Book Cleomenes
33.5
At the time this speech won for Cleomenes no little faith in his good will and belief in his strength; but afterwards, when Ptolemy’s weakness intensified his cowardice, and, as is wont to happen where there is no sound judgment, His best course seemed to him to lie in fearing everybody and distrusting all men, it led the courtiers to be afraid of Cleomenes, on the ground that he had a strong following among the mercenaries;
33.6
and many of them were heard to say: There goes the lion up and down along these sheep. And such, in fact, he clearly was among the courtiers, eyeing with quiet contempt and closely watching what was going on.
34.1
For ships, therefore, and an army, he gave up asking; but on learning that Antigonus was deadCf. chapter xxx. 2. and that the Achaeans were involved in a war with the Aetolians, and that affairs yearned and called for him now that Peloponnesus was rent asunder and in confusion, he demanded to be sent away with his friends merely; but he could persuade no one.
34.2
The king would not give him a hearing, but was absorbed with women and Dionysiac routs and revels; and Sosibius, the prime minister and chief counsellor, thought that if Cleomenes remained against his will he might be hard to manage, indeed, and an object of fear, but that if he were sent away he would make some bold attempt, being a man of large undertakings, and one who had been an eye-witness of the distempers of the realm.
34.3
For not even gifts would soften him, but just as the sacred bull Apis, though living in plenty and believed to be having a luxurious time, feels a desire for the life that was his by nature, for coursings without restraint, and leaps and bounds, and is manifestly disgusted with his treatment at the hands of the priests, so Cleomenes took no pleasure in his life of ease and luxury, but kept pining away in his dear heart, like Achilles, Iliad, i. 491 f. As he lingered there, and kept yearning for war-cry and battle.
