5.
Your ancestors have often waged war on account of their merchants and seafaring men having
been injuriously treated. What ought to be your feelings when so many thousand Roman citizens
have been put to death by one order and at one time? Because their ambassadors had been spoken
to with insolence, your ancestors determined that Corinth, the light of all Greece,
should be destroyed. Will you allow that king to remain unpunished, who has murdered a
lieutenant of the Roman people of consular rank, having tortured him with chains and
scourging, and every sort of punishment? They would not allow the freedom of Roman citizens to
be diminished; will you be indifferent to their lives being taken? They avenged the privileges
of our embassy when they were violated by a word; will you abandon an ambassador who has been
put to death with every sort of cruelty?
[12]
Take care lest, as
it was a most glorious thing for them, to leave you such wide renown and such a powerful
empire, it should be a most discreditable thing for you, not to be able to defend and preserve
that which you have received. What more shall I say? Shall I say, that the safety of our
allies is involved in the greatest hazard and danger? King Ariobarzanes has been driven from
his kingdom, an ally and friend of the Roman people; two kings are threatening all Asia, who are not only most hostile to you, but also to your
friends and allies. And every city throughout all Asia, and throughout all Greece, is compelled by the magnitude of the danger to put its
whole trust in the expectation of your assistance. They do not dare to beg of you any
particular general, especially since you have sent them another, nor do they think that they
can do this without extreme danger.
[13]
They see and feel this,
the same thing which you too see and feel,—that there is one man in whom all
qualities are in the highest perfection, and that he is near, (which circumstance makes it
seem harder to be deprived of him,) by whose mere arrival and name, although it was a maritime
war for which he came, they are nevertheless aware that the attacks of the enemy were retarded
and repressed. They then, since they cannot speak freely, silently entreat you to think them
(as you have thought your allies in the other provinces) worthy of having their safety
recommended to such a man; and to think them worthy even more than others, because we often
send men with absolute authority into such a province as theirs, of such character, that, even
if they protect them from the enemy, still their arrival among the cities of the allies is not
very different from an invasion of the enemy. They used to hear of him before, now they see
him among them; a man of such moderation, such mildness, such humanity, that those seem to be
the happiest people among whom he remains for the longest time.
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