Polybius, Histories

---

The Ptolemies Ask Help From Achaia

In the Peloponnesus a mission arrived before the end

Autumn of B.C. 169.

of the winter from the two kings, Ptolemy (Philometor) and Ptolemy (Physcon), asking for help. This gave rise to repeated and animated discussions. The party of Callicrates and Diophanes were against granting the help; while Archon, Lycortas, and Polybius were for sending it to the kings in accordance with the terms of their alliance. For by this time it had come to pass that the younger Ptolemy had been proclaimed king by the people (at Alexandria), owing to the danger which threatened them; and that the elder had subsequently returned from Memphis, and was reigning jointly with his sister. As they stood in need of every kind of assistance, they sent Eumenes and Dionysodorus to the Achaeans, asking a thousand foot and two hundred horse, with Lycortas to command the foot and Polybius the horse. They sent a message also to Theodoridas of Sicyon, urging him to hire them a thousand mercenaries. For the kings chanced to have become intimately acquainted with these particular men, owing to the transactions I have related before. The ambassadors arrived when the Achaean congress was in session in Corinth. They therefore came forward, and after recalling the many evidences of friendship shown by the Achaeans to the kingdom of Egypt, and describing to them the danger in which the kings then were, they entreated them to send help. The Achaeans generally were ready enough to go to the help of the kings (for both now wore the diadem and exercised regal functions), and not only with a detachment, but with their full levy.

Winter of B.C. 169-168.

But Callicrates and his party spoke against it; alleging that they ought not to meddle in such affairs at all, and certainly not at that time, but should reserve their undivided forces for the service of Rome. For there was a general expectation just then of a decisive battle being fought, as Q. Philippus was wintering in Macedonia.