Kitap 45
23
"Some one may say, 'What then? Has nothing been done or said in your City which you disapproved of and which was such as to give just offence to the people of Rome?' I am not here now to defend what has been done-I am not so mad-but I shall draw a distinction between the cause of the State as a whole and the guilty conduct of individual citizens. There is no State which does not at some time possess bad citizens and at all times an ignorant populace. I have heard that even amongst you there have been men who made their way by flattering the mob, and that there have occasionally been secessions of the plebs when the government was no longer in your hands. If these things could happen in so well-ordered a State as this, can any one feel surprised that there have been amongst us a few men who in their desire to win the friendship of the king have led our plebs astray by their evil counsels? All the same, they did not effect anything more than make us slacken in our duty. I will not pass over what is the most serious charge brought against us with regard to this war. We sent embassies to you and to Perseus simultaneously to urge peace. This unfortunate policy has been, as we have heard, held up as abject folly by a furious orator, who it is admitted spoke in such a tone that he might have been C. Popilius, your envoy, whom you commissioned to dissuade Antiochus and Ptolemy from war. Still, whether we are to call it arrogance or folly, our policy towards you was the same as towards Perseus.
