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Ab Urbe Condita, books 43-45 - 45

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 1 sections

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   Book XLV THE messengers of victory, Quintus Fabius, Lucius Lentulus, and Quintus Metellus, summoned up the utmost possible speed and quickly arrived in Rome. Yet they found that the joy of their announcement had been anticipated. On the third day after the battle with the king, while games were being celebrated in the circus, a rumour in the audience suddenly swept over the whole auditorium that a battle had been fought in Macedonia and the king beaten; then the buzz increased; finally there arose shouting and clapping, as if a definite report of victory had arrived. The magistrates were astonished and sought after the originator of this sudden rejoicing. When no such person was found, the rejoicing as if for an established fact died away, but the happy omen lurked nevertheless in men's minds. After confirmation came through the genuine report on the arrival of Fabius, Lentulus, and Metellus, men rejoiced both in the actual victory and in the prophetic power of their spirits. The story is told of a second rejoicing by the mob at the circus, which seemed no less genuine. On the sixteenth of September, on the second day of the Roman Games, it is said that a messenger who said he came from Macedonia handed despatches wreathed with laurel to the consul Gaius Licinius as he was going up to start the chariot-race. When the race was over, the consul mounted his chariot and as he was being driven back to the reserved seats, showed the despatches to the people. At the sight of them the people at once forgot the show and rushed down into the arena. On the spot, the consul summoned the senate, had the despatches read, and on motion of the Fathers, announced to the people before the magistrates' seats that his colleague Lucius Aemilius had fought a pitched battle with King Perseus, that the Macedonian army had been slaughtered and routed, that the king had fled with but few followers, and that all the cities of Macedonia had come under the sway of the Roman people. On hearing this, shouting with great clapping of hands began; the games were deserted and most of the people took home the glad news to their wives and children. This was the twelfth day after the battle had taken place in Macedonia. II. Next day the senate met in the senate-house, a thanksgiving was voted, and a resolution passed that the consul should discharge men whom he had under oath, except soldiers and sailors, and that the question of dismissing soldiers and sailors should be put when the envoys who had sent the messenger ahead should arrive from the consul Lucius Aemilius. On the twenty-fifth day of September, about the second hour the envoys entered the city, and made their way to the forum, drawing after them a huge crowd of people who met them at every point on their way, and proceeded to escort them. The senate happened to be in the senate-house; the consul presented the envoys there. They were kept there just long enough to explain how large the king's forces of infantry and cavalry had been, how many thousand of them had been slain and how many captured, with the loss of how few of our men this great slaughter of the enemy had been accomplished, and how hastily the king had fled; it was thought, the envoys said, that he would make for Samothrace; the fleet was ready to pursue, and it would be impossible for him to slip away either by land or sea. On being brought before a meeting shortly thereafter, the envoys related the same facts. Joy broke out anew when the consul proclaimed that all sacred buildings should be opened; from the meeting, each citizen went of his own accord to offer thanks to the gods, and all over the city the temples of the immortal gods were filled with a huge throng, not only of men, but of women too. The senate was recalled to the senate-house, voted that thanksgiving for the glorious achievement of the consul Lucius Aemilius should be observed for five days at all the banquet-tables of the gods, and ordered sacrifice offered with the larger victims. The ships which were moored in the Tiber ready and equipped to be sent to Macedonia, if circumstances demanded it, were to be put ashore and housed in the ship-sheds; the sailors were to be discharged after receiving their year's pay, and with them, all those who had taken the oath before the consul. It was voted to discharge all soldiers who were in Corcyra, at Brundisium, along the Adriatic, or in the territory of Larinum —for an army had been distributed among all these places, to enable Gaius Licinius to bring aid to his colleague, if the situation demanded it. At a meeting a thanksgiving was proclaimed to the people for the eleventh of October and the four days following. From Illyricum two envoys, Gaius Licinius Nerva and Publius Decius, announced that the army of the Illyrians had been slaughtered, King Gentius was captured, and Illyricum was under the sway of the Roman people. For this achievement under the leadership and auspices of the praetor Lucius Anicius, the senate voted thanksgiving for three days. The date was proclaimed by the consul as the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth of November. Some historians relate that the ambassadors of the Rhodians, who had not yet been dismissed after the announcement of victory, were summoned to the senate, as if in mockery of their foolish pride, and that there Agepolis, their chief, spoke as follows: the envoys had been sent by the Rhodians to bring about peace between the Romans and Perseus, since the war between them was the cause of hardship and injury to all Greece, and of expense and loss to the Romans themselves. The good fortune of the Roman people had been kind to the Rhodians in giving them the opportunity, now that the war had been brought to an end by other means, of congratulating the Romans on their glorious victory. This was the speech of the Rhodian. The answer of the senate was that the Rhodians had sent that embassy through concern neither for the welfare of Greece nor for the outlays of the Roman People, but on behalf of Perseus. For had their concern been as alleged, their envoys should have been sent when Perseus had led his army into Thessaly and for two years was besieging some Greek cities and alarming others with the threat of attack. At that time, there had been not a word about peace from the Rhodians. After they had heard that the Romans had overcome the passes and crossed into Macedonia, and that Perseus was surrounded, then the Rhodians sent an embassy for no other purpose than to snatch Perseus from the impending disaster. With this reply, the envoys were dismissed. About the same time Marcus Marcellus, on his return from Spain after taking the noted city of Marcolica, also deposited in the treasury ten pounds of gold and silver of a value of one million sesterces. As the consul Aemilius Paulus was encamped near Sirae in the Odomantian territory, as was mentioned above, despatches from King Perseus were brought to him by three envoys of no rank. When Paulus perceived them in soiled garb and with tears streaming, it is said that he himself wept for the lot of man, since that king who shortly before, discontented with the kingdom of Macedonia, had attacked the Dardanians and Illyrians and summoned the Bastarnae to his aid, had now lost his army, and, stripped of his kingdom and driven to a small island, was a suppliant, protected by the sanctity of a temple, not by his own powers. But after he read King Perseus to the Consul Paulus, greeting, the folly of the man who did not realize the state of his fortunes erased all pity. Therefore, although the body of the letter contained entreaties far from royal, yet that embassy was dismissed without an answer and without dispatches. Perseus understood what title the conquered must forget; therefore other dispatches, sent under his name without title, requested and obtained the sending of certain persons with whom he might discuss the status and the terms of his new lot. Three envoys were sent, Publius Lentulus, Aulus Postumius Albinus, and Aulus Antonius. Nothing was accomplished by that embassy, since Perseus clung with all his might to the title of king, while Paulus urged him to entrust himself and all he had to the discretion and mercy of the Roman People. While these negotiations were under way, the fleet of Gnaeus Octavius put in at Samothrace. He too was attempting to entice the king to surrender now by menaces, now by hope, while the threat of force was kept imminent, when a matter brought about either by chance or plan lent him assistance in his undertaking. Lucius Atilius, a prominent young man, noticing that the people of Samothrace were in meeting, requested the magistrates for permission to address the people briefly. Permission being granted, he asked: My hosts of Samothrace, is our understanding correct or false that this island is sacred, and all its soil is revered and unprofaned? When all agreed that it was as sacred as he believed, he said, Why then has a murderer polluted it, profaned it with the blood of King Eumenes, and although the preamble to every rite warns away from the holy things those whose hands are not pure, why do you yet permit your sanctuary to be defiled by the blood-stained person of a brigand? The story how Evander had nearly succeeded in murdering King Eumenes at Delphi had been bruited abroad throughout all the cities of Greece. Consequently, the Samothracians decided that, apart from the fact that they saw that they and their whole island and shrine were in the power of the Romans, the reproach against them was a just one. They sent Theondas, the chief magistrate of their community —they call him king —to Perseus to announce that Evander the Cretan was being accused of murder; that there was a court of theirs established by ancestral custom to try those who were alleged to have brought unclean hands within the sacred precincts of the temple; and that if Evander trusted that he was innocent of the capital charge brought against him, he should appear to defend himself, whereas, if he dared not entrust himself to the court, he should free the temple of profanation, and provide for his own safety. Perseus called Evander aside and said that he by no means advised him to stand trial, for he would have neither a good case nor sufficient influence. (Behind his words was the fear that Evander, if condemned, would reveal the king as the sponsor of the abominable crime.) What was there left, said Perseus, except to die bravely? Evander made no open refusal, but saying that he preferred to die by poison rather than the steel, he secretly made ready for escape. When this was reported to the king, he feared that the anger of the Samothracians would turn against him, on the ground that he had caused the guilty party to escape punishment; so he ordered Evander killed. When this murder had been hastily perpetrated, it suddenly occurred to Perseus that he had beyond doubt taken on himself the guilt of Evander. The latter had wounded Eumenes at Delphi, he had killed Evander at Samothrace; and so two of the most sacred shrines on earth had been profaned with human blood at his sole instigation. He turned aside accusation on this score by bribing Theondas to report to the people that Evander had committed suicide. However, when he committed this terrible crime against his pre-eminent remaining friend, who had been tested in so many vicissitudes and had been betrayed because he had not betrayed the king, Perseus turned all hearts against him. Each one individually deserted to the Romans. By fleeing they forced the king too, left almost alone, to adopt some plan of flight; finally he appealed to Oroandes the Cretan, who knew the coast of Thrace from having made trading voyages there, to take him aboard a scout-ship and carry him to Cotys. There is a harbour Demetrium on a certain headland of Samothrace; the scout-ship was anchored there. At sun-down the needful equipment was carried to the shore; all the money that could be brought secretly was also carried down. In the middle of the night, the king himself with three companions of his flight went by a back door of the house into a garden next to his bedroom and thence, after scrambling with difficulty over a wall, reached the sea. Oroandes had waited just long enough for the money to be brought down, and in the early darkness had weighed anchor and was sailing directly for Crete. When the ship was not found at the harbour, Perseus wandered about for some time on the shore and, finally, fearing the imminent approach of dawn, did not dare to return to the house where he was entertained, but took cover near an out-of-the-way corner on one side of the temple. Among the Macedonians there were Royal Pages, so-called, sons of the chief men chosen to wait upon the king; this troop, having accompanied the king in his flight had not even then left him, until by order of Gnaeus Octavius, announcement was made by a herald that if the Royal Pages and the other Macedonians who were in Samothrace surrendered to the Romans, they would secure their safety, their freedom, and all their possessions which they either had with them, or had left in Macedonia. At this word, they all made their way to the Romans, and reported their names to Gaius Postumius, a military tribune. The king's young children were also handed over to Octavius by Ion of Thessalonica, and no one was left with the king except Philip, his oldest son. Then Perseus surrendered himself and his son to Octavius, railing at his fortune and the gods in whose temple he was, who had done nothing to aid their suppliant. He was ordered to be placed in the flagship, and what was left of the money was brought there. The fleet immediately sailed back to Amphipolis. Thence Octavius sent the king to the consul's camp, sending ahead dispatches to inform the consul that the king was a prisoner and was being brought to him. Thinking that this was a second victory, as indeed it was, Paulus offered sacrifice at this message; he read the letter of the praetor before his assembled council, sent Quintus Aelius Tubero to meet the king, and ordered the others to remain in full numbers at headquarters. So great a crowd never gathered elsewhere for any sight. In the previous generation King Syphax had been brought as prisoner into a Roman camp, but apart from the fact that he was not comparable either as to his own reputation or that of his nation, he was a mere appendage to the war with Carthage, as Gentius was to this one with Macedonia. Perseus was the chief enemy, and not only his own reputation and that of his father, grandfather, and the rest to whom he was related by blood and stock made him a cynosure, but the glory of Philip and Alexander the Great, who made the Macedonians masters of the world, radiated from him. Perseus entered the camp in dark-coloured garb, with his son, but unattended by any other of his people whose presence as a sharer of his downfall might have made him more pitiable. He was unable to proceed because of the crowd rushing to gaze at him, until lictors were sent by the consul to clear a path to the headquarters. The consul rose to meet him, though he ordered the others to keep their seats, and advancing a few steps offered his hand to the king as he entered, raised him when he fell at his feet, not allowing him to clasp his knees, brought him into the tent, and bade him be seated opposite the officers called as council. The first question put was, by what wrong had he been driven to make war on the Roman People with such determined enmity as to bring himself and his kingdom into utmost danger? While all awaited an answer, he gazed silently at the ground for a long time and wept. Then the consul asked again: If you had received the kingdom as a young man, I should indeed be less surprised that you were unaware how powerful the Roman People is as a friend or as an enemy. As it is, since you had a part in the war which your father waged with us, and since you were aware of the peace that followed, which we observed with the utmost faithfulness toward him, what reasoning led you to prefer war rather than peace with men whose power in war, whose good faith in peace, you had alike tested? When no reply either to the question or the accusation was forthcoming, the consul continued, However that may be, whether it has occurred through human mistake or chance or law of nature, be of good cheer. The misfortunes of many kings and of many peoples have shown that the mercy of the Roman People offers you not only hope, but an almost positive assurance of safety. This the consul said in Greek to Perseus; then he continued in Latin to his staff: You see before you a notable example of the changefulness of human affairs. I say this especially for you, young men. Therefore it is proper to offer no insult or violence to anyone, while one is in favourable circumstances, and not to trust to one's present fortune, since no one knows what evening will bring. He will be truly a man, in a word, whose spirit is neither deflected from its course by the breath of prosperity, nor broken by misfortune. When the meeting was dismissed, the task of guarding the king was assigned to Quintus Aelius. On that day Perseus was entertained by the consul, and every other token of respect was shown him which could be shown under such circumstances. The army was then released to winter quarters. Amphipolis received most of the troops, the nearby cities the rest. This was the end of the war between the Romans and Perseus, after four years of steady campaigning, and also the end of a kingdom famed over a large part of Europe and all of Asia. They reckoned Perseus as the twentieth after Caranus, who founded the kingdom. Perseus ascended the throne in the consulship of Quintus Fulvius and Lucius Manlius, and was recognized as king by the senate in the consulship of Marcus Junius and Aulus Manlius; his reign lasted eleven years. The Macedonian nation was of no great reputation until the time of Philip, son of Amyntas. Later, when it had proceeded to expand under him, it was still confined within the bounds of Europe, though embracing all Greece and part of Thrace and Illyricum. Thereafter it overflowed into Asia, and Alexander, in the thirteen years of his reign, first brought under his sway all the well-nigh boundless empire that had belonged to the Persians, and then traversed Arabia and India, where the Indian Ocean embraces the uttermost ends of the earth. At that time the empire and name of the Macedonians was greatest on earth; thereafter at the death of Alexander it was torn into many kingdoms, as each leader snatched at resources for his own account, and its strength was dismembered; yet it endured for a hundred and fifty years from the topmost pinnacle of its fortune to its final end. When a report of the Roman victory penetrated to Asia, Antenor, who was lying off Phanae with his fleet of scout-ships, crossed from there to Cassandria. When Gaius Popilius, who was at Delos to protect ships making for Macedonia, heard that the war had been brought to an end in Macedonia and that the enemy scout-ships had left their post, he for his part dismissed the ships of Attalus and proceeded to sail for Egypt to complete the mission on which he had started, so that he might be able to meet Antiochus before he reached the walls of Alexandria. As the ambassadors were sailing past Asia and came to Loryma, a harbour slightly more than twenty miles from Rhodes and situated exactly opposite to the city, the chief men of Rhodes met them (for the report of the victory had by now been brought to that city also) with the request that they put in at Rhodes; for, said the Rhodians, it was a matter touching the reputation and safety of their city that the envoys should personally become acquainted with everything which had been done and was being done at Rhodes, and that they should carry back to Rome facts ascertained by themselves, not popular rumours. After many refusals, they induced the envoys to endure a short delay of their voyage for the sake of the safety of an allied city. After their arrival at Rhodes, the same leaders also dragged them by entreaty before an assembly. The arrival of the envoys increased rather than diminished the fear of the city; for Popilius rehearsed every hostile word or act during this war either on the part of individuals or of the commonwealth, and being a man of harsh temperament, he increased the savage effect of his remarks by his grim face and prosecutor's tone, so that, since he had no reason for a personal quarrel with Rhodes, the people guessed from the bitterness of one Roman senator what the attitude of the whole senate was toward them. The speech of Gaius Decimius was milder, for he laid the blame for many of the offences mentioned by Popilius not at the door of the people as a whole, but at that of a few agitators; these, he said, whose tongues were for sale, had written the decrees full of fawning upon the king and had sent those embassies concerning which the Rhodians had always felt as much shame as regret. All these acts, said Decimius, would, if the people's reason was sound, recoil upon the heads of the guilty. There was great approval felt for his speech, but no more because he relieved the commons of blame than because he assigned responsibility to the guilty. And so when the leaders of the Rhodians answered the Romans, their speeches were by no means as pleasing when the speaker tried at all costs to extenuate the charges made by Popilius, as when he agreed with Decimius in urging that the responsible persons should expiate their wrong. A decree was therefore passed at once that anyone convicted of saying or doing anything against the Romans in behalf of Perseus should be put to death. Some had left the city on the arrival of the Romans, others committed suicide. After a delay of not more than five days at Rhodes, the ambassadors left for Alexandria. The Rhodians proceeded no less zealously to prosecute trials according to the decree passed in the presence of the Romans. This unflagging zeal in carrying the matter out was produced as much by the mildness of Decimius as by the harshness of Popilius. While this was going on, Antiochus had left Alexandria after an unsuccessful trial of the fortifications and had taken control of the rest of Egypt. He left at Memphis the elder Ptolemy whose claim to the throne he was pretending to support with his army, in order that he might attack the winner presently, and led his army off into Syria. Ptolemy was well aware of this ulterior motive too, and thought that, as long as his younger brother was cowed by fear of a siege, he might be restored to Alexandria with the aid of his sister and without opposition on the part of his brother's friends. He therefore kept sending, first to his sister, then to his brother and his friends, until he made an amicable settlement with them. Suspicion was directed against Antiochus because, though he had turned over the rest of Egypt to Ptolemy, he had left a strong garrison at Pelusium. It was evident that the key to Egypt was in Antiochus' hands, so that he could reinvade it when he wished. The upshot of a civil war between the brothers would be that the winner, worn out by the struggle, would be no match for Antiochus. This wise reasoning by the elder brother was gratefully accepted by the younger brother and his associates; the sister gave much assistance not only by her advice, but by her entreaties. Accordingly, peace was made by general agreement, and the elder Ptolemy returned to Alexandria, without opposition even on the part of the mob, which had suffered throughout the war from a scarcity of all supplies not only during the siege, but after the enemy had left the walls, because nothing came in from Egypt. It would have been in order for Antiochus to rejoice at this conclusion had he led his army into Egypt for the purpose of restoring Ptolemy —the specious plea that he had employed in statements to all the states of Asia and Greece either when he received embassies or sent out messages. But he was so incensed that he prepared for war against the two brothers with much more urgency and bitterness than against the one. He immediately sent a fleet to Cyprus; and in early spring he himself advanced with his army into Hollow Syria on his way to Egypt. Near Rhinocolura envoys from Ptolemy met him, offering thanks for his assistance in recovering Ptolemy's ancestral throne and requesting that he should not undo his act of kindness and rather say what he wanted done than shift from ally to enemy and act by force of arms. Antiochus replied that he would recall his fleet and lead back his army on no other terms than the cession to him of all Cyprus, Pelusium, and the region which lies around the Pelusian mouth of the Nile. He also named a day before which he must receive the report of the execution of his terms. After the time allotted for the truce had expired, Antiochus' officers sailed to Pelusium via the mouth of the Nile, while he marched through the Arabian Desert and, after being received by the inhabitants of Memphis and the rest of the Egyptians, partly through good-will and partly through fear, he came down to Alexandria by short marches. When he had crossed the river at Eleusis, a place four miles away from Alexandria, the Roman envoys met him. As they approached, he greeted them and offered his hand to Popilius; whereat Popilius handed him the tablets containing the decree of the senate in writing, and bade him read this first of all. On reading the decree, he said that he would call in his friends and consider what he should do; Popilius, in accordance with the usual harshness of his temper, drew a circle around the king with a rod that he carried in his hand, and said, Before you step out of this circle, give me an answer which I may take back to the senate. After the king had hesitated a moment, struck dumb by so violent an order, he replied, I shall do what the senate decrees. Only then did Popilius extend his hand to the king as to an ally and friend. Later, when Antiochus had quitted Egypt by the appointed day, and the envoys had also confirmed by their own weighty approval the agreement of the brothers, who with great difficulty had settled on terms of peace, the Romans sailed for Cyprus, whence they sent away the fleet of Antiochus which had already defeated the Egyptian ships in battle. This embassy gained a great reputation among the nations, because Egypt had clearly been taken away from Antiochus after he had possession of it, and their ancestral kingdom had been restored to the House of Ptolemy. The term of one of the consuls of this year was distinguished by a notable victory; the reputation of the other was correspondingly undistinguished, because he did not have the wherewithal for achievement. At the very outset, when he proclaimed a day for his legions to assemble, he entered the sacred enclosure without taking the auspices. When the augurs were consulted on this matter, they declared that the day had been wrongfully set. The consul set out for Gaul, and had a fixed camp near Campi Macri close to Mounts Sicimina and Papinus. Later he spent the winter in the same region with the allies of the Latin Name; the Roman legions had remained at Rome, because the day for the assembly of the army was wrongfully appointed. The praetors also went to their provinces, except Gaius Papirius Carbo, to whom Sardinia had fallen. The senate decreed that he should conduct at Rome the court for suits between citizens and aliens, for this also had been allotted to him. Popilius, too, and the embassy which had been sent to Antiochus returned to Rome. They reported that the disputes between the kings had been settled and the army led out of Egypt into Syria. Afterwards the envoys of the kings themselves arrived. Antiochus' envoys reported that to the king peace had seemed preferable to any conquest, since it was the wish of the senate, and that Antiochus had obeyed the orders of the Roman envoys as if they had been gods. Then they presented congratulations on the victory, to which the king would have contributed his aid, they said, if any demand had been made upon him. Ptolemy's envoys offered thanks in the names of the king and Cleopatra together; they owed, they said, more to the Roman senate and people than to their own parents, more than to the immortal gods, since they had been freed by the Romans from a most wretched state of siege, and had recovered the ancestral kingdom which they had almost lost. The senate's reply to Antiochus was that he had done what was right and proper in obeying the envoys, and that the Roman senate and people were pleased. To the king and queen of Egypt, Ptolemy and Cleopatra, the reply was that the senate was very happy if by its agency something good and beneficial had come to pass, and that the senate would use its best efforts to convince them that the greatest bulwark of their reign was founded on the good faith of the Roman people. Instructions were given to Gaius Papirius the praetor that he should see that the customary presents were sent to the envoys. Despatches from Macedonia were then introduced, calculated to redouble the rejoicing over the victory; they reported that King Perseus was a prisoner of the consul. After the royal embassies were dismissed, a dispute was heard between envoys from Pisa and from Luna. The Pisans complained that Roman colonists were driving them off their land, whereas the men of Luna declared that the land in question had been assigned to them by the board of three. The senate sent five men to investigate the facts about the boundary and make a decision, namely, Quintus Fabius Buteo, Publius Cornelius Blasio, Titus Sempronius Musca, Lucius Naevius Balbus, and Gaius Apuleius Saturninus. From the brothers Eumenes, Attalus, and Athenaeus a joint embassy of congratulation on the victory arrived. When Masgaba, too, the son of King Masinissa, landed from his ship at Puteoli, he was met by Lucius Manlius the quaestor who had been sent with money to meet him, to escort him at public expense to Rome. On Masgaba's arrival, a meeting of the senate was at once held for him. There the young man spoke so as to make matters pleasing by their nature even more pleasing by his words. He recalled how much infantry and cavalry, how many elephants, and how much grain his father had sent to Macedonia during those four years. He said that there were two matters which brought a blush to his father's cheeks: first, that the senate had requested through envoys what they needed for the war, and had not ordered it, and secondly, that they had sent him money for the grain. Masinissa remembered, said his son, that he held a kingdom won by the Roman People, and that they had increased it and made it many times as great; he was satisfied with the usufruct of the kingdom, and knew that the ownership and title to it were vested in those who had given it. Therefore it was right that they should claim what they wished from him, not request it, nor buy the products of his country that sprang from a soil that was their own gift. Masinissa was and would be satisfied with what the Roman People did not need. After Masgaba had set out with this message, he said, horsemen had overtaken him to report that Macedonia had been conquered and to bid him congratulate the senate and point out to them that his father was so rejoiced over this event that he wished to come to Rome and offer sacrifice and thanksgiving to Jupiter, Greatest and Best, on the Capitol; he requested permission from the senate to do this, if they had no objection. The answer was given to the prince that his father Masinissa was acting as was proper for a good and grateful man, in that he attached to payment due for kindness such credit and honour. On the one hand the Roman People had profited by his brave and loyal aid in the Punic War, and on the other, he had secured his kingdom through the good will of the Roman People; after this balancing of favours, he had performed every possible act of friendship in wars against three kings successively. Joy over the victory of the Roman People was not surprising in a king who had linked with the fortunes of the Romans the whole hazard of his personal fortunes and those of his realm. As for thanks to the gods for the victory, let him offer them in his own home; his son would serve as his representative at Rome. The son had also offered sufficient congratulations on his own and his father's behalf. That Masinissa himself should leave his kingdom and go outside of Africa, apart from the fact that it was against his own interests, was also contrary to the public welfare of the Roman People, the senate believed. When Masgaba requested that Hanno, son of Hamilcar, be demanded as hostage in place of . .., the answer was given that the senate considered it by no means just to exact hostages from the Carthaginians according to the judgment of Masinissa. The quaestor was ordered to buy gifts for the prince, in accordance with a resolution of the senate, to the amount of one hundred pounds of silver, and to escort him to Puteoli, to provide for all his expenses while he was in Italy, and to hire two ships to convey him and his suite to Africa. Garments were presented to all his suite, both free and slave. Not very much later dispatches were brought from Masinissa's other son Misagenes, stating that he had been sent with his cavalry to Africa by Lucius Paulus after the defeat of Perseus, that on his voyage his fleet had been scattered in the Adriatic, and he had arrived in ill heath with three ships at Brundisium. Lucius Stertinius the quaestor was sent to him with the same gifts which had been given at Rome to his brother, and was instructed to see to it that a house for entertainment . . . Freedmen had been distributed among the four city tribes except for those who had a son over five years old (these they ordered to be reckoned where they had been enrolled at the census immediately previous), and those who had an estate or estates in the country valued at over thirty thousand sesterces . . . the privilege of enrolling was granted. Although this arrangement had become established in this way, Claudius said that it was impossible for a censor without a decree of the people to deprive any individual of his ballot, let alone a whole class. For if, said Claudius, the censor could move a man from his tribe, which was exactly what ordering him to change his tribe meant, he could remove him from all thirty-five tribes, that is, deprive him of citizenship and status as a free man-not determine where he should be enrolled but exclude him from enrolment. This was argued between the two censors; finally they resorted to the following solution: they drew lots publicly in the Hall of Liberty for one of the four city tribes, to which they would consign all those who had been slaves. The lot of the Esquiline tribe was cast; Tiberius Gracchus announced that they had decided to enrol all freedmen in this tribe. This matter was regarded by the senate as greatly to the credit of the censors. Thanks were voted to Sempronius, for having persisted in a praiseworthy undertaking, and to Claudius, for not interfering. More men were removed from the senate than by former censors, and more also ordered to sell their horses. All alike were by both censors removed from their tribe and made aerarii; nor was the disgrace of anyone who had been blacklisted by the one relieved by the other. When the censors asked that their term of a year and a half be prolonged in order that they might, as was customary, see to repairs to buildings and inspect the public works for which they had contracted, the request was vetoed by the tribune Gnaeus Tremellius, because he had not been chosen for the senate. In this same year Gaius Cicereius dedicated a temple to Moneta on the Alban Mount five years after he vowed it. In this year Lucius Postumius Albinus was consecrated as flamen of Mars. When the new consuls Quintus Aelius and Marcus Junius put to the senate the question of provinces, the Fathers voted that Spain should again be made two provinces, after having been one during the Macedonian War; also that the same officers, Lucius Paulus and Lucius Anicius, should command in Macedonia and Illyricum until on the advice of senatorial envoys they had made a settlement for these states which had been upset by war, and which were to be given a constitution other than monarchical. To the consuls Pisa and Gaul were assigned with two legions apiece, each legion to be composed of five thousand two hundred infantry and four hundred cavalry. The assignments for the praetors were: to Quintus Cassius, the City Praetorship; to Manius Juventius Thalna, the jurisdiction over aliens; to Tiberius Claudius Nero, Sicily; to Gnaeus Fulvius, Hither Spain; to Gaius Licinius Nerva, Farther Spain. Aulus Manlius Torquatus was assigned Sardinia, but was unable to go to his province, since he was held by vote of the senate to preside over trials for capital crimes. The question of the prodigies which had been reported was next put to the senate. The temple of the Household Gods on the Velia had been struck by lightning, as well as two gates and a section of wall in the town of Minervium. At Anagnia there had been a rain of earth and at- Lanuvium a meteor had been seen in the sky; and at Calatia on state-owned land Marcus Valerius, a Roman citizen, reported that blood had trickled from his hearth for three days and two nights. Especially for this last the Board of Ten was ordered to consult the books; they proclaimed to the people a single day of prayer and offered a sacrifice of fifty goats in the forum. Because of the other prodigies, another day of prayer was observed at all the banquet-tables of the gods, sacrifice with greater victims was offered, and the city purified. Another matter concerning the paying of respects to the immortal gods was the senate's decree that, whereas the enemy had been conquered and the kings Perseus and Gentius along with Macedonia and Illyricum were under the sway of the Roman People, therefore the praetors Quintus Cassius and Manius Juventius should see to the presentation at all the banquet-tables of the gods of gifts as great as those given in the consulship of Appius Claudius and Marcus Sempronius because of the victory over King Antiochus. Ten commissioners for Macedonia and five for Illyricum were then appointed, on whose advice Lucius Paulus and Lucius Anicius might arrange the settlements. First those for Macedonia were named: Aulus Postumius Luscus and Gaius Claudius, both ex-censors, Quintus Fabius Labeo, Quintus Marcius Philippus, and Gaius Licinius Crassus, who was Paulus' colleague in the consulship and at that time was in charge of Gaul, his term of command having been extended. To these ex-consuls were added Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, Servius Cornelius Sulla, Lucius Junius, Titus Numisius Tarquiniensis, and Aulus Terentius Varro. For Illyricum the following were named: Publius Aelius Ligus, an exconsul, Gaius Cicereius and Gnaeus Baebius Tamphilus (the latter had been praetor the previous year, the former many years before ), Publius Terentius Tuscivicanus, and Publius Manilius. Next the consuls were instructed by the Fathers that, since one of them should relieve Gaius Licinius, who had been appointed commissioner, in Gaul, they ought as early as possible either to agree on their provinces or to draw lots. They accordingly drew lots. Pisa fell to Marcus Junius, Gaul to Quintus Aelius. The senate voted that before Junius went to his field of activity, he should present to the senate the embassies which had assembled in Rome from all quarters to offer congratulations. Moreover, although men were being sent of sufficient calibre to justify the hope that by their advice the generals would establish nothing unworthy of either the mercy or the high position of the Roman People, yet discussions went on in the senate too as to general considerations, so that the commissioners might carry from home to the generals a full outline of policy. First of all it was voted that the Macedonians and Illyrians should be given their independence, so that it should be clear to all nations that the forces of the Roman People brought not slavery to free peoples, but on the contrary, freedom to the enslaved. The senate wished nations which were free to consider that their freedom was assured and lasting under the protection of the Roman People, and that those who lived under kings should feel for the time being that their rulers were milder and more just under the eye of the Roman People, and, if at any time their kings should make war on the Roman People, that the outcome of the war would bring victory to the Romans, but freedom to themselves. It was also voted to discontinue the leasing of the Macedonian mines, a source of immense revenue, and of rural estates, for these could not be farmed without a contractor, and where there was a contractor, there either the ownership by the state lapsed, or no freedom was left to the allied people. It was impossible, the senate thought, for even the Macedonians to farm these resources; for where there was booty as a prize for administrators, in that state there would never be a lack of reasons for conspiracies and strife. Finally, fearing that if there were a common legislature for the nation, some relentless demagogue would turn the freedom given in healthy moderation into the licence which brings ruin, the senate voted to divide Macedonia into four sections, so that each might have its own legislature. It was further resolved that Macedonia should pay to the Roman People half the taxes which they had been accustomed to pay to their kings. Like instructions were given for Illyricum. The details were left to the generals and the commissioners themselves, for which the present discussion would lay a surer foundation of planning. Among the many embassies from kings, nations, and peoples Attalus, the brother of King Eumenes, especially drew to himself the eyes and minds of everyone. For he was received by those who had served with him in this war in much more cordial fashion than if King Eumenes himself had come. Two reasons honourable in outward view brought him to Rome, first the congratulations suitable to the recent victory in which he himself had aided, and second, complaint about the uprising of the Galatians and the disaster suffered thereby, which threatened destruction to the kingdom itself. Underneath he cherished a secret hope of honours and rewards from the senate which he could hardly accept without disloyalty to his brother. For there were also certain untrustworthy Roman advisers to stimulate his self-seeking with hope; the view, they said, held in Rome about Attalus and Eumenes was that the former was a sure friend to the Romans, while the latter was a faithful ally neither to the Romans nor to Perseus; accordingly it could hardly be determined whether the senate would be more disposed to grant his requests for himself or those against his brother —to such an extent did one and all make every concession to the one, but withhold any from the other. Attalus was, as the facts showed, one of those men who would desire whatever hope might promise; but the wise advice of one friend tightened the reins, as it were, on his spirit elated by success. Stratius, a physician, was with him, sent to Rome by the uneasy Eumenes precisely to keep an eye on the actions of his brother and to give loyal advice, if he saw any failure in loyalty. This Stratius made his approach to ears already filled and a mind already tempted, and by offering well-timed remarks won an almost lost cause; his argument was that different kingdoms had thrived on different things; the kingdom of Pergamum, being new and not bolstered by any longstanding wealth, was founded on brotherly harmony, because one brother wore the name of king and the distinguishing emblem on his head, but all the brothers ruled. As for Attalus, who was second in age, who did not consider him as a king? And not only because one could see that his present powers were so great, but because it was beyond doubt that he would reign before many days had passed, for the weakness and age of Eumenes pointed in that direction, since he was at that time without issue (for Eumenes had not at that time acknowledged the son who reigned after him ). What use was there, said Stratius,. in seeking by violence a prize which would automatically fall to him shortly? Furthermore, the kingdom had been assailed by the fresh tempest of the Galatian uprising, which could hardly be withstood by agreement and harmony in the royal family; but if civil strife were added to the foreign war, no halt could be called. What he was considering was simply preventing his brother from dying as king in order to rob himself of his imminent expectation of the throne. Even if it were true that either action would bring fame, whether he preserved the kingdom for his brother, or snatched it from him, nevertheless praise for preserving the kingdom, coupled as it was with family loyalty, would still be the better choice. But in as much as one alternative was in fact despicable and verging on the murder of kin, what remained in doubt to keep judgment in suspense? Was he in doubt whether to seek for part of the kingdom, or to seize it all? If he took part, both parts would be weakened by disruption of forces and without a doubt exposed to every kind of injury; if he took all, would his elder brother become a private citizen, or an exile at his age and with his weakness of body, or would Attalus in the end order his brother's death? To say nothing of the end of disloyal brothers as told in legend, the fate of Perseus seemed to be a notable example, for as he bowed himself down at the feet of a conquering enemy, he had laid aside in the temple of Samothrace, as if the gods had been there exacting his punishment, that crown which he had seized by means of a brother's murder. The very men, said Stratius, who were egging him on, no friends to him, but foes to Eumenes, would praise his loyalty and steadfastness, if he kept faith with his brother to the end. This reasoning prevailed on the mind of Attalus. On being presented to the senate, therefore, he offered congratulations on the victory; he explained his services during this war, and those of his brother, such as they were, as well as the revolt of the Galatians which had recently taken place with great disturbance; he requested that the senate should send envoys to the Galatians, to induce them to lay aside their arms. Having delivered these messages in the interest of his state, he asked for Aenus and Maronea for himself. Thus, after disappointing the hopes of those who had supposed that he would accuse his brother and seek a division of the kingdom, he left the senate-house. Seldom has anyone else, king or citizen, been heard with as much good will and as much general approval; Attalus was honoured with every mark of attention and gift while he was there, and on his departure he was attended with equal ceremony. Among the many embassies from Asia and Greece, the envoys of the Rhodians especially drew the city's attention. For they first appeared in white clothes, as was suitable for those offering congratulations —and had they worn soiled clothes, they might have offered the appearance of men mourning for the fall of Perseus. However, after the senate was consulted by Marcus Junius the consul, while the envoys stood in the assembly-ground, whether lodgings, entertainment, and reception before the senate should be provided, and the Fathers had advised that none of the rights of hospitality should be granted in their case, the consul came forth from the senate-house, and in reply to the Rhodians, who said they had come to offer congratulations on the victory and to clear their city of the charges against it, and asked that a session of the senate be held for them, the consul announced that for allies and friends the Romans were accustomed to perform various acts of courtesy and hospitality, one of which was to grant a hearing before the senate, but the Rhodians during this war had not earned the right to be considered in the category of friends and allies. On hearing this, the Rhodians threw themselves on the ground and begged the consul and all who were present not to adopt the principle that new and false charges against the Rhodians should outweigh the good services of long standing of which they themselves were witnesses. Forthwith the Rhodians put on mourning and went the rounds of the houses of the chief men begging with tears and entreaties that they would hear the case before passing sentence. Manius Juventius Thalna, the praetor with jurisdiction over suits between citizens and aliens, was stirring up the people against the Rhodians and had announced a motion to declare war against Rhodes and to choose from the magistrates of this year one to be sent to this war with a fleet (Juventius hoped that he would be the one designated). Such action was opposed by Marcus Antonius and Marcus Pomponius, tribunes of the people. But not only had the praetor in the first place undertaken the matter in a novel and dangerous fashion, because he was proposing entirely on his own initiative, without previously consulting the senate or notifying the consuls, to put to the people the question, whether it was their will and command that war should be declared against the Rhodians, whereas previously the senate had always been consulted first about war, and then the question brought before the people on the authority of the senate, but the tribunes also were in the same position, since the custom was that no one should veto a law until opportunity was given to private citizens to argue for and against the law; in this way it had often turned out either that those who had not announced that they would exercise the veto did so when the faults of the law had been called to their attention by the speeches of those who opposed the law, or that those who had come intending to veto were overborne by the prestige of those who argued for the law. On this occasion the praetor and the tribunes vied with each other in doing everything in the wrong order; the tribunes by their premature veto . . . the haste of the praetor . . . till the arrival of the general . . ". .. is. Whether we have done wrong is so far unproved, but we are already suffering all the penalties and disgrace. In former times, after the defeat of Carthage, when Philip or Antiochus had been subdued, on our arrival in Rome we came from public entertainment to the senate-house to offer you our congratulations, gentlemen of the senate, and from the senate-house we mounted to the Capitol, bearing gifts to your gods. Today from a mean inn, having hardly found shelter for pay and all but ordered like enemies to remain outside the city, we Rhodians in this mourning garb enter the senate-house of Rome —we to whom you lately presented the provinces of Lycia and Caria, who received from you the most unstinted rewards and honours. "You are bidding the Macedonians and Illyrians be independent, we hear, though they were slaves before they waged war against you-nor are we jealous of anyone's good fortune, nay rather we recognize the mercy of the Roman People; and will you transform us Rhodians from allies into enemies — us, who have been no worse than inactive in this war? Surely you are the same Romans who boast that your wars are favoured of Fortune because they are just, nor do you exult as much in the outcome, because you conquer, as in the beginning, because you never undertake war without good cause. The siege of Messana in Sicily made the Carthaginians your enemies, the siege of Athens, the attempted enslavement of Greece and the aid given Hannibal in money and troops made Philip your foe. Antiochus was summoned at the initiative of the Aetolians, your enemies; he crossed in person with his fleet to Greece; he seized Demetrias, Chalcis, and the pass of Thermopylae, and sought to cast you out of the tenure of your empire. With Perseus, your reason for war was the assault upon your allies, or the murder of princes and chiefs of nations or peoples. Under what heading, pray, shall our downfall be placed, if we are to perish? For the present I am not separating the case for the city from Polyaratus and Dinon, our fellow-citizens, and from those whom we brought to hand over to you. If all we Rhodians were equally guilty, what would be the charge against us in this war? It would be that we took the side of Perseus and as we took a stand for you in the wars with Antiochus and with Philip against those kings, so now we sided with the king against you. How we are accustomed to help our allies, and how vigorously we enter into a war, you may ask Gaius Livius, or Lucius Aemilius Regillus, who commanded your fleets in Asia. Never did your ships enter battle without ours. We fought independently first at Samos, and again off Pamphylia against the command of Hannibal; this victory gives us the more pride because, undismayed by the terrible catastrophe by which we had lost in the defeat at Samos a large part of our fleet and a splendid group of young men, we dared to go out again to meet the king's fleet as it approached from Syria. These matters I have mentioned not for the sake of boasting, for indeed our present fortune does not permit that, but to make it clear how the Rhodians are accustomed to aid their allies. "The rewards which we received from you after the conquest of Philip and of Antiochus were most abundant. If the good fortune which is now yours by the grace of the gods and because of your valour had fallen to Perseus, and we had come to Macedonia to seek a reward from the victorious king, what pray would we say? That we had aided him with money or with grain, with forces on land or on sea? What fortress had we held? Where had we fought either under his commanders or by ourselves? If he asked where there had been a soldier of ours, or where a ship, within his lines, what in the world would be our answer? Perhaps we should be defending ourselves before the conqueror, as now we are before you. For the result we obtained by sending envoys to both parties concerning peace was that we won no favour from either side, but incurred even accusation and danger from one of them. Yet Perseus might truly reproach us, as you cannot, gentlemen of the senate, because we sent to you at the beginning of the war envoys to promise you whatever was needed for the war; we would be ready, we said, as in the former wars, with ships, arms, and young men for every demand. The obstacle to our furnishing these things was of your making, since you for whatever reason spurned our aid at that time. Neither therefore have we in any way acted as enemies, nor have we failed in the duty of good allies, but we were prevented from performing that duty by you. 'What then? Has nothing been said or done in your city, Rhodians, which you would wish undone, at which the Roman People might justly take offence? ' From this point I do not propose to defend what has happened —I am not so mad —but I propose to separate the defence of the state from the guilt of private citizens. There is no state which will not have not only wicked citizens at certain times but an inexperienced commonalty always.: Even in your city I hear that there have been those who pursued ill-gotten gain by toadying to the mob, and that at certain times the commons seceded from you and you lost control of the commonwealth. If this could happen in a state-with -so well disciplined a character, can any one marvel that there were some among us who in grasping after the king's friendship led our commons astray with their counsel? However, these people wrought no harm beyond slackness in our loyalty as friends. I shall not pass over the most serious charge against our city in this war: we sent envoys at the same time both to you and to Perseus on the subject of peace; this unhappy plan, through a madman, as we heard later, who was spokesman, became something extremely stupid, for he spoke, it is well known, as the Roman envoy Gaius Popilius might have spoken, whom you sent to turn back from war Kings Antiochus and Ptolemy. But nevertheless this error, whether it should be called arrogance or folly, was no different before you from what it was before Perseus. The character of states is like that of individual men; some nations are hot-tempered, some bold, some diffident, some over-indulgent in wine, others in sex. The people of Athens, report has it, is quick and bold beyond its strength in adventure, the Spartan hesitant and hardly undertaking matters of which it is sure. I would not deny that all the region of Asia breeds somewhat flighty temperaments, and that our rhetoric is rather inflated because we might seem to be outstanding among the states in our area-a position due precisely not to our own powers but to your favours and your choice of us. Enough punishment was meted out to that embassy on the spot and to their faces, when they were sent away with so grim an answer from you. But if at that time they paid too small a penalty of disgrace, certainly the present embassy, so pitiable and so humble, would be atonement great enough for an even more arrogant embassy than that other one was. Arrogance, especially of speech, is hated by the hot-tempered, but laughed at by the wise, especially if directed by an inferior against his superior; no one has ever thought it worthy of the death-penalty. There was danger, to be sure, that the Rhodians should despise the Romans! Even the gods are assailed by some with overbold language, but we have never heard that any one has on that account been struck by a thunderbolt. What then remains, of which we must clear ourselves, if there was never a hostile action on our part, and if the overweening words of an envoy should produce a disgust of the ear, not the ruin of a city? I hear that in conversations among yourselves an appraisal of damages, so as to speak, is being made for our unexpressed desire; some believe, gentlemen of the senate, that we favoured the king and preferred that he should win, and that therefore we should be punished by armed force; others of you feel that we did, to be sure, have this desire, but that we should not on that account be punished by armed force, for, they say, there is no provision in the law, written or unwritten, of any state that he who desires the death of his enemy, but does nothing to bring it about, shall incur capital punishment. To these men who free us of the penalty, but not of the guilt, we are indeed grateful; but these are the terms which we ourselves set for ourselves: if we all have willed that of which we are accused —we do not separate the will from the deed —let us all suffer the penalty; but if some of our leaders favoured you, and others the king, I do not ask that because of us who sided with you the partizans of the king should be untouched; I merely beg that we may not perish because of them. You are no more hostile to them than is our state itself, and because they knew this, many of them have either fled or committed suicide; others who have been found guilty by us will be placed in your hands, gentlemen of the senate. The rest of us at Rhodes have no more deserved punishment during this war than we have deserved gratitude, either. Let the store of our previous helpful acts make good the present omission of service. You have waged wars against three kings during these years; let not our slackness in one war be, to our hurt, of more importance than the fact that we fought on your side in two wars. Take account of Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus as if of the vote of three judges; two acquit us, the third is undecided; suppose that it is for our condemnation; even so, if the Kings were judging us, we should indeed lose our case, but your judgment, gentlemen of the senate, determines whether Rhodes shall exist on earth or shall be destroyed root and branch. For you are not deliberating about war, gentlemen of the senate; you can declare it, but you cannot wage it, for not a man of Rhodes will bear arms against you. If you will not abate your wrath, we shall ask of you time in which to report home on this fatal mission; every free person, every man and every woman of us in Rhodes will embark on ships with all our money and, abandoning our homes and our altars, will come to Rome; we will heap up in the assembly-ground and in the entry of your senate-house all our gold and our silver, whether owned by the state or its citizens, and will put our persons and those of our wives and children in your power, that we may suffer here whatever we must suffer; far from our sight be the plundering and burning of our city. The Romans may judge that the Rhodians are enemies, but they cannot make them so. For we have also in us the power of passing judgmenton ourselves, and we shall never adjudge ourselves your enemies, nor commit any act of hostility, though we suffer the utmost disaster. Following a speech to this effect all the envoys again cast themselves down in the posture of suppliants, waving their olive-branches; after some time they were made to rise and left the senate-house. Then the roll-call of opinions began. The chief enemies of the Rhodians were those who had been conducting the war in Macedonia as consuls, praetors, or staff-officers. Great aid to the cause of Rhodes was given by Marcus Porcius Cato, who, though of a harsh temperament, on this occasion played the part of a tolerant and mild senator. I shall not include here a pale wraith of this eloquent man by reporting what he said; his own speech is preserved in written form, as part of the fifth book of his Beginnings. The reply to the Rhodians was couched in such form that they were neither declared enemies nor continued to be allies. Philocrates and Astymedes were the leaders of this embassy. It was decided that some of them with Philocrates should report to Rhodes about the embassy, while some remained at Rome with Astymedes to keep track of what was being done and inform their people. For the time being orders were given that they should withdraw their governors from Lycia and Caria by a certain date. These actions were reported at Rhodes; of themselves they would have been grievous, but were turned into a cause for rejoicing, because the Rhodians were relieved of fear of a greater evil, since they had feared war. So they immediately voted a crown of twenty thousand gold pieces. They sent Theodotus, the admiral of their fleet, on this embassy. They wanted to ask the Romans for an alliance in such fashion that no decree of the people concerning it should be passed or committed to dispatches, because if they did not obtain their request, the disgrace of an open repulse would be greater. The admiral of the fleet alone had the right to negotiate for such a purpose without the passing of any enabling resolution. For the Rhodians had for all these years maintained their friendship in such a way as not to bind themselves to the Romans by any treaty of alliance, precisely for the purpose of not cutting off hope on the part of the kings that they would come to their aid, if need arose, as well as their own hope of reaping a harvest from the good will and good fortune of the kings. At this time they felt that they should by all means seek an alliance, not to protect themselves against other peoples, for they feared no one but the Romans, but to alleviate the Romans' suspicion of themselves. At about the same time the Caunians revolted from them, and Mylassa seized the towns of the Euromenses. The spirit of Rhodes was not so broken that they did not perceive that if Lycia and Caria were taken away by the Romans, and the rest of their possessions either freed themselves by revolt or were seized by the neighbours, they would be hemmed in by the shores of a small island of infertile soil, which could by no means support the population of so large a city. Troops were therefore promptly sent and the Caunians compelled to accept their rule, even though forces of Cibyra were called in by the Caunians. Mylassa too and Alabanda, which had also come to join Mylassa in taking away the province of Euromus, were defeated in battle near Orthosia. While these events were occuring in Asia, and the previously-mentioned events in Macedonia and at Rome, in Illyricum meanwhile, after taking King Gentius into custody, as previously related, Lucius Anicius put Gabinius in charge of the garrison placed in Scodra, the capital, and Gaius. Licinius in charge of the strategic cities of Rhizon and Olcinium. After putting these men in charge of Illyricum, Anicius marched into Epirus with the rest of his army. In that region, Phanote the first city surrendered to him, all its population coming out with fillets to meet him. He placed a garrison here and passed on to Molossis, and on recovery of all of its cities except Passaron, Tecmon, Phylace, and Horreum, he led his force first against Passaron. Antinoüs and Theodotus were the leading-men of this city, distinguished both by their attachment to Perseus and their hatred of the Romans, and likewise responsible for the defection of the whole people from the Romans. Because of their feeling of personal guilt, since there was no hope of pardon for them, these men shut the gates, in order to be buried in the general downfall of their city, and urged the people to prefer death to slavery. No one dared open his mouth against such all-powerful men. At last a certain Theodotus, a youth of equal rank, spoke out, his dread of the Romans outweighing his timidity before the chief men of his city. What is this madness, said he, which is goading you, that you make the state an accessory to the crime of two men? Certainly I have often heard tales of those who met death for the fatherland; but these are the first ever known to believe that the fatherland ought to die for them. Why do we not open our gates and accept the overlordship which the world has accepted? When the crowd concurred with these remarks, Antinoüs and Theodotus charged into the first outpost of the enemy and, exposing themselves to wounds, were there killed; the city was surrendered to the Romans. By similar obstinacy on the part of Cephalus, the leading citizen, Tecmon was closed, but when he was killed, it was recovered by surrender. Neither Phylace nor Horreum stood up against attack. When order had been established in Epirus, and the troops distributed in winter quarters among suitable cities, Anicius returned to Illyricum, summoned the chief men from all his theatre of operations, and held a conference at Scodra, where the five commissioners from Rome had arrived. There he announced as officer in charge, on the advice of his council, that the Roman senate and people gave the Illyrians their freedom; he would remove his garrisons from all towns, citadels, and forts. Not only freedom, but tax-exemption as well would be granted, he said, to the people of Issa and Taulantia, and to the Pirustae among the Dassaretii as well as to Rhizon and Olcinium, because they had gone over to the Romans while Gentius was still undefeated. The Daorsi would also be granted tax-exemption, because they had abandoned Caravantius and gone over with their arms to the Romans. On the people of Scodra, the Dassarenses, the Selepitani, and the rest of the Illyrians a tax was laid of half what they had paid to the king. Next, Anicius divided Illyricum into three parts. He made the first of these the region above Pista, the second all the Labeatae, and the third the Agravonitae, Rhizon and Olcinium and their neighbours. After announcing this charter for Illyricum, Anicius returned from there into Epirus to his winter-quarters at Passaron. XXVII. While these events were occurring in Illyricum, Paulus sent his son Quintus Maximus, who had by this time returned from Rome, to sack Aeginium and Agassae before the arrival of the ten commissioners. In the case of Agassae, the reason was that, although they had surrendered their city to the consul Marcius with a voluntary request for alliance with Rome, they had again gone over to Perseus. The fault of Aeginium was recent; because they did not believe the rumour about the Roman victory, they had cruelly treated as enemies certain soldiers who had entered their city. Paulus also sent Lucius Postumius to sack the city of Aenia, because they had maintained resistance more stubbornly than the neighbouring cities. It was about the season of autumn; Paulus decided to employ the beginning of this season travelling about Greece and seeing the sights which are made so famous by repute that they are greater by hearsay than by visual acquaintance. Putting Gaius Sulpicius Gallus in charge of the camp, he set out with no large escort, his son Scipio and Athenaeus, the brother of King Eumenes, serving as his personal aides. He went through Thessaly to Delphi, the famous oracular shrine. There he offered sacrifice to Apollo, and when he saw the columns which had been begun at the entrance, on which they were going to place statues of King Perseus, he reserved them for his own statues as conqueror. At Lebadia also he visited the shrine of Jupiter Trophonius; there he viewed the mouth of the cave through which those who use the oracle go down to make their inquiries of the gods, and offered sacrifice to Jupiter and Hercynna, whose temple is there. Paulus then went down to Chalcis to see the spectacle of the Euripus and of that great island Euboea which is joined by a bridge to the mainland. From Chalcis he crossed to Aulis, three miles away, with its harbour famous as the anchorage once upon a time for the thousand ships of Agamemnon's fleet, and its temple of Diana, where the renowned king of kings sought passage to Troy for his ships by bringing his daughter as a victim to the altar. Thence Paulus went to Oropus in Attica, where an ancient prophet is worshipped as a god, and there is an old temple made charming by springs and streams around it. Thence he went to Athens, which is also replete with ancient glory, but nevertheless has many notable sights, the Acropolis, the harbours, the walls joining Piraeus to the city, the shipyards, the monuments of great generals, and the statues of gods and men —statues notable for every sort of material and artistry. After offering sacrifice to Minerva, the Guardian of the Citadel, in Athens, Paulus set out for Corinth and reached it on the second day. The city was then world-famous before its destruction; its citadel and the Isthmus were also sights to see; the citadel rising to a huge height, enclosed by the city wall and flowing with springs, while the Isthmus separated by its narrow passage two neighbouring seas lying toward the sunrise and sunset. Thence Paulus went to Sicyon and Argos, both famous cities; from there he visited Epidaurus, by no means as wealthy a town, but noted for the famous temple of Aesculapius which, at a distance of five miles from the city, is now rich in the traces of gifts of which it has been robbed, but then was rich in the gifts themselves which the sick had consecrated to the god as payment for health-giving remedies. Next he visited Lacedaemon, notable not for the splendour of its buildings, but for its discipline and institutions; from there he went up to Olympia via Megalopolis. At Olympia he saw many sights which he considered worth seeing; but he was stirred to the quick as he gazed on what seemed Jupiter's very self. Therefore he ordered a sacrifice prepared larger than usual, just as if he had been going to sacrifice on the Capitol. In this way he travelled through Greece, raising no question as to how either any individual or any state had felt about the war with Perseus, so as not to trouble the minds of the allies by any fear. When he was returning to Demetrias, he met a crowd of Aetolians in mourning; on his asking in surprise what was the matter, it was reported to him that five hundred and fifty leading men had been killed by Lyciscus and Tisippus, while the senate was surrounded by Roman soldiers sent by Aulus Baebius, the commander of the garrison; others had been driven into exile, and the property of those killed and of the exiles had been seized. Ordering the accused men to meet him at Amphipolis, he joined Gnaeus Octavius in Demetrias. When a report arrived that the ten commissioners had by now crossed the sea, he gave up everything else and went to them at Apollonia. There Perseus came to meet him from Amphipolis —a. day's journey —free of any guard. Paulus greeted him in kindly fashion but after he arrived in camp at Amphipolis, he is said to have rebuked Gaius Sulpicius severely, first because he had allowed Perseus to roam so far from him through the province, and secondly because he had allowed the soldiers the great liberty of stripping the city walls of tiles, in order to roof over their winter-quarters; Paulus ordered the tiles taken back and the uncovered areas repaired to their previous condition. Perseus and his elder son Philip he turned over to Aulus Postumius and put under guard; Perseus' daughter and his younger son he summoned to Amphipolis from Samothrace and maintained completely in the state of free persons. When the day arrived on which he had ordered ten leading men from each city to be at Amphipolis, and all official despatches which had been filed anywhere and the royal money to be brought in, Paulus with the ten commissioners took his official seat surrounded by the whole crowd of Macedonians. Although the latter were used to a royal court, yet the ceremonial of a new master was frightening as it met their eyes —the consul's bench, his entrance after the way had been cleared, the herald, and the orderly, all things novel to their eyes and ears, which might have inspired terror in allies, to say nothing of conquered enemies. After the herald had commanded silence Paulus announced in Latin the decisions of the senate, as well as his own, made by the advice of his council. This announcement was translated into Greek and repeated by Gnaeus Octavius the praetor —for he too was present. The terms were: first of all the Macedonians were given their freedom; they were to keep their own cities and lands, to use their own laws, and to elect annual magistrates; they were to pay to the Roman People half the tax which they had paid to their kings. Next, Macedonia was to be divided into four regions; one, the first section, would comprise the land between the Strymon and Nessus Rivers; to this region were to be added across the Nessus to the eastward the villages, forts, and towns which Perseus had held except Aenus, Maronea, and Abdera; on this side of the Strymon, too, toward the west there was included all the country of the Bisaltae, including Heraclea, called Sintice. The second region was to be the region bounded on the east by the Strymon River, except for Heraclea Sintice, and the Bisaltae, while the western boundary would be the Axius River; this would also include the Paeonians who were settled near the Axius River in an easterly direction. The third region was established as that bounded on the east by the Axius, and on the west by the Peneüs River; to the north Mount Bora forms a barrier; to this region was added that part of Paeonia which stretches along the west bank of the Axius River; Edessa and Beroea fell in the same part. The fourth region was across Mount Bora, part marching with Illyricum, the rest with Epirus. The capitals of the regions, where their assemblies were to meet, were established: for the first region, Amphipolis, for the second, Thessalonica, for the third, Pella, and for the fourth, Pelagonia. In those places Paulus ordered an assembly of each region to be appointed, money to be gathered, and magistrates elected. Paulus then announced that it had been decided that no one should be allowed the right of marriage or of trading in land or buildings outside the bounds of his own region. Furthermore, the mines of gold and silver were not to be worked, but those of iron and copper were permitted. The tax on those who worked the mines was set at half what they had paid to the king. The use of imported salt was banned. When the Dardanians asked for the return of Paeonia, on the ground that it had been theirs and adjoined their boundaries, Paulus proclaimed that freedom was being given to all those who had been subjects of Perseus. After refusing them Paeonia, he granted them the right to import salt; he ordered the third region to carry salt to Stobi in Paeonia, and he set a price on it. He forbade the Macedonians to cut ship-timbers, or to permit others to do so. The regions which bordered on barbarians —and this was true of all except the third —were allowed to have armed guards along their frontiers. The announcement of these arrangements on the first day of the gathering aroused mixed emotions. The unexpected grant of freedom cheered men, as well as the lightening of the annual taxation; but to those who were cut off from trading between regions, their country seemed as mangled as an animal disjointed into parts, each of which needed the other; so unaware were the Macedonians themselves of the size of Macedonia, of how it lent itself to division, and of how self-sufficient each part was. The assets of the first region are the Bisaltae, men of great courage (they live beyond the Nessus and around the Strymon), soil suitable for many different crops, mines, and the strategic position of Amphipolis, the interposition of which bars off every approach to Macedonia from the sunrise side. The second region has those highly flourishing cities Thessalonica and Cassandrea, and in addition, Pallene, a fertile and fruitful land; facilities for seafaring are also furnished it by the harbours at Torone, Mount Athos, Aenea, and Acanthus, some of which conveniently face Thessaly and the island of Euboea, and others the Hellespont. The third region has the famous cities of Edessa, Beroea, and Pella, and the warlike race of the Vettii, as well as a large population of Gauls and Illyrians, who are industrious farmers. The fourth region is inhabited by the Eordaei, Lyncestae, and Pelagonians; added to these are Atintania, Tymphaeis, and Elimiotis. This part of the world is as a whole cold, difficult to cultivate, and harsh; it has inhabitants of temperament like their land. These are also made fiercer by their barbarian neighbours, who now give them training in warfare, now intermingle their practices during peace. The partition of Macedonia therefore showed, by separating the assets of the regions, how great the country is as a whole. After the proclamation of the charter for Macedonia, Paulus declared that he would also lay down a law-code, and then proceeded to summon the Aetolians. In this investigation, the question was more which side had favoured the king and which the Romans, than which had done wrong or had been wronged; the assassins were acquitted of guilt; the exile of the expelled was confirmed quite as definitely as the death of the slain; only Aulus Baebius was condemned for furnishing Roman soldiers to help carry out the slaughter. This outcome of the case of the Aetolians raised to an unbearable pitch of pride the spirits of those in all the states and peoples of Greece who sided with the Romans, and crushed helplessly under their feet any who were in some respect tainted by suspicion of having favoured the king. There were three sorts of leaders in the states, two groups who by fawning upon the Roman power and the friendship of kings respectively gained personal wealth for themselves by tyrannizing over their cities; the middle group alone, opposing both the others, strove to guard independence and constitutionality. Their reward was greater affection from their own people, and less favour in foreign quarters. Carried along on the tide of Roman success, the members of the pro- Roman party were then alone occupying all magistracies and serving as envoys. These gathered in great numbers both from the Peloponnesus and Boeotia and the other leagues of Greece, and filled the ears of the ten commissioners, saying that not only those who out of vanity openly boasted themselves guests and friends of Perseus, but many more who kept under cover, had sided with the king, and under the guise of preserving independence they had turned the whole organization of the league meetings against the Roman interest; these peoples, said their representatives, would not maintain loyalty unless the spirit of the opposition was crushed and the prestige sustained and strengthened of those who had no object in view but the power of Rome. Names were furnished by these men, and their opponents from Aetolia, Acarnania, Epirus, and Boeotia were summoned by dispatches from the general to follow him to Rome to stand trial. Two of the board of commissioners, Gaius Claudius and Gnaeus Domitius, set out for Achaia in order to summon men by proclamation on the spot. This they did for two reasons, first because they thought the Achaeans had more confidence and more pride to make them refuse obedience and perhaps also Callicrates and the other informers and purveyors of charges might be endangered; the second reason for the personal summons was that from the other leagues they had letters of the leaders that had been seized in the royal archives, but no letters from the Achaeans had been found and the charge against them was blind. When the Aetolians had been dismissed, the Acarnanian League was called up. No changes were made concerning them, except that Leucas was removed from the Acarnanian federation. In the course of more sweeping inquiries as to support of the king, either individual or by political units, the investigation was extended to Asia, and Labeo was sent to destroy Antissa on the island of Lesbos and to move its inhabitants to Methymna, because when Antenor, the king's admiral, had been roaming about Lesbos with his scout-ships, the people of Antissa had received him into their harbour and aided him with provisions. Two men of distinction were beheaded by the consul, Andronicus, son of Andronicus, an Aetolian, because following his father he had borne arms against the Roman People, and Neon of Thebes, who had induced his people to make an alliance with Perseus. After the interruption due to these investigations of other peoples, the assembly of the Macedonians was again convened. Concerning the constitution of Macedonia it was announced that senators, whom they call synhedri, were to be chosen, by whose advice affairs of state were to be conducted. The names were read of the Macedonian leaders who, it had been decided, were to precede the consul on the way to Italy with their sons of over fifteen years of age. This ordinance, cruel at first glance, soon was seen by the commons of Macedonia to have been enacted in the interests of their freedom. For the names were those of the king's friends and the wearers of the purple, of commanders of armies, of officers in command of ships and garrisons-men accustomed to being humble slaves of the king, but haughty tyrants toward others. Some were exceedingly rich, others equalled in expenditure those whose fortunes they could not match; all of them used the diet and garments of the court, none had the temperament of a citizen, or would endure the rule of law and the give-and-take of free men. All, therefore, who had held some office under the king, even those who had served as ambassadors, were ordered to leave Macedonia and travel to Italy; death was the penalty announced for disobedience to this order. Paulus laid down laws for Macedonia with such care as to seem to be giving them not to conquered enemies, but to well-deserving allies —laws which not even experience over along period, the one best amender of legislation, could prove faulty in actual use. After the serious business, Paulus celebrated with great pomp at Amphipolis a festival which had been long under preparation, and to announce which he had sent men to the cities and the kings of Asia, while he himself had given notice to the leading men during his tour of the Greek cities. For a crowd of all sorts of professionals in the art of entertainment gathered from all over the world, as well as athletes and famous horses; moreover there were delegations with sacrifices, and whatever more is usually done at the great games of Greece for the sake of gods or men, was so carried out as to arouse admiration not only for lavishness but for skill in giving shows, at which Romans were then tyros. Banquets for the delegations were also prepared with equal sumptuousness and pains. From mouth to mouth went the saying of Paulus himself, that the man who knew how to conquer in war could also arrange a banquet and organize games. XXXIII. After the festival had been held and the bronze shields loaded into ships, the rest of the arms of all kinds were piled up into a great heap, and the general, after prayer to Mars, Minerva, Mother Lua, and the other gods to whom it is right and lawful to dedicate the spoils of the enemy, with his own hands put the torch to the pile; then each of the military tribunes as they stood round about tossed in fire. In that great gathering of Europe and Asia, when such a crowd had assembled partly to offer congratulations and partly for the display, and in the presence of such forces naval and military, a remarkable fact was that supplies were so abundant and grain so cheap that both to individuals and to cities and peoples abundant gifts of such supplies were made by the general, not only for immediate use, but to be taken home with them. The eyes of the crowd which came were no more drawn to the stage spectacle, the contests of men, or the racing of the horses, than to the collected loot of Macedonia, set out on exhibition, statues, paintings, rare stuffs, and vessels made of gold, silver, bronze and ivory, manufactured with great pains in the palace at Pella, so as to serve not only for immediate show, as did the objects with which the palace at Alexandria was crammed, but for continuous use. This booty was loaded on the fleet and given to Gnaeus Octavius to transport to Rome. After a courteous farewell to the delegates, Paulus crossed the Strymon and pitched camp a mile from Amphipolis; thence he set out for Pella and arrived on the fifth day. Passing by the city to what is called the Pellaeum, he halted for two days, and sent his son Quintus Maximus and Publius Nasica with a portion of the troops to ravage Illyrians who had helped Perseus in the war, ordering the expedition to meet him at Oricum; the consul himself made for Epirus and reached Passaron on the fifteenth day. Not far from here was the camp of Anicius. Paulus sent him despatches, so that there should be no disturbance over what was about to take place, saying that the senate had granted to Paulus' army the booty from those cities of Epirus which had deserted to Perseus. The consul sent centurions to the several cities, who were to say that they had come to remove the garrisons so that the people of Epirus might be free like the Macedonians; ten leading men from each city were summoned to the consul. These men were instructed to have the gold and silver collected at the civic centre. Then cohorts were sent to all the cities, those bound for the more distant leaving before those for the nearer, so that they would arrive at all the towns on the same day. The tribunes and centurions had been instructed as to their mission. Early in the day all the gold and silver was collected; at the fourth hour the soldiers were given the signal to plunder the towns. So great was the booty that a distribution was made of four hundred denarii apiece to the cavalry, and two hundred apiece to the infantry, and one-hundred and fifty thousand persons were removed. The walls of the plundered cities were destroyed; the number of communities was about seventy. All the booty was sold, and from the proceeds the amounts given above were paid to the army. Paulus went down to the sea at Oricum, having by no means met the expectations of the soldiers, as he had supposed he would; the men were complaining that they had no share in the booty from the king, as if they had fought no campaign in Macedonia. On finding at Oricum the troops he had sent with Scipio Nasica and his son Maximus, Paulus embarked his army on ships and crossed to Italy. A few days later Anicius, after waiting for the ships which the army of Macedonia had used, crossed to Italy, first holding an assembly of the remaining Epirotes and Acarnanians, and ordering the leaders, judgment about whom he had reserved for the senate, to follow him to Italy. While these events were occurring in Macedonia and Epirus, the commissioners who had been sent with Attalus to put an end to the war between the Galatians and King Eumenes, arrived in Asia. A truce had been declared for the winter; the Galatians on their side had returned to their homes, and the king had gone into winter-quarters at Pergamum and was ill with a serious disease. Early spring called the Galatians into the field, and they had by this time reached Synnada; Eumenes had mustered an army from all sides at Sardis. At that city the Romans learned that Solovettius the Galatian leader was at Synnada, and decided to go there to confer with him; Attalus set out with them, but it was decided that he should not enter the camp of the Galatians, lest tempers be lost during an altercation. Publius Licinius, an ex-consul, talked with the prince of the Galatians and reported that he had been emboldened by the appeal to him, so that it was occasion for wonder that the words of Roman envoys had had such weight with those prosperous kings Antiochus and Ptolemy that they at once made peace, whereas with the Galatians Roman words were without effect. In Rome first the captive kings, Perseus and Gentius, were placed in custody with their children, next the horde of other prisoners, and after them the Macedonians who had been ordered to come to Rome, and the leaders of Greece, for these men too had not only been summoned when at home, but if any of them were reported as being at the courts of the kings, they had also been sought out by letter. After a few days, Paulus himself sailed up the Tiber to the city in a royal galley of immense size, which was driven by sixteen banks of oars, and decorated with the spoils of Macedonia, not only splendid armour, but also royal fabrics. The banks were lined with the crowd which had poured out to welcome him. A few days later Anicius and Octavius arrived aboard their fleet. A triumph was decreed to all three commanders by the senate, and Quintus Cassius the praetor was assigned the task of arranging with the tribunes of the commons that they should propose to the commons, on motion of the senate, a resolution that the commanders should keep their authority of office on the day on which they rode into the city in triumph. Moderate circumstances are unassailed by envy; that passion always aims at the heights. There was no debate over the triumphs for Anicius and Octavius; but defamation attacked Paulus, to whom the others themselves would have blushed to compare themselves. He had held the soldiers to old-fashioned discipline; he had given them less of the booty than they had hoped for from such lavish royal resources, though had he given rein to their greed, they would have left nothing to be deposited in the public treasury. The whole army of Macedonia, angered at their general, were prepared to be slack in attending the assembly for passing the law. But Servius Sulpicius Galba, who had been military tribune of the second legion in Macedonia, and was personally hostile to the general, had egged on the men to appear for voting in full numbers, by buttonholing the men himself and urging them through the soldiers of his legion. Let them, said Sulpicius, avenge themselves on their domineering and stingy leader by voting down the proposal concerning his triumph; the city commons would follow the opinion of the soldiers. Paulus had been unable to give them money; but the rank and file were able to award honours. Let him not look for a harvest of gratitude where he had not earned it. Such was the urging of Sulpicius. When Tiberius Sempronius, tribune of the commons, proposed this resolution on the Capitol, and opportunity was given to citizens to speak concerning the law, hardly anyone came forward to urge passage, since the case seemed quite clear. Suddenly Servius Galba came forward and asked of the tribunes, inasmuch as it was now the eighth hour of the day, and time would not serve for him to show cause why they should not allow Lucius Aemilius to celebrate a triumph, that they should adjourn to the following day, and bring the matter up early, because he needed a full day to present his arguments. When the tribunes ordered him to say what he wished on that day, he prolonged the meeting till nightfall with his speaking, recalling and reminding them of the harsh enforcement of military duties; more toil and more danger had been imposed, he said, than the situation demanded; on the other hand, rewards and honours had been without exception restricted; and military service, if success attended this sort of leadership, would be more dreadful and full of hardships in wartime, and after victory would moreover be left without funds or honours. The fate of the Macedonians was preferable, said Galba, to that of the Roman soldiers. If they turned out in large numbers on the next day to reject the law, men with authority would be made aware that not everything was under the control of the leader, but something also under that of the soldiers. Roused by these utterances, the soldiers next day filled the Capitol with such a crowd that no one else could approach to cast his vote. When the first tribes called within the enclosure voted against the law, the leaders of the state hastened to gather on the Capitol, crying out that it was an unworthy action to rob Lucius Paulus of his triumph when he had won so great a war; the generals were being helplessly subjected to the insubordination and greed of their men. Even now wrong action was all too often taken for the sake of currying favour; what would happen if soldiers were made the masters of their generals? Each man hurled reproaches on his own score against Galba. When this uproar had at last been calmed, Marcus Servilius, who had been consul and master of the horse, requested of the tribunes that they should conduct this balloting anew, and give him an opportunity to speak to the people. After the tribunes had retired to consider the proposal, overborne by the influence of the leading men, they began to repeat the proceedings, and announced that they would call the same tribes again, once Marcus Servilius and other citizens who wished to speak, had had their say. Then Servilius said: "If it were impossible, fellow-citizens, to determine from anything else how great a general Lucius Aemilius has shown himself to be this one criterion would have sufficed -that although he had in camp such mutinous and unreliable soldiers, as well as a personal enemy of such high rank, so rash, and so eloquent a rabble-rouser, yet Paulus had no breach of discipline in his army. The same strictness of command which now they hate at that time restrained them. Consequently, being kept under old-fashioned discipline, they neither said nor did anything mutinous. "As for Servius Galba, if he wished by accusing Lucius Paulus to put his apprenticeship behind him and offer proof of his skill as an orator, he should not have interfered with the triumph, which the senate had adjudged to be proper, to say nothing of other considerations. Rather on the day after the triumph was celebrated, when he would see Paulus a private citizen, he should bring accusation and question him according to law, or a little later, when Galba entered upon his first public office, he should summon his enemy to trial and accuse him before the people. Thus there would accrue to Lucius Paulus not only the triumph which is the due reward for his success in gloriously conducting the war, but also punishment, if he had done anything unworthy of his laurels, both new and old. "But, if you please, Galba wished to tarnish the praises of the man to whom he could ascribe no crime, no guilt. Yesterday he asked for a full day in which to accuse Lucius Paulus; actually he squandered in speaking four hours, all that was left of the day. What defendant was ever so guilty that the faults in his life could not be expounded in all those hours? What did Galba say in this time which Lucius Paulus would want to deny, if he were on trial? Let someone, pray, call two meetings for a moment, one of the army of Macedonia, the other unprejudiced and of judgment less impaired by partisanship or hate, a meeting of the whole Roman people. "Let the defendant be brought first before the meeting in mufti —the civilians. What would you say before the citizen-body of Rome, Servius Galba? For all your speech of yesterday would be cut short: 'You were posted on guard too strictly and watchfully; the sentries were inspected too severely and too frequently; you got more work done than formerly, because the general himself was going the rounds to see that it was done; on the same day you made a march and went from the march out to battle; even when you had won the battle he did not let you rest —he led you at once in pursuit of the enemy. Although he might have made you rich by dividing the spoil, he is planning to carry the royal treasure in his triumph and deposit it in the treasury.' These statements, though they have a certain sting to provoke the temper of the soldiers, who think that Paulus has catered too little to their lack of discipline and their greed, would just as surely have had no power to move the Roman people; for even though the people should not recall the old stories which they heard from their fathers of disasters suffered because generals courted popularity, and of victories won by strictness of command, yet the people surely remember the late Punic War, and what a difference there was between Marcus Minucius the master of horse, and Quintus Fabius Maximus the dictator. And so it would have been clear that the accuser could not open his mouth, and that a defence of Paulus was superfluous. "Let us pass over to the other meeting; and I think I will not address you as 'Citizens,' but as 'Soldiers,' in case this title may at least bring a blush to your cheeks, and instill some scruple against maltreating your general. "Indeed the state of my own feelings is different, when I picture myself speaking before the army, than it was previously, when my speech was directed toward the people of the city. For what do you mean, soldiers? Is there anyone in Rome except Perseus who does not want the triumph over Macedonia to be celebrated? And are you not ready to tear such an objector to pieces with the same hands with which you conquered the Macedonians? He who prevents you from entering the city in triumph would have prevented you from winning the victory, had he been able. You are wrong, soldiers, if you suppose that a triumph is an honour only to the general, and not also to the soldiers and to the Roman People as a whole. It is not the glory of Paulus alone which is at stake in this matter. "Furthermore, many who did not secure a triumph from the senate celebrated their triumph on the Alban Mount. No one can deprive Lucius Paulus of the glory of bringing the Macedonian war to an end any more than he can deprive Gaius Lutatius of credit for the First Punic War, or Publius Cornelius of that for the Second, or the others who have more recently celebrated triumphs. A triumph will make Lucius Paulus neither greater nor less as a general; rather it is the reputation of the soldiers and that of the Roman People as a whole which is at stake in this matter, in the first place that Rome may not gain a reputation for a jealous and ungrateful spirit toward her most distinguished citizens, and seem in this respect to be imitating the people of Athens who in their envy buffet their leading men. Enough of a crime was committed by your ancestors against Camillus —though they wronged him before his recovery of the city from the Gauls; enough was done by yourselves against Publius Africanus. Let us blush that the home and abode of the conqueror of Africa was at Liternum, and that it is at Liternum that his tomb is displayed. Let Lucius Paulus rival these men in glory, but let him not be their equal in suffering injustice at your hands. "Let therefore this disgrace be in the first place blotted out —a disgrace odious before other peoples, and harmful to ourselves. For who would want to emulate either Africanus or Paulus in a city so ungrateful and so hostile to excellence? If there were no question of disgrace, and only glory were at stake, what possible triumph does not embody the glory of the Roman name which we all share? Are the many triumphs which have been celebrated over the Gauls, over the Spaniards, over the Carthaginians spoken of as pertaining merely to the generals themselves, or to the Roman People? Just as triumphs are celebrated, not merely over Pyrrhus or Hannibal, but over the people of Epirus or Carthage, so not Manius Curius or Publius Cornelius alone, but the Romans celebrated the triumph. Soldiers indeed are directly interested in the matter, for they too are crowned with laurel, while each man is adorned with the decorations he has been given; they parade through the city invoking the spirit of Triumph by name and singing their own praises and those of their general. If on some occasion the soldiers are not brought back from the field for the triumph, they grumble; and yet even on such an occasion they believe that they are included in the triumph, though absent, because the victory has been won by their hands. If someone should ask you, soldiers, for what purpose you were transported to Italy, and were not dismissed at once when your mission had been completed, if he should ask why you had come to Rome in complete military units, why you were lingering here and were not dispersing, each to his own home, what would you answer but that you wished to be seen celebrating your triumph? Certainly you yourselves ought to have wanted to make a public appearance as conquerors. "Triumphs have been celebrated in recent years over Philip, the father of this king, and over Antiochus; both were still on the throne when the triumph was celebrated. Shall no triumph be celebrated over Perseus, who was taken prisoner and brought with his children to Rome? Nay, if while the other commanders were mounting the Capitol in the chariot, arrayed in their gold and purple, from below them Lucius Paulus, a lone citizen in the crowd of civilians, should ask them, ' Lucius Anicius, Gnaeus Octavius, do you consider yourselves more worthy of a triumph, or me? ' they would, I believe, yield him their place in the chariot and for very shame hand their regalia over to him. Do you prefer, fellow-citizens, to have Gentius rather than Perseus led in a triumph, and the celebration to be made for an appendage to the war rather than for the war itself? The legions from Illyricum will also enter the city crowned with laurel, and so will the sailors; shall the legions of Macedonia witness the triumphs of others after their own has been cancelled? What then shall become of so kingly a booty, of the spoils of so rich a victory? What, pray, shall be the hiding-place for all those thousand sets of arms stripped from the bodies of the enemy? Shall they be sent back to Macedonia? What of the golden statues, the marbles, the ivories, the paintings, the rare stuffs, all the embossed silver, all the gold, all the royal money? Shall they be carried to the treasury by night as if stolen? And what is more —that greatest of shows, royal prisoner of highest birth and greatest riches —where shall he be displayed to the people who have gained the victory? Many of us can recall what crowds were drawn by the sight of King Syphax as prisoner, an appendage to the war with Carthage. Shall our prisoner King Perseus, shall the king's sons, Philip and Alexander, names of such potency, —shall they be removed from the sight of the commonwealth? Lucius Paulus himself, twice consul, conqueror of Greece —all eyes are eager to behold him entering the city in his chariot; to this end we made him consul, that he might bring to an end the war which to nothing less than our great shame had dragged on through four years. When he was allotted this field of operations, when he left home, we marked him for victory and triumph with minds that read the future; and shall we deny him a triumph when he has won his victory? Nay more —shall we rob not only Paulus, but even the gods, of the honour that belongs to them? For it is to the gods too, not only to men, that we owe a triumph. Your ancestors made the gods their starting-point in every important enterprise, and likewise resorted to them at the conclusion. When consul or praetor, his lictors in their military dress, sets out for his field of action and to war, he proclaims his vows upon the Capitol; when war has ended in victory, he returns in triumph to the same gods on the same Capitol, and brings them the well-earned gifts, as he promised them in his vows. No small part of a triumphal procession is formed by the sacrificial animals going ahead, which make it clear that the general is returning with thanksgiving to the gods for success on behalf of the commonwealth. Away with all those sacrificial victims which he has assigned to be led in the triumphal procession, and offer them up, some here, some there! I ask you! What of the banquet of the senate, which is not held on private property, nor on the unconsecrated land of the state, but on the Capitol-is this ceremony held for the pleasure of men, or in honour of the gods? Will you play havoc with all these rites at the instigation of Servius Galba? Will the gates be closed to the triumph of Lucius Paulus? Will King Perseus of Macedonia, together with his sons, the throng of other prisoners, and the spoils of Macedonia, be left behind in the Flaminian Circus? Will Lucius Paulus go home from the gate as a private citizen, as if he were returning from his country house? You, centurion, and you, private, harken to what the senate decrees about General Paulus rather than what Servius Galba babbles, and harken too to my speech rather than his. He has learned nothing except talk, and that of a slanderous and malicious sort; I have on twenty-three occasions challenged and fought an enemy; I brought back the spoils of every man with whom I duelled; I possess a body adorned with honourable scars, every one of them received in front. He then stripped, it is said, and told in which war he had received each wound. While displaying these, he by chance uncovered what should have remained concealed, and the swelling of his groin raised a laugh among those nearby. This too, he then said, "at which you are laughing I got by sitting my horse through whole days and nights; and I feel no more shame or regret for this than for these wounds of mine, since it never hindered me from successfully conducting affairs of state at home or in the field. As a veteran soldier before young soldiers, I have displayed this body of mine which has often been marred by the sword; let Galba uncover his sleek and untouched person. Tribunes, call back the tribes, if you please, to the voting; I [will join] you, soldiers ... The total of all the captured gold and silver which was carried in the procession was one hundred and twenty million sesterces, according to the account of Valerius Antias; no doubt a somewhat larger total than this is made up from the number of wagons and the weights of gold and silver in various forms which are mentioned by this same author. As much again was either expended in the late war, or scattered during the flight, when Perseus was making for Samothrace, according to the historians; and this fact is the more marvellous, because this huge sum of money was accumulated within thirty years after Philip's war with the Romans, partly from the output of the mines, and partly from other revenues. Philip therefore began his war against Rome when he was rather ill-supplied with funds, but Perseus, when he was very rich. Paulus himself came last in his chariot, showing a magnificent presence not only because of the general dignity of his bearing, but because of his advanced age as well. After the chariot came his two sons, Quintus Maximus and Publius Scipio, among other distinguished men; then came the cavalry by troops, and the units of infantry, rank by rank. Each infantryman received one hundred denarii, each centurion, twice the amount, and each cavalryman, three times as much. It is thought that double the amount would have been given to the infantry, and proportionately to the rest, if they had supported Paulus' triumph in the voting, or had cheerfully applauded the announcement of the gift as actually given. But Perseus was not the only testimony at this time to the state of human fortunes, as he was led in chains before the chariot of his conqueror through the city of his enemies; the conqueror Paulus, in the splendour of his gold and purple, was no less a witness. For of the two sons whom he kept at home as the only heirs of his name, his family rites, and his household, after he had given two other sons to be adopted, the younger boy, aged about twelve, died five days before the triumph, and the elder, fourteen years old, died three days after the festivity. These were the minor boys who should have ridden with their father in the chariot, secretly planning like triumphs for themselves. When a few days later an assembly of the commons was called by Marcus Antonius the tribune, and Paulus discoursed, as was customary for commanders, on his exploits, his speech was noteworthy and well-suited to a leading Roman: "Although you, my fellow-citizens, are not unaware, I believe, of the good fortune with which I have conducted the affairs of the state, and of the two thunderbolts which have recently struck my house —for you were eyewitnesses first of my triumph, and then of the funerals of my sons —yet I beg you to permit me in a few words to compare, in the proper spirit, my personal fortune with the good fortune of the state. When I left Italy, I set sail from Brundisium at sunrise; at the ninth hour of the day I reached Corcyra with all my ships. Five days later at Delphi I offered sacrifice to Apollo on my own behalf, and on that of your armies and fleets. From Delphi I arrived five days later in camp. I took command of the army, removed certain great obstacles to victory, and advanced. Because the camp of the enemy was impregnable, and the king could not be compelled to fight, I slipped between his garrisons through the pass at Petra, and at Pydna I conquered the king in battle. I brought Macedonia under the control of the Roman People, and in fifteen days I finished a war which three consuls before me had waged over a period of four years, each in such a way as always to leave a worse situation for his successor. A harvest, as it were, of further successes followed; all the cities of Macedonia surrendered, the royal treasures were secured, the king was taken prisoner along with his children in the temple of Samothrace, almost as if the gods themselves delivered him into our hands. Even to me this good fortune seemed excessive, and therefore I viewed it askance. I began to fear the dangers. of the sea during the carrying of the great royal treasure to Italy, and the transfer of the victorious army. After everything had been brought to Italy in a successful voyage, and I had nothing left to pray for, my hope was that, since fortune is wont to plunge downward from its high point, the brunt of this change should fall not upon the state, but upon my household. And so I hope that the fortune of Rome has completed its course in so extraordinary a disaster as mine, since my triumph, as if in mockery of human vicissitudes, was interposed between the two funerals of my sons. Both Perseus and I are now on view as especially conspicuous samples of man's lot. Yet he, who as a prisoner saw his children led as prisoners before him, yet has those children unharmed; whereas I who celebrated the triumph over him mounted my chariot after the funeral of one son, and when I returned from the Capitol found the other almost on the point of death, nor is there one left of so splendid a generation of sons to carry on the name of Lucius Aemilius Paulus. For two sons were given in adoption, as if from a great stock of children, and they belong to the Cornelian and Fabian clans. Not a Paulus is left in my house, save one old man. But I am consoled in this disaster to my house by your happiness and the good fortune of the state. These words, spoken with such magnificent spirit, caused more turmoil of soul to the hearers than if his speech had been a pitiable lamentation for his bereavement. On the first of December, Gnaeus Octavius held a naval triumph over King Perseus. This triumph was unadorned with prisoners or spoils. Octavius presented to each of the sailors seventy-five denarii, to the pilots of the ships twice as much, and to the captains, four times the amount. The senate then met. The Fathers voted that Quintus Cassius should conduct King Perseus with his son Alexander to Alba for safe-keeping; he was to permit the king to keep intact the staff, money, silver, and furnishings which he had. Bithys, the son of Cotys, King of Thrace, was sent with the hostages to Carseoli for safe-keeping. It was voted to place in the prison the other prisoners who were led in the triumph. A few days after these transactions, envoys came from Cotys, King of Thrace, bringing money to ransom his son and the other hostages. When these envoys were brought before the senate, they used the fact itself as the theme of their apology, saying that Cotys had not voluntarily aided Perseus in the war, because he had been compelled to give hostages; the envoys pleaded that they should be permitted to ransom them for whatever amount the Fathers themselves might determine. The answer authorized by the senate was that the Roman People were mindful of the friendship which had existed between them and Cotys, his ancestors, and the people of Thrace; but the giving of hostages constituted an accusation, not a defence against accusation, since the Thracian people had no reason to fear Perseus even when he was at peace, to say nothing of his being involved in a war against Rome. However, although Cotys had preferred the favour of Perseus to the friendship of the Roman People, the latter would reckon rather what was worthy of themselves than what action would answer to his deserts, and would send him back his son and his hostages. Benefits conferred by the Roman People, said the senate, are without charge; the Romans prefer to leave the price on deposit in the hearts of the recipients rather than to demand cash down. Three envoys, Titus Quinctius Flamininus, Gaius Licinius Nerva, and Marcus Caninius Rebilus, were appointed to escort the hostages back to Thrace. Gifts of two thousand asses apiece were given to the Thracians. Bithys was summoned, along with the other hostages, from Carseoli, and was sent off to his father with the envoys. The king's ships captured from the Macedonians, of a size never previously seen, were beached by the Campus Martius. While recollections of the Macedonian triumph remained not only in people's minds, but almost before their eyes, Lucius Anicius celebrated his triumph over King Gentius and the Illyrians on the festival of Quirinus. Men saw in each detail a resemblance, but no equality. The commander himself was the lesser, both in public esteem, as an Anicius compared with an Aemilius, and in rank of office, a praetor rather than a consul. Gentius could not be compared to Perseus, the Illyrians to the Macedonians, nor the spoils of the one to those of the other, nor the moneys, nor the gifts to the soldiers. But though accordingly the previous triumph outshone this one, yet it was also clear to those who contemplated this one on its merits that it was by no means to be scorned. Within a few days Anicius had overcome the Illyrian people, bold on both land and sea, and confident in their terrain and their fortifications; he had captured the king and all the royal family. In his triumph he bore through the city many military standards and other booty, as well as the royal furniture, twenty-seven pounds of gold, nineteen pounds of silver, thirteen thousand denarii, and one hundred and twenty thousand Illyrian silver-pieces. Before the chariot were led King Gentius with his wife and children, Caravantius the king's brother, and several prominent Illyrians. Anicius gave from the booty to each soldier forty-five denarii, double the amount to each centurion, and three times as much to the cavalry; the allies of the Latin Name received as much as the Romans, and the sailors as much as the soldiers. The soldiery followed this triumph in better spirits, and the leader was the subject of many songs. Twenty million sesterces was realized from this booty, according to Antias, besides the gold and silver delivered to the treasury; since it was not clear to me from what source this amount could be derived, I have quoted an historian instead of stating a fact. King Gentius with his wife, his children, and his brother, was taken to Spoletium for safe-keeping, in accordance with a decree of the senate. The other prisoners were thrown into the prison at Rome. When the people of Spoletium refused to take custody, the royal family was transferred to Iguvium. There remained from the Illyrian booty two hundred and twenty scout-ships; as prizes taken from King Gentius they were presented to the people of Corcyra, Apollonia, and Dyrrhachium by Quintus Cassius, in accordance with a decree of the senate. In that year the consuls merely ravaged the fields of the Ligurians, since the enemy never led out their forces. Without accomplishing anything worthy of note, the consuls returned to Rome to attend to the election of their successors, and on the first day of the elections, declared Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Gaius Sulpicius Gallus elected as consuls. On the next day there were elected as praetors Lucius Julius, Lucius Apuleius Saturninus, Aulus Licinius Nerva, Publius Rutilius Calvus, Publius Quinctilius Varus, and Marcus Fonteius. The provinces appointed for these praetors were the two city magistracies, the two Spains, Sicily, and Sardinia. There was an intercalation in this year; the day after the Terminalia was the first day of the intercalary month. An augur died this year, Gaius Claudius; in his place, the augurs chose Titus Quinctius Flamininus. The flamen of Quirinus, Quintus Fabius Pictor, also died. In this year King Prusias came to Rome with his son Nicomedes. Entering the city with a large train, he proceeded from the gate to the Forum and the judgment-seat of Quintus Cassius the praetor. A crowd gathered from all sides; Prusias announced that he had come to bring greetings to the gods who inhabited the city of Rome, and to the senate and the Roman People, and to congratulate them on their victory over King Perseus and King Gentius, and on the extension of their empire by placing the Macedonians and Illyrians under their sway. When the praetor offered to call a session of the senate for him on that very day, if he pleased, Prusias asked for a two-day interval, during which he might visit the temples of the gods, the city, and his friends and guest-friends. There was assigned to him as escort Lucius Cornelius Scipio the quaestor, who had also been sent to Capua to meet him; and a house was rented for him, where he and his suite might be well entertained. On the third day following, he approached the senate; he offered congratulations on the victory; he recited his services in the war; and he requested permission to fulfill a vow of ten full-grown victims at Rome in the Capitol and one at Praeneste to Fortune. This vow, he said, was for the victory of Rome; and he asked that the alliance with him should be renewed, and that the land taken from King Antiochus, which had been assigned to no one by the Roman People and was being held by Galatians, should be given to him. Last of all, he placed his son Nicomedes under the protection of the senate. He was aided by the good-will of all those who had been commanders in Macedonia. Consequently all but one of his requests were granted; as to the land, the answer was that envoys would be sent to look the matter over; if this land belonged to the Roman People and had been assigned to no one, they would consider Prusias most worthy of receiving it as a gift; if, on the other hand, it was shown not to have belonged to Antiochus, and therefore not to have come into the possession of the Roman People, or that it had been presented to the Galatians, then Prusias must pardon the Roman People, if they were unwilling to wrong anyone in the process of making him a present. A gift, said the senate, could not be pleasing even to the recipient, if he knew that the giver would take it away again whenever he pleased. The senate accepted the commission to protect his son Nicomedes. How great was the care with which the Roman People guarded the sons of kings was shown, said the senate, by the case of Ptolemy, King of Egypt. With this answer, Prusias was dismissed. Gifts were ordered given him of a value of . . . sesterces, and silver vessels of fifty pounds' weight. It was also voted to give to Prince Nicomedes gifts to the same amount as had been given to Masgaba, the son of King Masinissa. It was further voted that the victims and other requisites for sacrifice should be furnished at public expense to the king, just as to Roman magistrates, whether he wished to sacrifice at Rome or Praeneste. Also twenty war-vessels from the fleet at Brundisium were to be assigned to his use; until the king should reach the fleet presented to him, Lucius Cornelius Scipio was to escort him uninterruptedly, and to provide for the expenses of the king and his suite, until he boarded ship. They say that the king was wonderfully pleased with this expression of good-will toward himself on the part of the Roman People. He refused to have gifts bought for himself, but instructed his son to accept the gift of the Roman People. Such is the account of Prusias given by Roman writers. Polybius reports that this king was unworthy of the dignity of so high a title; that he was accustomed to meet envoys with his head shaved, while he wore a freedman's cap and called himself the freedman of the Roman People, giving this as his reason for wearing the emblem of this class. Polybius further says that when Prusias entered the senate-house at Rome, he fell down and kissed the threshold of the senatehouse, hailed the senate as his saviour-gods, and indulged in further speech which conveyed more disgrace to himself than honour to his hearers. After remaining in the vicinity of Rome no more than thirty days, he set out for his kingdom, and . . . the war under way between Eumenes and the Galatians.

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0914.phi00145.perseus-eng1. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.