35.48
The
Aetolian agents who had been sent to Achaia were received in audience at a
council held at Aegium. Antiochus' envoy spoke first. Like most men who
are fed by royal bounty, he talked in a grandiloquent strain and filled sea and
land with the empty sound of his words. According to him, an innumerable
mass of cavalry was crossing the Hellespont into Europe; some were clad in
coats of mail, they were called "cataphracti"; others were bowmen, and
against them nothing was safe, their aim was surest when they were
galloping away from the enemy. Although this cavalry force alone could
overwhelm the massed armies of Europe, he went on to talk about bodies of
infantry many times as numerous and startled his hearers with names they
had hardly ever heard of -Dahae, Medes, Elymaeans and Cadusii. The naval
forces were such as no harbours in Greece could hold; the right division was
formed by the Sidonians and Tyrians; the left by the Aradii and Sidetae from
Pamphylia, nations which were unequalled in the whole world as skilful and
intrepid seamen. It was unnecessary, he continued, to refer to the money and
other provision for war, his hearers themselves knew how the realms of Asia
had always overflowed with gold. So the Romans would not have to do with
a Philip or a Hannibal, the one only the foremost man in a single city, the
other confined to the limits of his Macedonian kingdom, but with the Great
King who ruled over the whole of Asia and a part of Europe. And yet,
coming as he did from the remotest borders of the East to liberate Greece,
he asked for nothing from the Achaeans which could impair their loyalty to
Rome, their old friend and ally. He did not ask them to take up arms with
him against them, all he wanted was that they should stand aloof from both
sides. "Let your one wish and desire," he concluded, "as becomes common
friends, be that each may enjoy peace; if there is to be war do not become
involved in it." Archidamus, who represented the Aetolians, spoke to the
same effect and urged them to maintain a passive attitude as the easiest and
safest course, and, whilst watching the war as mere onlookers, wait for its
final result upon the fortunes of others without in any way hazarding their
own. Then his tongue ran away with him and he broke out into unrestrained
abuse of the Romans in general and in particular of Quinctius, reproaching
them with ingratitude and asserting that it was through the valour of the
Aetolians that they secured not only the victory over Pyrrhus, but even their
own safety, for it was the Aetolians who saved Quinctius and his army from
destruction. "What duty," he exclaimed, "incumbent on a commander has
that man ever discharged? I saw him, while the battle was going on, busy
with auspices, offerings and vows like some miserable priest, while I was
exposing myself to the enemy's weapons in his defence."
