39. Many acts of sacrilege had been committed by Lysimachus in the city with the connivance of Menelaus. When word spread, the people assembled in protest against Lysimachus, because a large number of gold vessels had been stolen.
40. As the crowds, now thoroughly enraged, began to riot, Lysimachus launched an unjustified attack against them with about three thousand armed men under the leadership of a certain Auranus, a man as advanced in folly as he was in years.
41. Seeing Lysimachus’ attack, people picked up stones, pieces of wood or handfuls of the ashes lying there and threw them in wild confusion at Lysimachus and his men.
42. As a result, they wounded many of them and even killed a few, while they put all to flight. The temple robber himself they killed near the treasury.
43. Charges about this affair were brought against Menelaus.
44. When the king came to Tyre, three men sent by the senate pleaded the case before him.
45. But Menelaus, seeing himself on the losing side, promised Ptolemy, son of Dorymenes, a substantial sum of money if he would win the king over.
46. So Ptolemy took the king aside into a colonnade, as if to get some fresh air, and persuaded him to change his mind.
47. Menelaus, who was the cause of all the trouble, the king acquitted of the charges, while he condemned to death those poor men who would have been declared innocent even if they had pleaded their case before Scythians.
48. Thus, those who had prosecuted the case on behalf of the city, the people, and the sacred vessels, quickly suffered unjust punishment.