24.28
As
affairs were in such a disturbed condition it was decided to hold an assembly.
Here the most divergent views were expressed and things seemed to be
approaching an outbreak of civil war when one of their foremost citizens,
Apollonides, rose and made what was under the circumstances a wise and
patriotic speech. "No city," he said, "has ever had a brighter prospect of
permanent security or a stronger chance of being utterly ruined than we have
at the present moment. If we are all agreed in our policy, whether it take the
side of Rome or the side of Carthage, no state will be in a more prosperous
and happy condition; if we all pull different ways, the war between the
Carthaginians and the Romans will not be a more bitter one than between the
Syracusans themselves, shut up as they are within the same walls, each side
with its own army, its own munitions of war, its own general. We must then
do our very utmost to secure unanimity. Which alliance will be the more
advantageous to us is a much less important question, and much less
depends upon it, but still I think that we ought to be guided by the authority
of Hiero in choosing our allies rather than by that of Hieronymus; in any case
we ought to prefer a tried friendship of fifty years' standing to one of which
we now know nothing and once found untrustworthy. There is also another
serious consideration -we can decline to come to terms with the
Carthaginians without having to fear immediate hostilities with them, but
with the Romans it is a question of either peace or an immediate declaration
of war." The absence of personal ambition and party spirit from this speech
gave it all the greater weight, and a council of war was at once summoned,
in which the praetors and a select number of senators were joined by the
officers and commanders of the auxiliaries. There were frequent heated
discussions, but finally, as there appeared to be no possible means of
carrying on a war with Rome, it was decided to conclude a peace and to
send an embassy along with the envoys who had come from Marcellus to
obtain its ratification.
