University of Virginia Library

34.49

Quinctius was quite aware of their feelings on this question, and he frankly admitted that he would not have listened to any overtures of peace if this course would not have involved the destruction of Lacedaemon. As matters were, since Nabis could not be crushed without ruining a city of the first importance it seemed better to leave him weakened and almost entirely deprived of any power to injure others rather than allow this city to succumb from the effect of remedies too strong for it and perish in the very process of recovering its liberty. After this review of the past he went on to announce his intention of leaving for Italy, taking the whole of his army with him. He told them that in less than ten days they would hear that the troops in occupation of Demetrias and Chalcis had been withdrawn, and they would see with their own eyes Acrocorinthus evacuated and handed over to the Achaeans immediately. This would show the whole world whether it was the Romans who were in the habit of telling lies or the Aetolians, who in their public speeches had spread abroad the notion that it was a mistake to entrust their liberties to Rome and that they had only changed their Macedonian for Roman masters. But that people never cared in the least what they said or what they did. He advised the other States to measure their friends by their deeds and not by their words, and so learn whom to trust and whom to beware of. They must use their liberty in moderation; under proper restraints liberty was a blessing to individuals and communities alike; in excess it was a danger to others and led to recklessness and violence on the part of those who possessed it. The nobility, together with the various classes of society in the different cities, must study to preserve internal harmony, and the States as a whole must endeavour after mutual concord. As long as they were of one mind neither king nor tyrant would ever be strong enough to hurt them, but discord and sedition gave every advantage to those who were seeking to destroy their liberty, since the party which was worsted in a domestic struggle would rather join hands with a foreigner than submit to a fellow-citizen. It must be their care to defend and maintain the freedom which had been won for them by foreign arms and restored to them on the faith of a foreign power. Then the Roman people would know that the gift of liberty had been made to those who were worthy of it and that their boon had been well bestowed.