56. When Perseus was told that all was discovered, he was too powerful to think that flight was necessary. He only took care to keep out of the way, intending to guard himself, in the mean time, during the remainder of Philip’s life, from the flame, as it were, of his burning resentment; who, having lost hopes of subjecting the person of Perseus to punishment, meditated on this, as the last resource, that he would not, besides impunity, enjoy the reward of his wickedness also. Therefore he addresses himself to Antigonus, to whom he was obliged for the discovery of the fratricide; and whom he supposed the Macedonians, considering the fresh renown of his uncle Antigonus, would neither be ashamed nor displeased at having for their king. “Antigonus,” says he, “since I have been brought into such a situation that the being childless, a state which other parents reckon a curse, ought to be wished for by me, I am resolved to transfer to you the kingdom which I received from your uncle, and which his faithful and resolute guardianship not only preserved for me, but even enlarged. You are the only friend I have, whom I can judge worthy of the throne; and, if I had not one such, I should wish it to perish and become extinct, rather than be a prize to the treacherous villany of Perseus. I shall think Demetrius recalled from the dead, and restored to me, if I can leave you substituted in his room, who alone have wept for his innocent death, and for my unhappy error.” After this discourse he did not fail to advance him by conferring on him honours of every kind; and, as Perseus was absent in Thrace, he went round the cities of Macedon, and recommended Antigonus to the chief men; and, had his life been prolonged, there is no doubt but that he would have left him in possession of the throne. After leaving Demetrias, he staid a very long time at Thessalonica; and when he had gone thence to Amphipolis, he was there seized with a severe sickness. Yet it was evident that it was a disorder of the mind rather than of the body, and that, owing to his anxieties and want of sleep, for apparitions and phantoms of his innocent murdered son ever and anon disquieted him, he breathed his last uttering awful imprecations on the other. Nevertheless Antigonus might have been first acquainted with the death of the king, had it not been immediately divulged. Calligenes, the physician, who had the charge of his treatment, not expecting the king’s death, sent to Perseus, on the first appearance of desperate symptoms, messengers who had been previously stationed at different places; and till his arrival he concealed the death of the king from all but those who were in the palace.