Y R. B.C. 585 cus, whom he had sent with orders to throw his money into 169 the sea and to burn his ships; because after the ships and money had been saved he knew that they were witnesses of his disgraceful panic and might tell others of it. And from that time, by a sudden change, he became cruel and reckless toward everybody. Nor did he show any soundness or wisdom of judgment thereafter, but he, who had before been most persuasive in council and shrewd in calculation and courageous in battle, barring his inexperience, when fortune began to change became suddenly and unaccountably timid and imprudent, as well as changeable and maladroit in all things. Thus we see many who lose their usual discretion when reverses come. 586 XVII. FROM "THE EMBASSIES " The Rhodians sent ambassadors to Marcius to congratulate him on the state of affairs in his war with Perseus. Marcius advised the ambassadors to persuade the Rhodians to send legates to Rome to bring about peace between the Romans and Perseus. When the Rhodians heard these things they changed their minds, thinking that the affairs of Perseus were not in such bad shape, for they could not imagine that Marcius would have given this advice without the concurrence of the Romans. But he did this and many other things on his own motion, by reason of cowardice. The Rhodians nevertheless sent ambassadors to Rome and others to Marcius. XVIII. FROM PEIRESC 1. Genthius, king of a tribe of Illyrians bordering on 168 Macedonia, having formed an alliance with Perseus in consideration of 300 talents, of which he had received a part down, made an attack upon Roman Illyria, and when the Romans sent Perpenna and Petilius as ambassadors to inquire about it, he put them in chains. When Perseus learned this he decided not to pay the rest of the money, thinking that now the Romans would make war on him for this outrage. He also sent legates to the Getæ on the other side of the Y.R. B.C. 586 Danube, and he offered money to Eumenes if he would come 168 over to his side, or negotiate for him a peace with Rome, or help neither party in the contest. He hoped either that Eumenes would do some one of these things, which could not be kept secret from the Romans, or that he should cause Eumenes to be suspected by the very attempt. Eumenes refused to come over to his side, and he demanded 1500 talents for negotiating a peace, or 1000 for remaining neutral. But now Perseus, learning that 10,000 foot and as many horse were coming to him as mercenaries from the Getæ, began forthwith to despise Eumenes, and said that he would pay nothing for his neutrality, for that would be a disgrace to both of them, but for negotiating a peace he would not fail to pay, and would deposit the money in Samothrace until the treaty was concluded, so fickle and penurious in all matters had he become in his infatuation. Nevertheless, one of the things that he hoped for took place: Eumenes fell under suspicion at Rome. 2. When the Getæ had crossed the Danube, it was claimed that there was due to Cloelius, their leader, 1000 gold staters and, also, ten to each horseman and five to each foot-soldier, the whole amounting to a little over 150,000 pieces of gold. Perseus sent messengers to them bearing military cloaks, gold necklaces, and horses for the officers, and 10,000 staters. When he was not far from their camp he sent for Cloelius. The latter asked the messengers whether they had brought the gold, and when he learned that they had not, he ordered them to go back to Perseus. When Perseus learned this, he was again misled by his evil genius, and complained among his friends of the fickleness. and bad faith of the Getæ, and pretended to be afraid to receive 20,000 of them in his camp. He said that he could hardly subdue 10,000 of them if they should rebel. 3. While saying these things to his friends, he offered other fictions to the Getæ and asked for half of their force, promising to give them the gold that he had on hand-so inconsistent was he, and so anxious about the money that he had ordered to be thrown into the sea a little while before. Cloelius, seeing the messengers returning, asked in a loud voice whether they had brought the gold, and when they wanted to talk about something else he ordered them Y.R. B. C. 586 to speak of the gold first. When he learned that they did 168 not have it, he led his army home without waiting to hear another word from them. Thus Perseus deprived himself of this powerful force of auxiliaries, which had opportunely arrived. He was so foolish, also, that while wintering with a large army at Phila he made no incursion into Thessaly, which furnished supplies to the Romans, but sent a force to Ionia to prevent the bringing of supplies to them from that quarter. XIX. FROM THE SAME Some divinity was jealous of the prosperity of Paulus when he had reached such a pinnacle of fortune. Of his four sons he gave the two elder, Maximus and Scipio, for adoption into other families. The two younger ones died, one of them three days before his triumph and the other five days after it. Paulus alluded to this among other things in his address to the people. When he came to the forum to give an account of his doings, according to the custom of generals, he said, "I sailed from Brundusium to Corcyra in one day. Five days I was on the road from Corcyra to Delphi, where I sacrificed to the god. In five days more I arrived in Thessaly and took command of the army. Fifteen days later I overthrew Perseus and conquered Macedonia. All these strokes of good fortune coming so rapidly led me to fear the approach of some calamity to the army or to you. When the army was made safe, I feared for you on account of the invidiousness of fate. Now that the calamity falls upon me, in the sudden loss of my two sons, I am the most unfortunate of men for myself, but free from anxiety as to you." Having spoken thus, Paulus became the object of universal admiration, and commiseration on account of his children; and he died not long after. VOL. I-S BOOK X THE ILLYRIAN WARS CHAPTER I Origin of the Illyrians - The Vengeance of Apollo - First Contact with the Romans 1. THE Greeks call those people Illyrians who occupy the region beyond Macedonia and Thrace from Chaonia and Thesprotia to the river Ister (Danube). This is the length of the country. Its breadth is from Macedonia and the mountains of Thrace to Pannonia and the Adriatic and the foot hills of the Alps. Its breadth is five days' journey and its length thirty- so the Greek writers say. The Romans measured the country and found its length to be upward of 6000 stades and its width about 1200. 2. They say that the country received its name from Illyrius, the son of Polyphemus; for the Cyclops Polyphemus and his wife, Galatea, had three sons, Celtus, Illyrius, and Galas, all of whom migrated from Sicily; and the nations called Celts, Illyrians, and Galatians took their origin from them. Among the many myths prevailing among many peoples this seems to me the most plausible. Illyrius had six sons, Encheleus, Autarieus, Dardanus, Mædus, Taulas, and Perrhæbus, also daughters, Partho, Daortho, Dassaro, and others, from whom sprang the Taulantii, the Perrhæbi, the Enchelees, the Autarienses, the Dardani, the Partheni, the Dassaretii, and the Darsii. Autarieus had a son Pannonius, or Pæon, and the latter had sons, Scordiscus and Triballus, from whom nations bearing similar names were derived. But I will leave these matters to the archæologists. 3. The Illyrian tribes are many, as is natural in so ex tensive a country; and celebrated even now are the names of the Scordisci and the Triballi, who inhabited a wide region and destroyed each other by wars to such a degree that the remnant of the Triballi took refuge with the Getæ on the other side of the Danube, and, though flourishing until the time of Philip and Alexander, is now extinct and its name scarcely known in the regions once inhabited by it. The Scordisci, having been reduced to extreme weakness in the same way, and having suffered much at a later period in war with the Romans, took refuge in the islands of the same river. In the course of time some of them returned and settled on the confines of Pannonia, and thus it happens that a tribe of the Scordisci still remains in Pannonia. In like manner the Ardiæi, who were distinguished for their maritime power, were finally destroyed by the Autarienses, whose land forces were stronger, but whom they had often defeated. The Liburni, another Illyrian tribe, were next to the Ardiæi as a nautical people. These committed piracy in the Adriatic Sea and islands with their light, fast-sailing pinnaces, from which circumstance the Romans to this day call their own light, swift biremes liburnicas. 4. The Autarienses were overtaken with destruction by the vengeance of Apollo. Having joined Molostimus and the Celtic people called Cimbri in an expedition against the temple of Delphi, the greater part of them were destroyed by storm, hurricane, and lightning just before the sacrilege was committed. Upon those who returned home there came a countless number of frogs, which filled the streams and polluted the water. The noxious vapors rising from the ground caused a plague among the Illyrians which was especially fatal to the Autarienses. At last they fled from their homes, and as the plague still clung to them (and for fear of it nobody would receive them), they came, after a journey of twenty-three days, to a marshy and uninhabited district of the Getæ, where they settled near the Bastarnæ. The god visited the Celts with an earthquake and overthrew their cities, and did not abate the calamity until these also fled from their abodes and made an incursion into Illyria among their fellow-culprits, who had been weakened by the plague. While robbing the Illyrians they |