37.4
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).
37.5
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).
37.6
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 Antiochus VII., king of Syria, 137-128 B.C.
38.1
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.