Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 45
Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

13. Popilius, too, and the embassy which had been sent to Antiochus returned to Rome. They reported that the disputes between the kings had been settled and the army led out of Egypt into Syria. [2] Afterwards the envoys of the kings themselves arrived. Antiochus' envoys reported that to the king peace had seemed preferable to any conquest, since it was the wish of the senate, and that Antiochus had obeyed the orders of the Roman envoys as if they had been gods. [3] Then they presented congratulations on the victory, to which the king would have contributed his aid, they said, if any demand had been made upon him.

[4] Ptolemy's envoys¹ offered thanks in the names of the king and Cleopatra together; [5] they owed, they said, more to the Roman senate and people than to their own parents, more than to the immortal gods, since they had been freed by the Romans from a most wretched state of siege, and had recovered the ancestral kingdom which they had almost lost.

[6] [p. 287] The senate's reply to Antiochus was that he had² done what was right and proper in obeying the envoys, and that the Roman senate and people were pleased. [7] To the king and queen of Egypt, Ptolemy and Cleopatra, the reply was that the senate was very happy if by its agency something good and beneficial had come to pass, and that the senate would use its best efforts to convince them that the greatest bulwark of their reign was founded on the good faith of the Roman people. [8] Instructions were given to Gaius Papirius the praetor that he should see that the customary presents were sent to the envoys. [9] Despatches from Macedonia were then introduced, calculated to redouble the rejoicing over the victory; they reported that King Perseus was a prisoner of the consul.

[10] After the royal embassies were dismissed, a dispute was heard between envoys from Pisa and from Luna.³ The Pisans complained that Roman colonists were driving them off their land, whereas the men of Luna declared that the land in question had been assigned to them by the board of three. [11] The senate sent five men to investigate the facts about the boundary and make a decision, namely, Quintus Fabius Buteo, Publius Cornelius Blasio, Titus Sempronius Musca, Lucius Naevius Balbus, and Gaius Apuleius Saturninus.

[12] From the brothers Eumenes, Attalus, and Athenaeus a joint embassy of congratulation on the victory arrived.⁴ When Masgaba, too, the son of King Masinissa, landed from his ship at Puteoli, he was met by Lucius Manlius the quaestor who had been sent with money to meet him, to escort him at [p. 289]public expense to Rome. On Masgaba's arrival, a⁵ meeting of the senate was at once held for him. [13] There the young man spoke so as to make matters pleasing by their nature even more pleasing by his words. He recalled how much infantry and cavalry, how many elephants, and how much grain his father had sent to Macedonia during those four years. [14] He said that there were two matters which brought a blush to his father's cheeks: first, that the senate had requested through envoys what they needed for the war, and had not ordered it, and secondly, that they had sent him money for the grain. [15] Masinissa remembered, said his son, that he held a kingdom won by the Roman People, and that they had increased it and made it many times as great; he was satisfied with the usufruct of the kingdom, and knew that the ownership and title to it were vested in those who had given it. [16] Therefore it was right that they should claim what they wished from him, not request it, nor buy the products of his country that sprang from a soil that was their own gift. Masinissa was and would be satisfied with what the Roman People did not need. [17] After Masgaba had set out with this message, he said, horsemen had overtaken him to report that Macedonia had been conquered and to bid him congratulate the senate and point out to them that his father was so rejoiced over this event that he wished to come to Rome and offer sacrifice and thanksgiving to Jupiter, Greatest and Best, on the Capitol; he requested permission from the senate to do this, if they had no objection.