Echecrates () was a
Thessalian military officer of
Ptolemy Philopator in the
Fourth Syrian War with
Antiochus the Great in 219 BC. Echecrates was employed in the levying of troops and their arrangement into separate companies. He was entrusted with the command of the Greek forces in Ptolemy's pay, and of all the mercenary cavalry. According to
Polybius
Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...
, he did good service in the war, especially at the
Battle of Raphia in 217 BC.
He is also known for kidnapping and raping a young maiden serving as the
oracle at Delphi, causing oracles serving thereafter to be older women who instead dressed youthfully.
[
]Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...
16.26.6.
References
*{{SmithDGRBM, author=EE, article=Echecrates, volume=2, page=2
Hellenistic Thessalians
Ptolemaic generals
3rd-century BC Greek people
Ancient Thessalian generals