The first measure of this minister, after depositing the urns in the royal mortuary, and giving orders for the laying aside of mourning, 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. [Sidenote: The debauchery of Agathocles.]