Book 39
36
"You bring up against us the assassination of the delegates who had gone on the invitation of Philopoemen to make their defence. I hold this charge ought never to have been made by you, Romans, or even by others in your presence. Why so? Because it was laid down in your treaty with the Lacedaemonians that they should not interfere with the cities on the coast. Had T. Quinctius been in the Peloponnese; had there been a Roman there at the time when the Lacedaemonians made an armed attack upon the cities which they were pledged to leave alone, the inhabitants would, of course, have taken refuge with the Romans. As you were far away, with whom else could they have found shelter but with us, your allies? They had previously seen us carrying succour to Gytheum and attacking Lacedaemon on similar grounds in conjunction with you. On your behalf, then, we undertook the war as a just one, prompted by our sense of duty. Since others commend our conduct, and not even the Lacedaemonians can find fault with it, since the gods themselves, who have given us the victory, showed their approval of it, how can what we did by right of war admit of question? And yet the thing they lay most stress upon in no way concerns us. We are responsible for having called to trial the men who had excited the population to take up arms, who had stormed and plundered the maritime towns and massacred their leading men; but the putting them to death as they were coming into the camp was your doing, Areus and Alcibiades; and now, good heavens! you are actually accusing us of it! The Lacedaemonian refugees, these two men amongst them, were with us at the time, and because they had selected the maritime towns for their residence, they believed that their lives were in danger, and in retaliation made an attack upon those who had been the instruments of their banishment and would not suffer them to pass their lives in security, even though it were in exile. It was not, therefore, the Achaeans but the Lacedaemonians who slew Lacedaemonians, whether justly or unjustly, we are not concerned to discuss.
