Prusias

, a king of Bithynia, who flourished 221 B.C.――Another, surnamed Venator , who made an alliance with the Romans when they waged war with Antiochus king of Syria. He gave a kind reception to Annibal, and by his advice he made war against Eumenes king of Pergamus, and defeated him. Eumenes, who was an ally of Rome as well as Prusias, complained before the Romans of the hostilities of the king of Bithynia. Quinctius Flam in i us was sent from Rome to settle the disputes of the two monarchs, and he was no sooner arrived in Bithynia, than Prusias, to gain his favour, prepared to deliver to him, at his request, the celebrated Cart hag in i an, to whom he was indebted for all the advantages which he had obtained over Eumenes; but Annibal prevented it by a voluntary death. Prusias was obliged by the Roman amba ador to make a restitution of the provinces he had conquered, and by his meanne he continued to enjoy the favours of the Romans. When some time after he visited the capital of Italy, he appeared in the habit of a manumitted slave, calling himself the freedman of the Romans; and when he was introduced into the senate-house, he saluted the senators by the name of visible deities, of saviours and deliverers. Such abject behaviour rendered him contemptible not only in the eyes of the Romans, but of his subjects, and when he returned home the Bithynians revolted, and placed his son Nicomedes on the throne. The banished monarch fled to Nicomedia, where he was a a inated near the altar of Jupiter, about 149 years before Christ. Some say that his son became his murderer. Prusias, according to Polybius, was the meanest of monarchs, without honesty, without morals, virtue, or principle; he was cruel and cowardly, intemperate and voluptuous, and an enemy to all learning. He was naturally deformed, and he often appeared in public in the habit of a woman, to render his deformities more visible. Polybius. — Livy. — Justin , bk. 31 , . — Cornel i us Nepos , Hannibal .— Plutarch , Titus Flam in in us , .