Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

As he was sailing away from Sicily after his failure there, [*](In 276 B.C.) he turned to look back, and said to his friends, What a field of conflict are we leaving behind us for the Romans and Carthaginians to wrestle in! [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus, chap. xxiii. (398 F).)

When the soldiers addressed him as Eagle, he said, Why not an eagle, when I am borne aloft on the swift wings of your weapons ? [*](Ibid. chap. x. (388 B).)

Hearing that some young men had made many defamatory remarks about him while in their cups, he ordered that they should all be brought before him the next day. When they were brought, he asked the first whether they had said these things about him. And the young man replied, Yes, Your Majesty; and we should have said more than that if we had had more wine. [*](Told with more details by Plutarch in his Life of Pyrrhus, chap. viii. (387 F), and Valerius Maximus, v. 1. ext. 3. Cf. also Quintilian, vi. 3. 10.)

Antiochus, who made his next [*](The first campaign was against Jerusalem in 133 B.C.) campaign against the Parthians, in a hunt and chase wandered away from his friends and servants, and unrecognized entered the hut of some poor people. At dinner he brought in the subject of the king, and heard that, in general, he was a decent man, but that he entrusted most matters to friends who were scurvy fellows, and overlooked and often disregarded matters that were imperative through being too fond of hunting. At the time he said nothing; but at daybreak some of his bodyguards arrived at the hut, and his identity was disclosed when the purple and the crown were brought to him. Howbeit, said he, since the day when I donned you, yesterday was the first time that I heard true words about myself.

The Jews, when he was besieging Jerusalem, asked for an armistice of seven days for their most important festival, and he not only granted this, but he also made ready bulls with gilded horns, and a great quantity of incense and spices, and brought all these in solemn procession as far as the gates. Then, having transferred the offering to the hands of their priests, he returned to his camp. The Jews were amazed, and immediately after the festival placed themselves in his hands.[*](The same facts are narrated by Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, xiii. 8. 2.)

Themistocles while yet in his youth abandoned himself to wine and women.[*](Cf. Moralia, 552 B; Athenaeus, pp. 533 D and 576 C.) But after Miltiades,