Ἄτταλος

A king, brother of Eumenes,¹ to whom no other external resource² was available for the purpose of kingship, but only wealth, which, when handled with intelligence and daring, truly offers great utility for every initiative, but without the aforesaid things has for most men become the partial cause of misfortunes and, in short, of destruction. For it gives birth both to feelings of envy and to plots, and exercises great influence in the direction of corruption of body and soul; and there are [only] a few particular souls³ able to repulse these things by the power of wealth. But he undertook to use his resources for no other end than kingly acquisition,⁴ than which nothing greater or finer can be mentioned. He put in place the beginning of the aforesaid initiative not only through his beneficence and generosity towards his friends, but also through his deeds in wartime.⁵ For having reigned and lived for two and seventy years, and having reigned for forty-four of these,⁶ he lived his life with extreme moderation and respectfulness towards his wife and children, and preserved his faith to all his allies and friends, and died in the midst of his finest deeds.⁷ And he so arranged his rule that the kingship was handed on to his children's children without internecine strife.⁸ This Attalos, upon inheriting power, first brought forth a demonstration of his policy and power of action by restoring Ariarathes to the kingship.⁹
[Note] that [when] Attalos, husband of Apollonia↗ [and] king of Asia, departed this life, the Pythia was proved right about him, for in delivering an oracle to Attalos the Great she said, 'Be of good heart, bull-horned one. You shall have kingly honour, and your children's children, though their children after them shall not'.¹⁰