Diodorus Siculus, III. 43.
440
Appian, Preface, § 10. – In 537, at Raphia, the Egyptian army amounted to 70,000 foot, 5,000 cavalry, and 73 elephants. (Polybius, V. 79; see also V. 65.) – Polybius, who gives us these details, adds that the pay of the officers was one mina (97 francs [£3 17s. 7d.]) a day. (XIII. ii.)
441
Theocritus, Idylls, XVII. lines 90-102. – Athenæus (V. 36, p. 284) and Appian, Preface, § 10, give the details of this fleet. – Ptolemy IV. Philopator went so far as to construct a ship of forty ranges of rowers, which was 280 cubits long and 30 broad. (Athenæus, V. 37, p. 285.)
442
Herodotus, IV. 199. The plateau of Barca, now desert, was then cultivated and well watered.
443
The most important object of commerce of the Cyrenaica was the silphium, a plant the root of which sold for its weight in silver. A kind of milky gum was extracted from it, which served as a panacea with the apothecaries and as a seasoning in the kitchen. When, in 658, Cyrenaica was incorporated with the Roman Republic, the province paid an annual tribute in silphium. Thirty pounds of this juice, brought to Rome in 667, were regarded as a miracle; and when Cæsar, at the beginning of the civil war, seized upon the public treasury, he found in the treasury chest 1,500 pounds of silphium locked up with the gold and silver. (Pliny, XIX. 3.)
444
Diodorus Siculus, III. 49. – Herodotus, IV. 169. – Athenæus, XV. 22, p. 487; 38, p. 514. – Strabo, XVII. iii. 712. – Pliny, Natural History, XVI. 33; XIX. 3.
445
Pindar, Pythian Odes, IV. 2. – Athenæus, III. 58, p. 392.
446
Diodorus Siculus, XVII. 49.
447
Aristotle, Politics, VII. 2, § 10.
448
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XIII. 12, § 2, 3.
449
Ælian, History of Animals, V. lvi. – Eustathius, Comment. on Dionysius Periegetes, 508, 198, edit. Bernhardy.
450
Strabo, XIV. 6. – Pliny, Natural History, XXXIV. 2.
451
Virgil, Æneid, I. 415. – Statius, Thebais, V. 61.
452
Strabo, X. 4.
453
Polybius, XIII. 8.
454
Cretan mercenaries are found in the service of Flamininus in 557 (Titus Livius, XXXIII. 3), in that of Antiochus in 564 (Titus Livius, XXXVII. 40), in that of Perseus in 583 (Titus Livius, XLII. 51), and in the service of Rome in 633.
455
Iliad, II. 656.
456
Polybius, XXX. 7, year of Rome 590.
457
Strabo, XIV. 2. The town of Rhoda in Spain, establishments in the Baleares, Gela in Sicily, Sybaris and Palæopolis in Italy, were Rhodian colonies.
458
This happened especially at the epoch when the famous Colossus of Rhodes fell, and when the town was violently shaken by an earthquake. Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, and Seleucus, king of Syria, sent succours to the Rhodians. (Polybius, V. 88, 89.)
459
We see, in fact, with what care the Rhodians spared their allies on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus. (Polybius, XXVII. 6.)
460
Polybius, IV. 38.
461
Strabo, VII. 4.
462
Titus Livius, XXXIII. 18.
463
During the siege of Rhodes, Demetrius had formed the design of delivering to the flames all the public buildings, one of which contained the famous painting of Ialysus, by Protogenes. The Rhodians sent a deputation to Demetrius to ask him to spare this masterpiece. After this interview, Demetrius raised the siege, sparing thus at the same time the town and the picture. (Aulus Gellius, XV. 31.)
464