How matters stood in the country appears from a single accidentally
mentioned occurrence at Phacus, where the whole governing council
of one of these confederacies were murdered on the instigation of
one Damasippus. Neither the commissions sent by the senate (590),
nor the foreign arbiters, such as Scipio Aemilianus (603) called in
after the Greek fashion by the Macedonians, were able to establish
any tolerable order. Suddenly there appeared in Thrace a young man,
who called himself Philip the son of king Perseus, whom he strikingly
resembled, and of the Syrian Laodice. He had passed his youth
in the Mysian town of Adramytium; there he asserted that he had
preserved the sure proofs of his illustrious descent. With these
he had, after a vain attempt to obtain recognition in his native
country, resorted to Demetrius Soter, king of Syria, his mother's
brother. There were in fact some who believed the Adramytene or
professed to believe him, and urged the king either to reinstate
the prince in his hereditary kingdom or to cede to him the crown
of Syria; whereupon Demetrius, to put an end to the foolish proceedings,
arrested the pretender and sent him to the Romans. But the senate
attached so little importance to the man, that it confined him in an
Italian town without taking steps to have him even seriously guarded.
Thus he had escaped to Miletus, where the civic authorities once more
seized him and asked the Roman commissioners what they should do with
the prisoner. The latter advised them to let him go; and they did
so. He now tried his fortune further in Thrace; and, singularly
enough, he obtained recognition and support there not only from
Teres the chief of the Thracian barbarians, the husband of his
father's sister, and Barsabas, but also from the prudent Byzantines.
With Thracian support the so-called Philip invaded Macedonia, and,
although he was defeated at first, he soon gained one victory over
the Macedonian militia in the district of Odomantice beyond the Strymon,