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Plot to Kidnap a Roman Consul

Theodotus and Philostratus committed an act of flagrant impiety and treachery.
Coss. A. Hostilius Mancinus, A. Atilius Serranus, B. C. 170. Attempt of two Molossian leaders to seize the consul.
They learnt that the Roman consul Aulus Hostilius was on his way to Thessaly to join the army; and thinking that, if they could deliver Aulus to Perseus, they would have given the latter the strongest possible proof of their devotion, and have done the greatest possible damage to the Romans at this crisis, they wrote urgently to Perseus to make haste. The king was desirous of advancing at once and joining them; but he was hindered by the fact that the Molossians had seized the bridge over the Aous, and was obliged to give them battle first. Now it chanced that Aulus had arrived at Phanota,1 and put up at the house of Nestor the Cropian,2 and thus gave his enemies an excellent opportunity; and had not fortune interfered on his behalf, I do not think that he would have escaped. But, in fact, Nestor providentially suspected what was brewing, and compelled him to change his quarters for the night to the house of a neighbour. Accordingly he gave up the idea of going by land through Epirus, and, having sailed to Anticyra,3 thence made his way into Thessaly. . . .

1 In Phocis. The name was variously given as Phanoteis, Phanote, Phanota (Steph. Byz.）

2 Schweighaeuser seems to regard this as a second name. But the Greeks seldom had such, and it is more likely the designation of some unknown locality. There was an Attic deme named Cropia, and therefore the name is a recognised one (Steph. Byz.) Gronovius conjectured Ὀρωπίῳ "of Oropus."

3 Apparently the Anticyra on the Sperchius, on the borders of Achaia Phthiotis.

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

Robert B. Strassler provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry, Running heads in Walbank's reprint have been converted to chapter titles, and titles have been added, usually from the marginal notes, for chapters without them. Some pages have notes of the form "line X: A should read B," which I believe are Walbank's; they have "resp=fww". Summaries of missing sections are encoded as inline notes with "resp=ess." A very few unidentified quotations are marked in notes with "resp=aem" (the markup editor) Citations are marked using Perseus abbreviations. and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

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    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), APOLLO´NIA
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