14.
While the war was continuing in Macedonia, envoys from across the Alps from a Gallic chieftain —his name is given as Balanos, but there is no record of his tribe —came to Rome promising aid for the Macedonian campaign.
[2]
Thanks were expressed by the senate and gifts sent the envoys, a twisted necklace of two pounds of gold and golden bowls of four pounds, a horse with ornamental trappings, and cavalry weapons.
[3]
After the Gauls, Pamphylian1 envoys presented in the senate-house a gold crown made of twenty thousand philips2 and their request was [p. 135]granted that they be permitted to deposit this3 present in the temple of Jupiter, Greatest and Best, and to offer sacrifice on the Capitol;
[4]
a gracious answer was given to the envoys' request for a renewal of the state of friendship, and a gift of two thousand asses apiece was sent them.
[5]
Next, an audience was given to envoys from King Prusias, and shortly thereafter to those from the Rhodians, who made a very different presentation of the same request.
[6]
Both embassies treated of making terms again with King Perseus. Prusias' attitude was more that of entreaty than demand, for he declared that up to this time he had taken the part of the Romans, and would so continue as long as the war lasted;
[7]
however, inasmuch as envoys from Perseus had come to him to discuss ending the war with the Romans, he had promised to plead Perseus' cause before the senate; he requested that if they could bring themselves to do so, they would put an end to their wrath, and would accord him, too, their thanks for the restoration of peace. So spoke the king's envoys.
[8]
The Rhodians haughtily reviewed their services to the Roman people, and claimed for themselves almost the greater part of the victories, especially over King Antiochus; they then added that while peace had existed between the Macedonians and Romans, they had entered upon friendship with King Perseus;
[9]
this they had broken off against their will and on account of no fault of his toward them, but because it had seemed good to the Romans to draw them into participation in the war.
[10]
[p. 137]For the third year, they said, they were feeling many4 inconveniences from this war because of the interruption of commerce; their island was poor, and could not be inhabited without the assistance of sea-borne supplies.
[11]
Since therefore they could no longer endure this privation, they had sent other envoys to Perseus in Macedonia, to inform him that it was the Rhodians' wish that he should arrange a peace with the Romans, and that they had sent a similar announcement to Rome.
[12]
If either party was responsible for preventing the ending of the war, the Rhodians would deliberate as to what action they ought to take against this party.
[13]
I feel sure that even now these statements cannot be read or heard without indignation; from this one can judge what the senate's state of mind was as they listened.5
1 They had apparently been recognized as free “friends” of Rome after a dispute as to their status under the treaty with Antiochus, XXXVIII. xxxix. 17, and xv. 6.
2 These coins were worth about twenty silver drachmas, cf. XXXVII. lix. 4 and the note. The gift seems to have been unusually large; the Rhodians gave the same when desperately trying to regain Roman favour, see XLV. xxv. 7; the figure here may be wrong. The philip, by weight a stater or double drachma of the Athenian standard (= 8.6 g.; the theoretical U.S. gold dollar of 1934 = 15r[grains troy = 0.988 g.), was popularized by Philip II after the fall of Olynthus in 348 B.C. He seems to have taken the coin from the Olynthians; it paralleled an earlier issue from Philippi, which began as a colony of Thasos three years before its capture by Philip, and which had an Athenian adviser. Philip continued the coinage of this town. During the second century, the philip was the commonest gold coin of Rome (see XXXIV. lii. 7; XXXVII. lix. 4; XXXIX. v. 15 and vii. 1, and frequent allusions of Plautus' Bacchides, Poenulus, and Trinummus); as a result of Roman trade, philips also made their appearance in central Gaul, and were locally imitated there, in the Rhine-land, and even in Britain. (See Seltman, Greek Coins, pp. 200-202, and R.E. 2196-2198.)
3 B.C. 169
4 B.C. 169
5 For the services of the Rhodians, cf. XLII. xlvi. 6. According to Polybius XXVIII. 16, relations between Rome and Rhodes were entirely cordial this year; in 168 B.C. the consul Marcius suggested to an embassy of the Rhodians that they act as mediators; the only result was to encourage the pro-Macedonians in Rhodes (cf. below, xxxv. 4, where Livy still saddles the Rhodians with the onus in this matter; also XLV. iii. 3, with which cf. Polybius XXIX. 10). Polybius suspects Marcius of planning to have the Rhodians annoy the Romans and so justify Rome's overriding their independence; in view of Marcius' liking for intrigue (XLII. xlvii. 1-4), this is quite probable. In XLV. xxii. 2, Livy suggests that Roman suspicion of Rhodes was something new in 167 B.C.; in XLV. xxv. 6, the “freeing” of Lycia and Caria seems to have been ordered in that year. Claudius (see below) or some other annalist seems to have misled Livy by anticipating developments. Cassius Dio XX. fr. 66, 2 = Zonaras 9. 22 says that Perseus would have been granted peace but for the tactlessness of the Rhodians. Livy certainly had no suspicion that the Romans might have continued to tolerate Perseus.
Livy. Books XLIII-XLV With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1951: published without copyright notice.
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