In the year 622 from the founding of the City, Publius Licinius Crassus, consul and pontifex maximus, was sent with a most thoroughly equipped army against Aristonicus, the brother of Attalus, who had seized Asia, which had been handed over to the Romans by will;
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCXXII P. Licinius Crassus consul et pontifex maximus aduersus Aristonicum Attali fratrem, qui traditam per testamentum Romanis Asiam peruaserat, cum instructissimo missus exercitu,
and though he was aided besides by great kings — namely Nicomedes of Bithynia, Mithridates of Pontus and Armenia, Ariarathes of Cappadocia, and Pylaemenes of Paphlagonia — and by their very great forces, yet when battle was joined he was defeated;
2 praeterea a magnis regibus hoc est Nicomede Bithyniae, Mithridate Ponti et Armeniae, Ariarathe Cappadociae, Pylaemene Paphlagoniae eorumque maximis copiis adiutus, conserto tamen bello uictus est;
and when, after very great slaughter, his army had been put to flight and he himself was already surrounded by the enemy and almost captured, he drove the rod that he used on his horse into the eye of a Thracian; and the barbarian, blazing with anger and pain, ran Crassus through the side with his sword. Thus by a manner of death of his own devising he escaped both disgrace and slavery.
3 et cum, exercitu post plurimam caedem in fugam acto, ipse iam circumuentus ab hostibus et paene captus esset, uirgam, qua erat usus ad equum, in oculum Thraecis inpegit; barbarus autem cum ira et dolore exarsisset, latus Crassi gladio transuerberauit. ita ille excogitato genere mortis effugit et dedecus et seruitutem.
The consul Perperna, who had succeeded Crassus, on hearing of the death of Crassus and the slaughter of the Roman army, flew in haste into Asia, attacked Aristonicus, who was taking his ease after his recent victory, in a war he did not expect, and, stripping him of all his forces, put him to flight;
4 Perpenna consul, qui Crasso successerat, audita morte Crassi et clade exercitus Romani raptim in Asiam peruolauit, Aristonicum recenti uictoria feriatum inprouiso bello adortus nudatumque omnibus copiis in fugam uertit;
and having invested with a siege the city of Stratonicea, to which he had fled, he forced him, wasted by famine, to surrender. The consul Perperna was seized by illness at Pergamum and died; Aristonicus was strangled in prison at Rome by order of the senate.
5 cumque Stratonicen urbem, ad quam ille confugerat, obsidione cinxisset, trucidatum fame ad deditionem coegit. Perpenna consul apud Pergamum correptus morbo diem obiit; Aristonicus Romae iussu senatus in carcere strangulatus est.
In the same year the wretched life of Ptolemy, king of the Alexandrians, brought forth an end more wretched than his life. For his own sister, whom he had first known in debauchery and then taken in marriage, he at last cast off more shamefully than he had married her.1
6 Eodem anno Ptolemaei Alexandrinorum regis misera uita miseriorem uitae exitum dedit. is enim sororem suam stupro cognitam ac deinde in matrimonium receptam nouissime turpius quam duxit abiecit.
1Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (“Physcon”). The sister-wife was Cleopatra II, and the stepdaughter he married was her daughter Cleopatra III.
His stepdaughter — that is, the daughter of his sister and wife — he took as his wife, and he killed his own son, whom he had had by his sister, and his brother’s son as well. For this reason, execrable for such incests and parricides, he was driven from his kingdom by the Alexandrians.
7 priuignam uero suam, hoc est filiam sororis et coniugis, coniugem adsciuit, filium suum, quem ex sorore susceperat, nec non et filium fratris occidit. quamobrem tantis incestis parricidiisque exsecrabilis ab Alexandrinis regno pulsus est.
At the same time Antiochus, not content with Babylon and Ecbatana and the whole empire of Media, engaged Phraates, king of the Parthians, and was defeated. Though he appeared to have a hundred thousand armed men in his army, he was dragging along more than two hundred thousand camp-servants and sutlers, mingled with harlots and actors. And so he easily perished with his whole army, crushed by the might of the Parthians.2
8 Isdem temporibus Antiochus, non contentus Babylona atque Ecbatana totoque Mediae imperio, aduersus Phrahatem Parthorum regem congressus et uictus est. qui cum in exercitu suo centum milia armatorum habere uideretur, ducenta milia amplius calonum atque lixarum inmixta scortis et histrionibus trahebat. itaque facile cum uniuerso exercitu suo Parthorum uiribus oppressus interiit.
2Antiochus VII Sidetes, who fell fighting Phraates II of Parthia in 129 BC.
In the consulship of Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus and Marcus Acilius, Publius Scipio Africanus, who the day before had solemnly declared before the assembly the danger to his life — for he had learned that threats were being made against him by wicked and ungrateful men as he laboured for his country — was found lifeless in his bedchamber the next morning; and I would not be rash in counting this among the greatest evils of the Romans, especially since the vigour and moderation of Africanus carried such weight in that city that it was readily believed that, while he lived, neither a social nor a civil war could arise.3
9 C. Sempronio Tuditano et M. Acilio consulibus P. Scipionem Africanum pridie pro contione de periculo salutis suae contestatum, quod sibi pro patria laboranti ab improbis et ingratis denuntiari cognouisset, alio mane exanimem in cubiculo suo repertum non temere inter maxima Romanorum mala recensuerim, praesertim cum tantum in ea urbe Africani uigor et modestia ualeret, ut facile uiuo eo neque sociale neque ciuile bellum posse exsistere crederetur.
3The consul of 129 BC was Manius Aquillius; Orosius gives “M. Acilius.”
Some say that he was killed by the guile of his wife Sempronia, the sister of the Gracchi, so that that criminal family — born, as I believe, for the ruin of its country — should not fail, amid the impious seditions of its men, to be all the more monstrous through the crimes of its women as well.
10 hunc quidam uxoris suae Semproniae, Gracchorum autem sororis, dolo necatum ferunt, ne scelerata ut credo familia ad perniciem patriae suae nata inter impias seditiones uirorum non etiam facinoribus mulierum esset immanior.
In the consulship of Marcus Aemilius and Lucius Orestes, Etna, shaken by a vast tremor, overflowed with balls of fire; and again, on another day, the island of Lipara and the sea around it boiled so violently that it even dissolved scorched rocks, burned up the decks of ships by melting their wax, cooked the fish so that they floated up dead, and suffocated men too — all except those who were able to flee further off — their inner organs scorched by the hot air they breathed in and out.
11 M. Aemilio L. Oreste consulibus Aetna uasto tremore concussa exundauit igneis globis, rursusque alio die Lipara insula et uicinum circa eam mare in tantum efferbuit, ut adustas quoque rupes dissoluerit, tabulata nauium liquefactis ceris extorruerit, exanimatos pisces supernatantesque excoxerit, homines quoque, nisi qui longius potuere diffugere, reciprocato anhelitu calidi aeris adustis introrsum uitalibus suffocarit.