45.23
"After
the final defeat of Philip and of Antiochus we received the most splendid
rewards from you. If the good fortune which, through the kindness of
heaven and your own courage, is now yours had fallen to the lot of Perseus
and we had gone to Macedonia to meet the victorious king and ask him for
rewards, what could we possibly say for ourselves? That he had received
assistance from us in money or corn? Or in naval and military contingents?
Or that we had held any fortified position for him? Or that we had fought
any battles for him either under his generals or on our own account? If he
were to ask where our soldiers were supplying his garrison or our ships
joining his fleet, we should, perhaps, make the same defence before the
victor that we are now making before you. This is what we have gained by
sending envoys to both parties to urge peace -we have won the gratitude of
neither, and from one side we have incurred suspicion and danger. And yet
Perseus truly might bring a charge against us which you, senators, cannot
bring. At the outset of the war we sent a deputation to promise assistance
with whatever was needful for the war, and to assure you that everything
was in readiness, our naval forces, our munitions of war, our fighting men,
just as in the former wars. It was owing to you that we did not supply them;
whatever the reason was, you refused our assistance. So then not only did
we show no hostility to you, but we were not lacking in our duty as faithful
allies, though you prohibited us from discharging it.
"Some one may say, 'What then? Has nothing been done or said in
your City which you disapproved of and which was such as to give just
offence to the people of Rome?' I am not here now to defend what has been
done -I am not so mad -but I shall draw a distinction between the cause of
the State as a whole and the guilty conduct of individual citizens. There is no
State which does not at some time possess bad citizens and at all times an
ignorant populace. I have heard that even amongst you there have been men
who made their way by flattering the mob, and that there have occasionally
been secessions of the plebs when the government was no longer in your
hands. If these things could happen in so well-ordered a State as this, can
any one feel surprised that there have been amongst us a few men who in
their desire to win the friendship of the king have led our plebs astray by
their evil counsels? All the same, they did not effect anything more than
make us slacken in our duty. I will not pass over what is the most serious
charge brought against us with regard to this war. We sent embassies to you
and to Perseus simultaneously to urge peace. This unfortunate policy has
been, as we have heard, held up as abject folly by a furious orator, who it is
admitted spoke in such a tone that he might have been C. Popilius, your
envoy, whom you commissioned to dissuade Antiochus and Ptolemy from
war. Still, whether we are to call it arrogance or folly, our policy towards
you was the same as towards Perseus.
"States, like individuals, have their distinctive characters, some are
hot-tempered, others bold and enterprising; some are of a timid disposition,
others more prone to sensual indulgence. The people of Athens are generally
reported to be quick and impulsive and venture upon enterprises beyond
their strength: the Lacedaemonians are said to be slow in action and only
with difficulty are they brought to engage in undertakings in which they feel
perfectly safe. I quite admit that Asia as a whole produces somewhat empty
heads and that the language of my countrymen is somewhat inflated because
we fancy ourselves superior to our neighbours. This in itself is due more to
the honours which you have judged us worthy to receive than to any
strength which we ourselves possessed. Surely that embassy was sufficiently
chastised when it was dismissed without any reply. If the humiliation then
inflicted was not enough, this embassy, at all events, with its piteous and
suppliant appeal will be an adequate atonement for an even more peremptory
set of negotiators than that one was. Arrogance, especially in language, is
bitterly resented by hot-tempered people and laughed at by sensible people,
particularly when shown by inferiors towards a superior, but no one has ever
regarded it as a capital offence. Possibly some one imagined that the
Rhodians felt a contempt for the Romans. Some men even abuse the gods in
presumptuous language, but we do not hear of any one being struck by
lightning for it.