[Sidenote: and the starving state of his army.]
+24.+ At the beginning of the winter in which Publius Sulpicius was
elected consul at Rome, king Philip, who was staying at Bargylia, was
rendered exceedingly uneasy and filled with many conflicting anxieties
for the future, when he observed that the Rhodians and Attalus, far
from dismissing their navy, were actually manning additional ships and
paying more earnest attention than ever to guarding the coasts. He
had a double cause, indeed, for uneasiness: he was afraid of sailing
from Bargylia, and foresaw that he would have to encounter danger
at sea; and at the same time he was not satisfied with the state of
things in Macedonia, and therefore was unwilling on any consideration
to spend the winter in Asia, being afraid both of the Aetolians and
the Romans; for he was fully aware of the embassies sent to Rome to
denounce him [as soon as it was known] that the war in Libya was ended.
These considerations caused him overwhelming perplexity; but he was
compelled for the present to remain where he was, leading the life of
a wolf, to use the common expression: for he robbed and stole from
some, and used force to others, while he did violence to his nature by
fawning on others, because his army was suffering from famine; and by
these means managed sometimes to get meat to eat, sometimes figs, and
sometimes nothing but a very short allowance of corn. Some of these
provisions were supplied to him by Zeuxis, and some by the people of
Mylae, Alabanda, and Magnesia, whom he flattered whenever they gave him
anything, and barked at and plotted against when they did not. Finally,
he made a plot to seize Mylae by the agency of Philocles, but failed
from the clumsiness with which the scheme was contrived. The territory
of Alabanda he harried as though it were an enemy’s, alleging that it
was imperatively necessary to get food for his troops....
When this Philip, father of Perseus, was thus overrunning Asia, being
unable to get provisions for his army, he accepted a present of figs
from the Magnesians, as they had no corn. For which reason, when he
conquered Myus, he granted its territory to the Magnesians in return
for their figs....
[Sidenote: The visit of Attalus to Athens, B.C. 200.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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