_When Philip had ordered the children of those whom he had put to death, to be sought after as hostages, Theoxena, fearing the king’s passion for her own children and those of her sister, who were still quite young, brought forward swords and a cup in which there was poison, and persuaded them to escape, by putting an end to their existence, the mockery that awaited them; after administering which advice, she in company with her husband plunged headlong from the ship into the sea. The quarrels between Perseus and Demetrius, the sons of Philip, king of Macedon, are related; and how that Demetrius was first assailed by accusations invented through his brother’s guile, and among the rest, an impeachment for parricide and aspiring to the throne, and at last, since he was the friend of the Roman people, cut off by poison; and the kingdom of Macedon, on the death of Philip, fell to Perseus. It contains likewise the exploits successfully achieved by very many commanders in Liguria, and against the Celtiberians in Spain. Under the Janiculum, in the field of L. Petillius, the secretary, the books of Numa Pompilius were found by the labourers of the field, enclosed in a stone chest, written in both Latin and Greek characters; in which, when the prætor, to whom they had been brought, had read very many things calculated to overthrow the present system of religion, he swore to the senate that their being read and preserved would be detrimental to the state. And by a decree of the senate they were burned in the Comitium. The colony of Aquilia was planted. Philip, worn out by the pangs of conscience, because, influenced by the false information of his other son Perseus, he had by poison removed from life’s scene his son Demetrius, both resolved on the punishment of Perseus and desired to leave his friend Antigonus, rather than him, as his successor. But, whilst forming this project, he was hurried off by death. Perseus received the kingdom._