39.33
The
commissioners who had been sent to adjust the differences between Philip
and Eumenes and the cities in Thrace had given in their report, and at the
commencement of the year, the consuls introduced the envoys from the two
monarchs and the cities to the senate. The same arguments as had been used
before the commissioners in Greece were repeated on both sides. The senate
decreed that a fresh commission should go to Greece and Macedonia to find
out whether the cities had been given back to the Thessalians and
Perrhaebians. Instructions were also given that the garrisons should be
withdrawn from Aenus and Maronea, and that the whole of the Thracian
sea-board should be cleared of Philip and his Macedonians. The
commissioners were further ordered to visit the Peloponnese which the
former commission had left in a more unsatisfactory situation than if they
had not gone there, for they had come away without receiving any
assurances, and the council of the Achaean League had refused their request
for an interview. Q. Caecilius complained in very strong terms of their
conduct, and the Lacedaemonians at the same time deplored the razing of
their walls, the removal of the population as slaves into Achaia, and the
abolition of the laws of Lycurgus, on which up to that day the stability of
their State had rested. The Achaeans met the charge of refusing to convene
their council by quoting the law which forbade the summoning of a council
except where the question was one of peace or war, or when delegates came
from the senate with despatches or written instructions. That they might not
have that excuse for the future, the senate pointed out to them that it was
their duty to see that Roman envoys had at all times an opportunity of
approaching their council, just as an audience of the senate was granted to
them whenever they wished for one.
