Humanitext Reader

Livy · History of Rome §38.10.1-38.10.6

Aetolian Embassy to Rome and Leon's Speech

Passage 1397 of 1770 · Latin

Summary

The consul advances into inland Aetolia, dispatches the Aetolian ambassadors to Rome with intercessors and a Roman escort after the peace is ratified, and crosses to Cephallania. In Rome, the Athenian envoy Leon eloquently defends the Aetolians before the senate by likening their rebellion to a calm sea stirred up by malicious winds.

§38.10.1profectus ab Ambracia consul in mediterranea Aetoliae ad Argos Amphilochium — viginti duo milia ab Ambracia abest — castra posuit.
Setting out from Ambracia, the consul marched into the inland parts of Aetolia and pitched his camp at Argos Amphilochium—it is twenty-two miles distant from Ambracia.
§38.10.2eo tandem legati Aetoli mirante consule, quod morarentur, venerunt.
There at last the Aetolian ambassadors arrived, while the consul wondered why they were delaying.
inde, postquam approbasse pacem concilium Aetolorum accepit, iussis proficisci Romam ad senatum permissoque, ut et Rhodii et Athenienses deprecatores irent, dato, qui simul cum iis proficisceretur, §38.10.3C. Valerio fratre ipse in Cephallaniam traiecit.
Then, after he received word that the council of the Aetolians had approved the peace, he ordered them to set out for the senate at Rome, permitted both the Rhodians and the Athenians to go as intercessors, and, having given his brother Gaius Valerius to set out together with them, he himself crossed over to Cephallania.
praeoccupatas auris animosque principum Romae criminibus Philippi invenerunt, qui per legatos, per litteras Dolopas Amphilochosque et Athamaniam erepta sibi querens, praesidiaque sua, postremo filium etiam Persea ex Amphilochis pulsum, averterat senatum ab audiendis precibus eorum.
In Rome, the ambassadors found the ears and minds of the leading men already preoccupied by the accusations of Philip, who, complaining through ambassadors and letters that the Dolopians, Amphilochians, and Athamania had been snatched from him, and his garrisons, and finally even his son Perseus driven out of the Amphilochians, had turned the senate away from hearing their prayers.
§38.10.4Rhodii tamen et Athenienses cum silentio auditi sunt.
The Rhodians and Athenians, however, were heard in silence.
Atheniensis legatus Leon Hicesiae filius eloquentia etiam dicitur movisse; §38.10.5qui vulgata similitudine, mari tranquillo, quod ventis concitaretur, aequiperando multitudinem Aetolorum, usus, cum in fide Romanae societatis mansissent, insita gentis tranquillitate quiesse eos aiebat; §38.10.6postquam flare ab Asia Thoas et Dicaearchus, ab Europa Menestas et Damocritus coepissent, tum illam tempestatem coortam, quae ad Antiochum eos sicuti in scopulum intulisset.
The Athenian ambassador Leon, son of Hicesias, is said to have moved them even by his eloquence; using a well-known comparison, by likening the multitude of the Aetolians to a calm sea that is stirred up by the winds, he said that, as long as they had remained in allegiance to the Roman alliance, they had rested in the innate tranquility of their nation; but after Thoas and Dicaearchus began to blow from Asia, and Menestas and Damocritus from Europe, then that tempest arose which carried them to Antiochus as if onto a reef.

Notes

  1. §38.10.2dato, qui simul cum iis proficisceretur, C. Valerio fratre — An ablative absolute construction where the noun phrase 'C. Valerio fratre' functions as the logical subject of the participle 'dato'. The imperfect subjunctive 'proficisceretur' in the relative clause (qui-clause) expresses purpose or intended role.
  2. §38.10.3Dolopas Amphilochosque et Athamaniam erepta sibi querens — The perfect passive participle 'erepta' is in the neuter plural, following the grammatical rule of agreement where a mixture of masculine plural nouns ('Dolopas', 'Amphilochos') and a feminine singular noun ('Athamaniam') is referred to collectively in the neuter plural.
  3. §38.10.5quiesse — A syncopated (shortened) form of the perfect infinitive 'quievisse'. It functions as the infinitive in the accusative and infinitive construction introduced by 'aiebat', with 'eos' (referring to the Aetolians) as its subject accusative.

Cite this passage

Livy, History of Rome §38.10.1-38.10.6. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi001.humanitext-lat2:38.10.1-38.10.6

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