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Distrust between Philip and the Rhodians

The Prytanies of Rhodes were now distrustful of Philip, owing to his treacherous policy in Crete,1 and they began to Suspect that Heracleides was his agent.

But Heracleides came before them and explained the reasons which had caused him to

The false pretences of Heracleides at Rhodes.
fly from Philip. . . .

Philip was anxious above everything that the Rhodians should not discover his purpose in these transactions; whereby he succeeded in freeing Heracleides from suspicion.

Nature, as it seems to me, has ordained that Truth should be a most mighty goddess among men, and has endowed her with extraordinary power.

Magna est veritas.
At least, I notice that though at times everything combines to crush her, and every kind of specious argument is on the side of falsehood, she somehow or another insinuates herself by her own intrinsic virtue into the souls of men. Sometimes she displays her power at once; and sometimes, though obscured for a length of time, she at last prevails and overpowers falsehood. Such was the case with Heracleides when he came from king Philip to Rhodes.2 . . .

Damocles, who was sent with Pythio as a spy upon the Romans, was a person of ability, and possessed of many endowments fitting him for the conduct of affairs. . . .

1 The Rhodians had proclaimed war against the Cretan pirates. Philip had secretly commissioned one of his agents, the Aetolian Dicaearchus, to aid the Cretans. Diodor. fr. xxviii.

2 Heracleides having gained credence at Rhodes by pretending to betray Philip's intrigue with the Cretans, waited for an opportunity, and, setting fire to their arsenal, escaped in a boat. Polyaen. 5, 17, 2.

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