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Updated: May 8, 2025
So, whilst Apollonides, in great delight, and after him many others, were relating to Demetrius the kind expressions of Seleucus, and he, after so many troubles and calamities, if indeed he had still any sense of his surrender of himself being a disgrace, had now, in confidence on the good hopes held out to him, entirely forgotten all such thoughts, Pausanias, with a guard of a thousand horse and foot, came and surrounded him; and, dispersing the rest that were with him, carried him, not to the presence of Seleucus, but to the Syrian Chersonese, where he was committed to the safe custody of a strong guard.
As he was bathing, he remembered Statyllius, and called out aloud, "Apollonides, have you tamed the high spirit of Statyllius, and is he gone without bidding us farewell?" "No," said Apollonides, "I have said much to him, but to little purpose; he is still resolute and unalterable, and declares he is determined to follow your example."
This man Cato entreated to embark, for he was notoriously a hater of Cæsar; and-when he would not go, Cato looking on Apollonides the Stoic and Demetrius the Peripatetic said "It is your business to soften this stubborn man and to fashion him to his own interests."
In Scythia, also, according to Apollonides, there were women of this class, "quoe vocantur Bithyoe"; and Phylarchus says that in Pontus there was a tribe, called the Thibii, and many others, of the same nature and having the same powers. The testimony of Algazeli is to the same effect; and he adds, that these fascinators have a peculiar power over women.
While affairs were in this unsettled state, it was resolved to call an assembly; in which, when some leaned to one side and some to the other, and an insurrection being on the point of breaking out, Apollonides, one of the nobles, delivered a speech fraught with salutary advice, considering the critical state of affairs: "Never," he said, "had a state a nearer prospect of safety and annihilation.
And yet you scout our exhortations to resistance, again advising us to go and plead for indulgence! My friends, such a Greek as this man, disgraces not only his own city, but all Greece besides. Let us banish him from our councils, cashier him, and make a slave of him to carry baggage." Apollonidês was degraded accordingly.
LXIX. As he said this the youth went out weeping, and all the rest, except Demetrius and Apollonides, to whom when they were left by themselves Cato begun to speak in milder terms, and said, "I suppose you too have resolved by force to keep alive a man of my age and to sit here in silence and to watch him, or are you come to prove that it is neither a shocking nor a shameful thing for Cato, when he has no other way to save his life, to wait for mercy from his enemy?
Callias took him further yet, to the home of the hermaphrodites; Nymphodorus showed him a race of fascinators who used enchanted words. With Apollonides he encountered women who killed with their eyes those on whom they looked too long. Megasthenes guided him to the Astomians, whose garments were the down of feathers, and who lived on the scent of the rose.
Finally he spared the Olynthians, who appointed Lasthenes to command their horse, and expelled Apollonides! It is folly and cowardice to cherish such hopes, and, while you take evil counsel and shirk every duty, and even listen to those who plead for your enemies, to think you inhabit a city of such magnitude, that you can not suffer any serious misfortune.
After Hieronymus, the Syracusan tyrant, was put to death, there being at that time a great war between the Romans and the Carthaginians, the citizens of Syracuse fell to disputing among themselves with which nation they should take part; and so fierce grew the controversy between the partisans of the two alliances, that no course could be agreed on, and they took part with neither; until Apollonides, one of the foremost of the Syracusan citizens, told them in a speech replete with wisdom, that neither those who inclined to hold by the Romans, nor those who chose rather to side with the Carthaginians, were deserving of blame; but that what was utterly to be condemned was doubt and delay in taking one side or other; for from such uncertainty he clearly foresaw the ruin of their republic; whereas, by taking a decided course, whatever it might be, some good might come.
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