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Fortune and Degeneracy of the Boeotians

Such being the state of Boeotian politics, it was only by extraordinary good fortune that they evaded destruction in the dangerous periods of the wars of Philip and Antiochus. But in the succeeding period they did not escape in the same way. Fortune, on the contrary, seemed determined to make them pay for their former good luck by a specially severe retribution, as I shall relate hereafter. . . .

Many of the Boeotians defended their alienation from

Antiochus received in Thebes, B. C. 192.
the Romans by alleging the assassination of Brachylles,1 and the expedition made by Flamininus upon Coronea owing to the murders of Romans on the roads.2 But the real reason was their moral degeneracy, brought about by the causes I have mentioned. For as soon as the king approached, the Boeotian magistrates went out to meet him, and after holding a friendly conversation with him conducted him into Thebes. . . .

1 Brachylles, when a Boeotarch in B. C. 196, was assassinated by a band of six men, of whom three were Italians and three Aetolians, on his way home from a banquet. Livy, 33, 28.

2 Livy, 33, 29.

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

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  • Cross-references to this page (1):
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CORONEIA
  • Cross-references in notes from this page (2):
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 33, 28
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 33, 29
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