Opening The Histories (Books XXVIII–XXXIX) — Polybius in Plato Scroll… Continue →
Polybius · Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (1889)
When the war between the kings Antiochus and Ptolemy for the possession of Coele-Syria had just begun, Meleager, Sosiphanes, and Heracleides came as ambassadors from Antiochus, and Timotheos and Damon from Ptolemy. The one actually in possession of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia was Antiochus; for ever since his father’s victory over the generals of Ptolemy at Panium all those districts had been subject to the Syrian kings. Antiochus, accordingly, regarding the right of conquest as the strongest and most honourable of all claims, was now eager to defend these places as unquestionably belonging to himself: while Ptolemy, conceiving that the late king Antiochus had unjustly taken advantage of his father’s orphan condition to wrest the cities in Coele-Syria from him, was resolved not to acquiesce in his possession of them. Therefore Meleager and his colleagues came to Rome with instructions to …
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