University of Virginia Library

34.57

After the consuls had raised the necessary troops and left for their provinces, T. Quinctius requested the senate to listen to his report of the arrangements which he had made in concert with the ten commissioners, and if they thought good to ratify and confirm them. They would, he said, be in a better position to do this if they heard the statements of the envoys who had come from every State in Greece as well as those who had come from the three kings. These deputations were introduced to the senate by the City praetor, Caius Scribonius, and they all met with a favourable reception. As the negotiations with Antiochus were somewhat protracted they were entrusted to the ten commissioners, some of whom had been with the king either in Asia or in Lysimachia. T. Quinctius was authorised to hear the envoys in the presence of the commissioners and make such a reply as was consistent with the interests and the honour of the Roman people. Menippus and Hegesianax were the leaders of the embassy, and the former was the spokesman. He professed himself at a loss to understand what difficulty or complications his mission could create as he had simply come to ask that friendly relations might be established and an alliance formed. There were three kinds of treaties by means of which States and monarchs came to terms with one another. In one case the conditions were dictated to those who had been vanquished in war, for when everything had been surrendered to the one who was the stronger in arms he had the absolute right to say what they might retain and of what they were to be deprived. In the second case powers who have been equally matched in war form a league of peace and amity on equal terms, for then they arrive at a mutual understanding in respect of claims for indemnity, and where proprietorship has been disturbed by the war, matters are adjusted either in accordance with the former legal status or as is most convenient to the contracting parties. The third class of treaties comprises those made by States which have never been enemies and who unite in forming a league of friendship; no conditions are either imposed or accepted, for these only exist between victors and vanquished. It was this latter kind of league that Antiochus was seeking, and he (the speaker) was surprised that the Romans should think it just and fair to impose conditions upon the king as to which of the cities in Asia they decided should be free and autonomous and which should pay tribute, and in the case of some forbidding the king to garrison them. These were terms on which to make peace with Philip their enemy, not a treaty of alliance with Antiochus, who was their friend.