§44.15.1Claudius nihil responsum auctor est, tantum senatus consultum recitatum, quo Caras et Lycios liberos esse iuberet populus Romanus litterasque extemplo ad utramque gentem mitti; §44.15.2qua audita re principem legationis, cuius magniloquentiam vix curia paulo ante ceperat, corruisse.
Claudius is the authority that no answer was given, but only that a decree of the senate was read, by which the Roman people ordered the Carians and Lycians to be free and a letter to be sent immediately to both nations; and that upon hearing this, the chief of the embassy, whose arrogance the senate-house had shortly before scarcely been able to contain, collapsed.
§44.15.3alii responsum esse tradunt, populum Romanum et principio eius belli haud vanis auctoribus conpertum habuisse Rhodios cum Perseo rege adversus rem publicam suam occulta consilia inisse, §44.15.4et, si id ante dubium fuisset, legatorum paulo ante verba ad certum redegisse, et plerumque ipsam se fraudem, etiamsi initio cautior fuerit, detegere.
Others hand down that the answer was that the Roman people, even from the beginning of this war, had ascertained from by no means untrustworthy authorities that the Rhodians had entered into secret counsels with King Perseus against their commonwealth, and that, if that had been doubtful before, the words of the envoys a little while ago had reduced it to a certainty, and that generally fraud itself, even if it was more cautious at the beginning, detects itself.
§44.15.5Rhodios nunc in orbe terrarum arbitria belli pacisque agere; Rhodiorum nutu arma sumpturos positurosque Romanos esse.
That the Rhodians were now acting as arbiters of war and peace in the world; that at the nod of the Rhodians the Romans would take up and lay down arms.
iam non deos foederum testis, sed Rhodios habituros.
They would no longer have the gods as witnesses of treaties, but the Rhodians.
§44.15.6itane tandem? nisi pareatur iis exercitusque de Macedonia deportentur, visuros esse, quid sibi faciendum sit?
Was it really so, then? That unless they were obeyed and the armies withdrawn from Macedonia, they would see what they ought to do?
§44.15.7quid Rhodii visuri sint, ipsos scire.
What the Rhodians would see, they themselves knew.
populum certe Romanum devicto Perseo, quod prope diem sperent fore, visurum, ut pro meritis cuiusque in eo bello civitatis gratiam dignam referat.
The Roman people, at any rate, after Perseus was thoroughly defeated—which they hoped would be at an early date—would see to it that they returned a worthy recompense to each state according to its merits in that war.
§44.15.8munus tamen legatis in singulos binum milium aeris missum est, quod ii non acceperunt.
Nevertheless, a gift of two thousand asses of bronze was sent to each of the envoys, which they did not accept.