45.29
Aemilius gave notice for the councils of
ten from all the cities to assemble at Amphipolis and to bring with them all
archives and documents wherever they were deposited, and all the money
due to the royal treasury. When the day arrived he advanced to the tribunal,
where he took his seat with the ten commissioners, surrounded by a vast
concourse of Macedonians. Though they were accustomed to the display of
royal power, this novel assertion of authority filled them with fear; the
tribunal, the clearing of the approach to it through the mass of people, the
herald, the apparitor, all these were strange to their eyes and ears and might
even have appalled allies of Rome, to say nothing of a vanquished enemy.
After the herald had called for silence Paulus, speaking in Latin, explained
the arrangements decided upon by the senate and by himself in concert with
the ten commissioners; Cnaeus Octavius, who was also present, translated
the address into Greek. First of all it was laid down that the Macedonians
were to be a free people, possessing their cities and fields as before, enjoying
their own laws and customs and electing their annual magistrates. They were
to pay to Rome half the tribute which they had been paying to the king.
Secondly, Macedonia was to be broken up into four separate cantons. The
first would embrace the district between the Strymon and the Nessus, and in
addition, beyond the Nessus to the east, the forts, towns and villages which
Perseus had held, with the exception of Aenus, Maronea and Abdera, and
beyond the Strymon to the west the whole of Bisaltica together with
Heraclea, which district the natives call Sintice. The second canton would be
bounded on the east by the Strymon, exclusive of Sintice, Heraclea and
Bisaltica; and on the west by the Axius, including the Paeonians, who dwelt
to the east of the Axius. The third division would be the district enclosed
between the Axius on the east and the Peneus on the west; the Bora range
shuts it in on the north. This canton was increased by the addition of the part
of Paeonia which extends westwards beyond the Axius; Edessa and Beroea
were assigned to this division. The fourth canton lay on the other side of the
Bora range, bordering Illyria on the one side and Epirus on the other.
Aemilius then designated the capital cities where the councils were
to be held in the different cantons; Amphipolis was fixed for the first,
Thessalonica for the second, Pella for the third, and Pelagonia for the fourth.
There the councils for each canton were to be summoned, the tribute
deposited, and the annual magistrates elected. His next announcement was
that all intermarriage between the inhabitants of the different cantons was
forbidden, as also the possession of land or houses in more than one canton.
The gold and silver mines were not allowed to be worked, but permission
was given in the case of the iron and copper mines. Those working the mines
would have to pay one half of the royalty which they had paid to the king.
The use of imported salt was also forbidden. The Dardanians were laying
claim to Paeonia on the ground that it once belonged to them, and they had a
common frontier; the consul told them in reply that he was granting political
liberty to all who had been under the rule of Perseus. As he had refused them
Paeonia he granted them the right to purchase salt and ordered the third
canton to carry its salt to Stobi, fixing, at the same time, the price at which it
was to be sold. He forbade the Macedonians either to cut timber for
ship-building themselves or to allow others to do so. He gave permission to
those cantons whose frontiers were contiguous to those of the barbarians to
maintain armed forces on their borders.