Each King Exhorts His Army
The two armies having been drawn up in the order I
note
have described; the kings went along their
respective lines, and addressed words of encouragement and exhortation to their officers
and friends. But as they both rested their
strongest hopes on their phalanx, they showed their greatest
earnestness and addressed their strongest exhortations to them;
which were re-echoed in Ptolemy's case by Andromachus and
Sosibius and the king's sister Arsinoe; in the case of Antiochus
by Theodotus and Nicarchus: these officers being the commanders of the phalanx in the two armies respectively. The
substance of what was said on both sides was the same: for
neither monarch had any glorious or famous achievement of
his own to quote to those whom he was addressing, seeing that
they had but recently succeeded to their crowns; but they
endeavoured to inspire the men of the phalanx with spirit
and boldness, by reminding them of the glory of their ancestors,
and the great deeds performed by them. But they chiefly
dwelt upon the hopes of advancement which the men might
expect at their hands in the future; and they called upon and
exhorted the leaders and the whole body of men, who were
about to be engaged, to maintain the fight with a manly and
courageous spirit. So with these or similar words, delivered
by their own lips or by interpreters, they rode along their lines.
