45.42
On
December 1, Cn. Octavius celebrated his naval victory over Perseus. That
triumph was without prisoners and without spoil. He gave each member of
the crews seventy-five denarii; to the pilots twice as much; and to the
captains four times as much. A meeting of the senate was then convened,
and the senators decided that Q. Cassius should conduct Perseus and his son
Alexander to Alba to remain there under guard. The king was allowed to
retain his suite, his money, his silver plate and his household effects. Bithys
the son of Cotys, king of the Thracians was sent, together with the hostages,
to Carseoli, to be interned there. The rest of the captives who had been led in
the triumphal procession were to be shut up in prison. A few days later a
deputation from Cotys arrived with a sum of money for the ransom of his
son and the other hostages. They were admitted to an audience of the senate,
and they especially urged that it was not of his own will that Cotys had
assisted Perseus; he had been compelled to give hostages, and they implored
the senate to allow them to be ransomed at such a figure as the senate should
fix. The senate instructed the praetor to tell them in reply that the senate
bore in mind the friendly relations which had existed between Rome and
Cotys and the ancestors of Cotys and the Thracian nation. The giving of
hostages was itself the offence, and could not be alleged as an excuse, for
the Thracians had nothing to fear from Perseus, even had he kept the peace,
much less when he was engaged in a war with Rome. However, though
Cotys had preferred the favour of Perseus to the friendship of Rome, they
would mete out their treatment of him by what was consistent with their own
dignity more than by his deserts; they would send back his son and the
hostages. The beneficent acts of the people of Rome were gratuitous; they
preferred to leave the value of them in the hearts of those who received them
rather than to exact a cash payment for them. Three commissioners were
appointed -T. Quinctius Flamininus, C. Licinius Nerva and M. Caninius
Rebilus -to conduct the hostages back to Thrace, and each of the Thracian
envoys received a present of 2000 ases. Bithys was taken with the rest of the
hostages from Carseoli and sent to his father. The king's ships, which were
larger than had ever been seen before, were hauled up on to the Campus
Martius.
