Kitap 27
18
While Attalus was spending the winter in Elateia (in Attalus desires that his brother Eumenes should be restored to honour in the Peloponnese. Phocis), knowing that his brother Eumenes was annoyed in the highest possible degree at the splendid honours which had been awarded to him having been annulled by a public decree of the Peloponnesians, though he concealed his annoyance from every one,—he took upon himself to send messages to certain of the Achaeans, urging that not only the statues of honour, but the complimentary inscriptions also, which had been placed in his brother’s honour, should be restored. His motive in acting thus was the belief that he could give his brother no greater gratification, and at the same time would display to the Greeks by this act his own brotherly affection and generosity.Hence Attalus obtained the name of Philadelphus. The origin of Eumenes’s loss of popularity in the Peloponnese is referred to in 28, 7, but no adequate cause is alleged. A reference to Achaia in his speech at Rome was not perhaps altogether friendly (Livy, 42, 12), and we shall see that he was afterwards suspected of intriguing with Perseus; but if this extract is rightly placed, it can hardly be on this latter ground that the Achaeans had renounced him. . . .
19
When Antiochus saw that the government of Alexandria was openly making preparations for a war Preparations for the attack upon Coele-Syria by the ministers of Ptolemy Philometor. of annexation in Coele-Syria, he sent Meleager at the head of an embassy to Rome, with instructions to inform the Senate of the fact, and to protest that Ptolemy was attacking him without the least justification. . . .
20
In all human affairs perhaps one ought to regulate every undertaking by considerations of time; but this is especially true in war, in which a moment makes all the difference between success and failure, and to miss this is the most fatal of errors. . . .
