40.
After there had been a silence for a moment, “What is awaited, I suppose,” said Marcius, “is a reply from us to your letter which you sent to Corcyra, in which you ask why we have
[2??]
come in this fashion as envoys with soldiers and are sending garrisons to the several cities.
[3]
I hesitate to make no reply to this inquiry of yours, for fear of acting arrogantly, and also to reply truly, lest the reply seem to you, as you hear it, too harsh.
[4]
But since one who breaks a treaty must be rebuked either with words or with arms, as on the one hand I should prefer war against you to be entrusted to some other rather than to me,1 so on the other hand I shall take upon myself the harshness of this speech to a guest-friend, however it may
[5??]
be, as physicians do in applying somewhat painful remedies for the sake of a cure. From the time when you attained the throne the senate believes you have done one thing which you should have done, in that you sent envoys to Rome to renew the treaty;
[6]
yet even this, the senate considers, you should have failed to renew instead of breaking it after it had been renewed.
[7]
Abrupolis, the ally and friend of the Roman people, you drove from his kingdom;2 the assassins of Arthetaurus you [p. 411]sheltered, so that it was obvious that you rejoiced,3 to say nothing more, in the
[8??]
crime of those who had killed the prince most faithful of all the Illyrians to Rome; you went to Delphi with an army through Thessalian and Malian territory, contrary to the treaty;4
[9]
again, you sent help to the Byzantines, contrary to the treaty;5 you pledged by oath a secret alliance between yourself and the Boeotians, our allies, which was not permitted;6
[10]
as for the Theban envoys, Eversa and Callicritus, who were on their way to us, I prefer to ask who killed them than to make an accusation.
[11]
In Aetolia, who, if not your men, can seem to have brought about the civil war and slaughter of leading men?7”
1 But later he did command the army, XLIII. xv. 3.
2 For this and the following accusations, cf. above xiii. 6-8 (speech of Eumenes).
3 B.C. 172
4 Cf. note 2, p. 397; Marcius has Perseus going in the reverse direction, cf. below ch. xlii. 1 and note 2.
5 A straining of the provision against waging war, XXXIII. xxx. 6.
6 No statement of this prohibition appears in either Livy's account of the treaty (XXXIII. xxx) or Polybius' (XVIII. 44), but it was standard Roman practice in the case of dependent cities to forbid them to make treaties with each other. Cf. VIII. xiv. 10.
7 Cf.
Livy. Books XL-XLII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1938: published without copyright notice.
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