Book 32
21
Suppose there is no truth in what the Athenian delegate has said about the king's brutality and greed and lust, suppose that the crimes committed in Attica against all the gods, supernal and infernal, do not concern us, still less the sufferings of Chios and Abydos, which are a long way off; let us forget our own wounds, the robberies and murders at Messene in the heart of the Peloponnesus, the king's assassination of his host almost at the banquet-table, the deaths of the two Arati of Sicyon, father and son-the king was in the habit of speaking of the hapless old man as though he were his father-the abduction of the son's wife into Macedonia as a victim to Philip's lusts, and all the other outrages on matrons and maids-let all these be consigned to oblivion. Let us even imagine that we have not to do with Philip whose cruelty has struck you dumb (for what other reason can there be for you who have been summoned to the council keeping silence?), but with Antigonus, a gentle and just-minded monarch who has been the greatest benefactor to us all. Do you suppose that he would demand of us that we should do what cannot possibly be done? The Peloponnesus, remember, is a peninsula connected with the mainland by the narrow strip of land called the Isthmus, open and exposed above all to a naval attack. If a fleet of 100 decked ships and 50 undecked ships with lighter draught, and 30 Isaean cutters should begin to ravage our coast and attack the cities which stand exposed almost on the shore, we should, I suppose, withdraw into the inland cities just as if we were not caught by the flames of a war within our frontiers which is fastening upon our vitals. When Nabis and the Lacedaemonians are pressing us by land and the Roman fleet by sea, from what quarter am I to appeal to our alliance with the king and implore the Macedonians to help us? Shall we protect with our own arms the threatened cities against the Romans? How splendidly we protected Dymae in the last war! The disasters of others afford ample warning to us, let us not seek how we may become a warning to others.
