Kitap 37
53
The king was brought back into the senate house by the praetor and requested to speak his mind. "I should," he began, "have persisted in my silence, senators, had it not been that you will presently call in the delegates from Rhodes, and after they had been heard it would have been necessary for me to speak. It will be all the more difficult for me to say what I have to say, because their demands will apparently not be in any way opposed to my interests or in any way affect you. They will plead the cause of the city-states of Greece and will say that they ought to be declared free. If they gain their point, who can doubt that they will sever from us not only those cities which will be declared free, but also those which from ancient times have been tributary to us, and after placing them all under obligation for so great a kindness will hold them nominally as allies but really as subjects, wholly under their dominion? And while they grasp at this immense power they will pretend that it does not in any way concern their interests, and that you are only doing what is right and proper and consistent with your policy in the past. Do not let these professions deceive you, you will have to be on your guard, lest you not only lower the status of some of your allies and raise unduly that of others, but also place those who have borne arms against you in a better position than those who have been your allies and friends. As regards myself, I would rather be thought by anyone to have yielded within the limits of my rights, so far as other things are concerned, than to have shown excessive obstinacy in maintaining them; but when it is a question of being worthy of your friendship, of giving you every proof of affection and goodwill, of upholding the honour which comes from you-in such a contest I cannot resign myself to defeat. This is the most precious inheritance I have received from my father. He was the first of all who dwell in Greece or Asia to be admitted to your friendship, and he preserved it with unbroken and unchanging loyalty to the end of his life. Nor was it only in heart that he was a good and faithful friend. He took his part in all the wars that you have waged in Greece, he assisted you by sea and land and provided you with supplies of all kinds to an extent beyond anything which your other allies have done. And at last, whilst he was seeking to persuade the Boeotians to accept your alliance, he became unconscious in the middle of his speech, and shortly afterwards expired. Treading as I have done in his footsteps, I could not have shown in any way greater goodwill or a stronger desire to cherish your favour than he did, for those indeed were unsurpassable. That I have been able to go further than he did in actual achievement, in services rendered, in the sacrifices which duty imposes, is due to the opportunities afforded by the circumstances of the time, by Antiochus and your war in Asia. Antiochus, when monarch of Asia and a part of Europe, offered to give me his daughter in marriage and to restore at once the cities which had revolted from us, and he also held out great hopes of enlarging my dominions in the future if I would join him in fighting against you.
