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The People of Psophis Surrender

Having thus carried the place, the Macedonians at once
Surrender of the citadel of Psophis.
plundered all the furniture of the houses; and then, setting up their quarters in the houses, took regular possession of the town. But the people who had taken refuge in a body in the citadel, having no provisions with them, and well foreseeing what must happen, made up their minds to give themselves up to Philip. They accordingly sent a herald to the king; and having received a safe-conduct for an embassy, they despatched their magistrates and Euripidas with them on this mission, who made terms with the king by which the lives and liberties of all who were on the citadel, whether citizens or foreigners, were secured. The ambassadors then returned whence they came, carrying an order to the people to remain where they were until the army had marched out, for fear any of the soldiers should disobey orders and plunder them. A fall of snow however compelled the king to remain where he was for some days; in the course of which he summoned a meeting of such Achaeans as were in the army, and after pointing out to them the strength and excellent position of the town for the purposes of the present war, he spoke also of his own friendly disposition towards their nation: and ended by saying, "We hereby yield up and present this town to the Achaeans; for it is our purpose to show them all the favour in our power, and to omit nothing that may testify to our zeal." After receiving the thanks of Aratus and the meeting, Philip dismissed the assembly, and getting his army in motion, marched towards Lasion. The Psophidians descending from the citadel received back the possession of the town, each man recovering his own house; while Euripidas departed to Corinth, and thence to Aetolia. Those of the Achaean magistrates who were present put Prolaus of Sicyon in command of the citadel, with an adequate garrison; and Pythias of Pallene in command of the town. Such was the end of the incident of Psophis.

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

Robert B. Strassler provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry, Running heads in Walbank's reprint have been converted to chapter titles, and titles have been added, usually from the marginal notes, for chapters without them. Some pages have notes of the form "line X: A should read B," which I believe are Walbank's; they have "resp=fww". Summaries of missing sections are encoded as inline notes with "resp=ess." A very few unidentified quotations are marked in notes with "resp=aem" (the markup editor) Citations are marked using Perseus abbreviations. and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

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hide References (3 total)
  • Cross-references to this page (3):
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LA´SION
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PSOPHIS
    • Smith's Bio, Euri'pidas
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