Murder of Apollonides At Sparta
About the same time king Ptolemy, wishing to make
Ptolemy Epiphanes sends a present to the Achaeans. Lycortas, Polybius, and Aratus sent to return thanks, B.C. 181. |
friends with the Achaean league, sent an ambassador to them with an offer of a fleet of ten
penteconters fully equipped; and the Achaeans,
thinking the present worthy of their thanks, for
the cost could not be much less than ten talents,
gladly accepted the offer. Having come to this
resolution, they selected Lycortas, Polybius, and
Aratus, son of Aratus of Sicyon, to go on a
mission to the king, partly to thank him for the arms which
he had sent on a former occasion, and partly to
receive the ships and make arrangements for
bringing them across.
They appointed Lycortas, because, as
Strategus at the time that Ptolemy renewed the alliance, he
had worked energetically on the king's side; and Polybius,
though below the legal age for acting as ambassador,
1 because, as
his father has been ambassador at the renewal of the alliance
with Ptolemy, and had brought the present of arms and of
money to the Achaeans; and Aratus, similarly,
on account of his former intercourse with the
king.
Ptolemy Epiphanes poisoned in B. C. 181. |
However, this mission never went after
all, as Ptolemy died just at this time. . . .