Book 32
21
Then Aristaenus resumed: "Leaders of the Achaeans, you are not lacking in counsel any more than you are in the power of speech, but each of you is unwilling to endanger his own safety in consulting for the safety of all. Possibly I, too, should keep silence, were I only a private citizen, but as it is, I see that either the president ought not to have introduced the envoys into the council, or after he had introduced them they ought not to be dismissed without some reply being made to them. But how can I give them any reply except in accordance with the decree which you make? And since none of you who have been summoned to this council is willing or has the courage to express his opinion, let us examine the speeches which the envoys delivered yesterday as though they were made by members of this council, let us regard them not as making selfish demands in their own interest, but as recommending a policy which they believe to be advantageous to us. The Romans, the Rhodians and Attalus all ask for our alliance and friendship and consider that it is only just and right that we should give them assistance in the war they are waging against Philip. Philip, on the other hand, reminds us of the fact that we are his allies and have pledged our oath to him. At one time he demands our active support, at another he assures us that he is content for us to remain neutral. Has it not occurred to any one why those who are not yet our allies ask more from us than those who are our allies? This is not due to excess of modesty in Philip or to the lack of it in the Romans. It is the fortune of war which imparts confidence to the demands of one side and takes it away from those of the other. As far as Philip is concerned we see nothing belonging to him except his envoy. As for the Romans, their fleet lies at Cenchreae, laden with the spoils of the cities of Euboea, and we see the consul with his legions overrunning Phocis and Locris which are only separated from us by a narrow strip of sea. Do you wonder why Philip's envoy, Cleomedon, spoke in so diffident a tone when he urged us to take up arms against the Romans on behalf of his king? He impressed upon us the sanctity of the same treaty and oath, but if we were to ask of him, by virtue of the same treaty and oath, that Philip should defend us from Nabis and the Lacedaemonians, he would not be able to find a force adequate for our protection or even an answer to our request, any more than Philip himself could have done last year. For when he attempted to draw our fighting-men away into Euboea by promising that he would make war on Nabis, and saw that we would not sanction such an employment of our soldiers or allow ourselves to be involved in a war with Rome, he forgot all about the treaty which he is now making so much of, and left us to be despoiled and wasted by Nabis and the Lacedaemonians.
