Death of Megaleas
Presently the ambassadors of Rhodes and Chios
note
returned from Aetolia. They had agreed to a
truce of thirty days, and asserted that the
Aetolians were ready to make peace: they had
also arranged for a stated day on which they
claimed that Philip should meet them at Rhium;
undertaking that the Aetolians would be ready
to do anything on condition of making peace. Philip accepted
-- 384 -- the truce and wrote letters to the allies, bidding
them send assessors and commissioners to discuss the terms
with the Aetolians; while he himself sailed
from Lechaeum and arrived on the second day
at Patrae. note Just then certain letters were sent to
him from Phocis, which Megaleas had written
to the Aetolians, exhorting them not to be frightened, but to
persist in the war, because Philip was in extremities through a
lack of provisions. Besides this the letters contained some
offensive and bitter abuse of the king. As soon as he had
read these, the king feeling no doubt that Apelles was the
ringleader of the mischief, placed him under a guard and despatched him in all haste to Corinth, with his son and favourite
boy; while he sent Alexander to Thebes to arrest Megaleas,
with orders to bring him before the magistrates to answer to
his bail. When Alexander had fulfilled his commission,
Megaleas, not daring to await the issue, committed suicide: and about the same time
Apelles, his son and favourite boy, ended their lives also. note Such
was the end of these men, thoroughly deserved in every way,
and especially for their outrageous conduct to Aratus.
