Before Epigenes had even finished his speech, Hermeias flew into a passion and exclaimed that for long Epigenes had been in secret a plotter and a traitor to the kingdom,
but that now he had revealed his evil intentions by the advice he had offered, his design being to put the king's person undefended, except by a small force, at the mercy of the rebels.
For the present Hermeias contented himself with thus laying the train of the slander and did not further molest Epigenes, affecting to have been guilty rather of a mistimed outburst of ill-temper than to have shown a spirit of enmity.
The motives of the opinion he himself delivered were that he was disinclined owing to his lack of military experience to take the command in the campaign against Molon, as he dreaded the danger, while he was most anxious to take the field against Ptolemy, since he felt sure that the war there would be a safe one owing to that king's faineance.
On the present occasion he overawed the whole Council and appointing Xenon and Theodotus surnamed Hemiolius to the command of the force sent against Molon, continued to work upon the king, advising him to seize on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Coele-Syria&groupId=484&placeId=908">Coele-Syria</a>, thinking that thus only by involving the young prince in wars on every side he could secure immunity from punishment to his former malpractices and freedom in the continued exercise of his present authority, owing to the pressure of affairs and the constant struggles and perils that the king would have to face.
Finally, in pursuit of this purpose he forged and brought to the king a letter supposed to have been sent by Achaeus setting forth that Ptolemy urged him to usurp the government, promising to help all his undertakings with ships and money, once he assumed the diadem and claimed in the sight of all that sovereignty
which as a fact he now exercised, although scrupling to take the title and declining the crown which Fortune offered him.
The king quite taken in by this letter was ready and eager to invade <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Coele-Syria&groupId=484&placeId=908">Coele-Syria</a>.
Walbank Commentary