37.35
A full
council assembled to hear what he had to say. The purport of his speech was
as follows: "Many embassies have passed to and fro on the question of
peace, and have been fruitless; I entertain strong hopes of gaining it from the
very fact that those negotiators gained nothing. For the difficulty in former
discussions was the position of Smyrna, Lampsacus, Alexandra Troas and
the European city of Lysimachia. Of these Lysimachia has already been
evacuated by the king, so that you cannot say that he holds anything in
Europe. He is prepared to give up those which are in Asia, and any others in
his dominions which the Romans wish to claim on the ground that they are
on the side of Rome. He is also prepared to pay half the cost of the war."
These were the proposed conditions of peace. In the rest of his speech he
advised the council to remember the uncertainty of human affairs, to make a
moderate use of their own good fortune, and not treat the misfortunes of
others oppressively. Let them limit their dominion to Europe, even that was
an immense empire; it was easier to extend it by single acquisitions than to
hold it together in its entirety. If, however, they wanted to annex some part
of Asia, provided it was defined by clearly ascertained boundaries, the king
would, for the sake of peace and concord, allow his own sense of
moderation and equity to give way before the Roman greed for territory.
These arguments in favour of peace, which the speaker thought so
convincing, the Romans regarded as so much trifling. They considered it
only just that the king, who was responsible for starting the war, should bear
the whole cost of it, and that his garrisons should be withdrawn, not only
from Ionia and Aeolis, but from all the cities in Asia, which should be as free
as all the liberated cities in Greece, and this could only be effected if
Antiochus surrendered all his Asiatic possessions west of the Taurus range.
