History of Rome

​The council of the Aetolians, which they call the Panaetolium, was to be held on a stated day. To meet this, both the king’s envoys hastened their journey, and Lucius Furius Purpurio, an envoy sent by the consul, arrived.

​The envoys of the Athenians also came to that council. First the Macedonians, with whom there was the most recent treaty, were heard.

​They said that, as there was no change in the situation, they had nothing new to bring forward; for by the same reasons that they had made peace with Philip after experiencing the uselessness of the Roman alliance, they ought to preserve the peace once established.

”Or do you prefer,” said one of the envoys, “to imitate the licentiousness—or should I say the fickleness—of the Romans? Who, when they had ordered your envoys in Rome to be answered: ‘Why do you come to us, Aetolians, without whose authority you made peace with Philip?’, ​now demand that you should wage war with them against Philip; and whereas formerly they pretended that arms were taken up against him on your account and for your sake, they now forbid you to be at peace with Philip.

​That they might assist Messana, they first crossed over into Sicily; a second time, that they might rescue Syracuse, when oppressed by the Carthaginians, into liberty.

​Now they themselves possess both Messana and Syracuse and the whole of Sicily, and have subjected it as a tributary province to their axes and rods.

​Doubtless, just as you at Naupactus hold your council according to your own laws through magistrates created by yourselves, freely choosing whom you wish as ally and enemy, having peace and war at your own disposal, so to the cities of the Sicilians a council is indicted at Syracuse or Messana or Lilybaeum: the Roman praetor holds the assembly.

​Summoned by that command, they assemble; they see him from his lofty tribunal dispensing proud justice, surrounded by lictors; the rods threaten their backs, the axes their necks; and every year they draw lots for a different master.

​Nor ought they or can they wonder at this, when they see the cities of Italy, Rhegium, Tarentum, Capua, not to mention the neighboring ones on whose ruins the city of Rome grew, subjected to the same empire.

​Capua indeed, the tomb and monument of the Campanian people, after the people themselves were carried off and driven out in banishment, survives, a truncated city without a senate, without a plebs, without magistrates, a prodigy, left to be inhabited more cruelly than if it had been destroyed.

​It is madness, if foreign men, separated more by language, manners, and laws than by the space of sea and land, should hold these, to hope that anything will remain in the same condition.

​The kingdom of Philip seems to stand somewhat in the way of your liberty; yet he, although by your own desert he was angry with you, asked nothing more from you than peace, and today desires only the fidelity of the peace agreed upon.

​Accustom foreign legions to these lands and accept the yoke; too late and in vain, when you have a Roman master, will you seek Philip as an ally.

​The Aetolians, Acarnanians, Macedonians, men of the same language, are separated and united by light causes arising from time to time; with foreigners, with barbarians, all Greeks have and will have eternal war; for by nature, which is eternal, they are enemies, not by causes changeable from day to day.

​But where my speech began, there it shall end: in this very place, you, the same men, decreed concerning the peace of the same Philip three years ago, while those same Romans disapproved of that peace, who now wish to disturb the pact and agreement. In this consultation fortune has changed nothing; why you should change, I do not see.”