Scopas in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

An Aetolian, who held a leading position among his countrymen at the period of the outbreak of the war with Philip and the Achaeans (B.C. 220). He commanded the Aetolian army in the first year of the war; and he is mentioned again as general of the Aetolians, when the latter people concluded an alliance with the Romans to assist them against Philip (211 B.C.) (Livy, xxxvi. 24). After the close of the war with Philip, Scopas and Dorimachus were appointed to reform the Aetolian constitution (204 B.C.). Scopas had only undertaken the charge from motives of personal ambition; on finding himself disappointed in this object, he withdrew to Alexandria. Here he was received with the utmost favour by the ministers of the young king, Ptolemy V., and appointed to the chief command of the army against Antiochus the Great. At first he was successful, but was afterwards defeated by Antiochus at Panium, and reduced to shut himself up within the walls of Sidon, where he was ultimately compelled by famine to surrender (Joseph. Ant. xii. 3.3). Notwithstanding this ill success he continued in high favour at the Egyptian court; but having formed a plot in 296 to obtain by force the chief administration of the kingdom, he was arrested and put to death (Polyb. xiii. 1; xvi. 18, 39).