Note 163 — BOOK II (continued 2)

Phylarchus, said by some to be a native of Athens, by others of Naucratis, and by others again of Sicyon, wrote, among other things, a history in twenty-eight books from the expedition of Pyrrhus into the Peloponnese (B.C. 272) to the death of Cleomenes. He was a fervent admirer of Cleomenes, and therefore probably wrote in a partisan spirit; yet in the matter of the outrage upon Mantinea, Polybius himself is not free from the same charge. See Mueller’s Histor. Graec. fr. lxxvii.-lxxxi. Plutarch, though admitting Phylarchus’s tendency to exaggeration (Arat. 38), yet uses his authority both in his life of Aratus and of Cleomenes; and in the case of Aristomachus says that he was both racked and drowned (Arat. 44).