44.15
According to Claudius no reply was
vouchsafed to them, but the decree of the senate was read over, in which the
people of Rome made an order that Caria and Lycia should be free States,
and it was decided that this decree should be at once transmitted to both
nations. On hearing this the leader of the legation, whose boastful language
the House had a few moments before hardly been able to endure, fell down
in a state of collapse. Other writers assert the reply they received was to the
following effect: At the outset of the war the Roman people had ascertained
on trustworthy evidence that the Rhodians had been forming secret designs
in conjunction with Perseus against the Republic, and if there had been any
doubt as to this before, the language of the envoys had now reduced it to a
certainty. Dishonest dealing, even if at the beginning it has been somewhat
cautious, generally betrays itself in the long run. The Rhodians were now
acting as arbitrators of peace and war over the whole world; the Romans
were to take up and lay down their arms at the beck and nod of Rhodes; it
was no longer the gods who were to be invoked as the witnesses and
guardians of treaties, but the Rhodians. Was this really so? Unless they
obeyed the orders of Rhodes and withdrew their armies from Macedonia,
were the Rhodians going to consider what steps to take? What steps they
would take the Rhodians knew best, but the people of Rome would consider,
after Perseus had been crushed, and they hoped that time was not far off,
what recompense they should make to each State according to its deserts in
that war. However, a present of 2000 ases was sent to each of the delegates,
but they refused to accept it.
