35.16
.Minnio apologised for the
non-appearance of the king and the negotiations proceeded in his absence.
Minnio opened the discussion in a carefully prepared speech, in which he
said: "I see that you Romans claim the fair-sounding epithet of 'Liberators of
the cities of Greece.' But your acts do not correspond to your words; you lay
down one law for Antiochus, and another for yourselves. For how are the
inhabitants of Smyrna and Lampsacus more Greek than those of Neapolis
and Regium and Tarentum, from whom you demand tribute and ships by
virtue of your treaty with them? Why do you send year by year a quaestor
with full powers of life and death to Syracuse and the other Greek cities of
Sicily? The only reason that you could give would, of course, be that you
imposed these terms upon them after subjugating them by force. Then accept
the same reason from Antiochus in the case of Smyrna and Lampsacus and
the cities of Ionia and Aeolis. They were conquered by his ancestors and
made to pay tribute and taxes, and he claims the rights which have come
down to him from ancient times. I should be glad, therefore, if you would
answer him on these points, if, that is, you are prepared to discuss them
fairly, and are not simply seeking a pretext for war."
Sulpicius replied: "If these are the only arguments that can be
advanced in support of his case, Antiochus has shown a discreet modesty in
letting them be brought forward by anybody rather than by himself. For what
possible resemblance can there be between the circumstances of the two
groups of cities which you have mentioned? From the day when Regium,
Tarentum, and Neapolis passed into our hands we have demanded the
fulfilment of their treaty obligations by an unbroken tenor of right which has
always been asserted and never intermitted. Those communities have never,
either of themselves or through anyone else, made any change in those
obligations; would you venture to assert that the same holds good of the
cities of Asia, and that after once becoming subject to the ancestors of
Antiochus they have remained in the uninterrupted possession of your
monarchy? Can you deny that some of them have been subject to Philip,
others to Ptolemy, others again have for many years enjoyed an
independence which no one has ever challenged? Granting that they at some
time or other under the pressure of misfortune lost their freedom, does that
give you the right after so many ages to claim them as your vassals? If so,
we accomplished nothing when we delivered Greece from Philip; his
successors can reassert their right to Corinth, Chalcis, and the whole of
Thessaly. But why do I defend the cause of States which they themselves
should more properly defend in the hearing of the king and themselves?"
