Poseidonios gemäß Athenaios von Naukratis 212f-213d:

Der Athener Athenion, ein peripatetischer Philosoph, fühlte sich als Nachfolger des Redners Demosthenes, und so wie dieser die Athener gegen Philipp von Makedonien mobilisieren wollte, hatte Athenion die Absicht, sie zur Teilnahme am Krieg des Mithridates gegen die Römer zu bewegen. Sulla hat 88 v.u.Z. diesem Vorhaben ein Ende gesetzt und Athen verwüstet. Die Rede des Athenion:

He mounted the rostrum built in front of the stoa of Attalus for the Roman praetors; he stood on it, looked round in a circle at the crowd, then raised his gaze and said, “Athenian people, although the situation and my country’s interest are driving me to report what I know, yet the sheer scale of what is to be said, because of the incredible nature of the state of affairs, holds me back.”

When there was a concerted shout of encouragement from the bystanders for him to speak on, “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you of what is beyond all belief, and never even imagined in our dreams. King Mithridates controls not only Bithynia and Upper Cappadocia, he controls the whole of Asia right through as far as Pamphylia an Cilicia. The kings of Armenia and Persia serve in his bodyguard, as do the princes of the tribes settled round Maiotis and the whole of Pontus to a circuit of 30,000 stades.

As for the Romans, the praetor of Pamphylia, Q. Oppius, had been surrendered to him and is led a prisoner in his train; the ex-consul, Manius Aquillius, the man who won a Sicilian triumph (1), bound by a long chain to a seven-foot Bastarnian, is dragged along on foot by a rider. Of the rest of the Romans, some have taken refuge in the temples, prostrate before the statues of the gods, and the rest have literally become turncoats, changing from the Roman toga back to the original square himation of the Greeks.

He is met by every city with superhuman honours, and called the god-king; oracles from all sides foretell his domination of the world. So too he is sending great armies into Thrace and Macedon, and all parts of Europe have changed in a body to his side. For he is receiving embassies not only from the Italian Nations, but from Carthaginians too (2), demanding alliance for the destruction of Rome.”

He paused a moment at this point, allowing the crowd to chatter about the unexpected news; then, rubbing his forehead, “So,” he said, “what is my advice? Don’t put up with the anarchy which the Roman senate has deliberately prolonged for us until it makes a decision as to how we must be governed. And let us not stand idle while our sacred places are locked, the gymnasia squalid through disuse, the theatre without an assembly, and the courts without a voice, and the Pnyx, hallowed by the oracles of the gods, taken away from the Athenian people. And let us not stand idle, Athenian people, while the sacred voice of Iacchus is silent, and the holy shrine of the two goddesses closed, and the schools of the philosophers without a voice.”

Die nach der anschließenden Wahl beginnende tyrannische Herrschaft des Athenion läßt Poseidonios bzw. Athenaios das Sprichwort zitieren: „μὴ παιδὶ μάχαιραν – Gib einem Kind kein Schwert“.

[Posidonius, Vol. III – The Translation of the Fragments. Ed. by I. G. Kidd. Cambridge 1999, pp. 325 sq.]

(1) wegen der Niederschlagung eines Sklavenaufstands
(2) Karthago war bereits 146 v.u.Z. zerstört worden.