agathocles was to summon a meeting of the Macedonian guards.Agathocles pretends a plot of Tlepolemus against the king, B.C. 202. He entered the assembly accompanied by the young king and his own sister Agathocleia. At first he feigned not to be able to say what he wished for tears; but after again and again wiping his eyes with his chlamys he at length mastered his emotion, and, taking the young king in his arms, spoke as follows: “Take this boy, whom his father on his death-bed placed in this lady’s arms” (pointing to his sister) “and confided to your loyalty, men of Macedonia! That lady’s affection has but little influence in securing the child’s safety: it is on you that that safety now depends; his fortunes are in your hands. It has long been evident to those who had eyes to see, that Tlepolemus was aiming at something higher than his natural rank; but now he has named the day and hour on which he intends to assume the crown. Do not let your belief of this depend upon my words; refer to those who know the real truth and have but just come from the very scene of his treason.” With these words he brought forward Critolaus, who deposed that he had seen with his own eyes the altars being decked, and the victims being got ready by the common soldiers for the ceremony of a coronation.

When the Macedonian guards had heard all this, far from being moved by his appeal,Anger of the populace and soldiers against Agathocles. they showed their contempt by hooting and loud murmurs, and drove him away under such a fire of derision that he got out of the assembly without being conscious how he did it. And similar scenes occurred among other corps of the army at their meetings. Meanwhile great crowds kept pouring into Alexandria from the up-country stations, calling upon kinsmen or friends to help the movement, and not to submit to the unbridled tyranny of such unworthy men. But what inflamed the populace against the government more than anything else was the knowledge that, as Tlepolemus had the absolute command of all the imports into Alexandria, delay would be a cause of suffering to themselves.