34.58
The
following was Quinctius' reply: "Since it pleases you to draw these
distinctions and to enumerate the various ways in which friendly relations
can be established, I too will lay down the two conditions apart from which,
you may tell your king, no friendship with Rome can be established. One is
this -if he does not wish us to concern ourselves with the cities of Asia, he
must himself keep his hands off every part of Europe. The other is this -if
instead of confining himself within the frontiers of Asia he crosses over into
Europe, the Romans will be perfectly justified in protecting their friendship
with those cities where it exists and in winning new ones." Hegesianax
replied: "Surely it is an unworthy suggestion to say that Antiochus is
excluded from the cities of Thrace and the Chersonese which his
great-grandfather Seleucus won most gloriously after defeating Lysimachus,
who fell in the battle, and some of which Antiochus himself recovered by
force of arms from the Thracians who had taken possession of them, whilst
others which had been deserted, like Lysimachia, he repeopled with tillers of
the soil, and where they had been burnt or laid in ruin he rebuilt them at a
vast expense. What resemblance could there be between the renunciation by
Antiochus of his right to cities which had been acquired or recovered in this
way and the non-interference of the Romans in Asia, which had never
belonged to them? Antiochus was asking for the friendship of Rome, but it
was such a friendship as would bring him honour, not shame." On this
Quinctius observed: "As it is a question of honour -a question which ought
to be the sole, or at all events the primary, one for the foremost nation in the
world and for a monarch so great as yours, which course appears to you the
more honourable, to desire the freedom of all the Greek cities wherever they
are or to keep them tributary and in bondage? If Antiochus thinks that he is
acting honourably in claiming the lordship of cities which his
great-grandfather held by the right of war, a right which his father and
grandfather never asserted, the Roman people also consider that their sense
of honour and consistency forbid them to abandon their championship of the
liberties of Greece. As they liberated Greece from Philip, so it is their
intention to liberate the Greek cities in Asia from Antiochus. Colonies were
not founded in Aeolis and Ionia to be in bondage to monarchs, but that their
stock might multiply and a nation of ancient lineage be propagated
throughout the world."
