Book 42
42
"This man, by misrepresenting and distorting all my actions, has made them appear suspicious and treacherous, and he tried to persuade you that Greece could not be really free or enjoy the boon of liberty which you have conferred as long as the kingdom of Macedonia remained intact. Well, the wheel will come round full turn: somebody will soon be saying that it was to no purpose that Antiochus had been removed beyond the Taurus. Eumenes is a much greater oppressor of Asia than Antiochus ever was, your allies can have no rest as long as the kingdom of Pergamum exists, it stands like a citadel to command all the States round it. I am quite aware that the charges which you, Q. Marcius and A. Atilius, have brought against me, and the replies which I have made to them, are just what the minds and ears of those present choose to make of them, and that it is not my conduct or my motives that are important, but the light in which you view them. I am not conscious of having committed any fault knowingly: whatever lapse I may have been guilty of through imprudence can, I am sure, be corrected and amended through these stern admonitions of yours. At all events I have done nothing which cannot be remedied, nothing for which you should think it necessary to seek redress by force of arms. Otherwise the fame of your clemency and magnanimity has been carried through the world in vain, if for reasons which are hardly worth discussion you take up arms and levy war upon monarchs who are your allies."
