HKB
[Sidenote: Ambassadors from Philip and the Achaeans heard on the report of Caecilius, B.C. 185-184.]
+15.+ When Caecilius returned from Greece and made his report to the Senate concerning Macedonia and the Peloponnese, the ambassadors who had come to Rome on these matters were introduced into the Senate. First came those from Philip and Eumenes, as well as the exiles from Aenus and Maroneia; and on their saying much the same as they had said before Caecilius and his colleagues at Thessalonica, the Senate voted to send another deputation to Philip, to see first of all whether he had evacuated the cities in Perrhaebia in conformity with the answer he gave to Caecilius: and secondly, to order him to remove his garrison from Aenus and Maroneia; and in a word, to abandon all fortresses, positions, and towns on the seaboard of Thrace.
[Sidenote: The Achaean ambassadors make their defence.]
After these the ambassadors from the Peloponnese were introduced. For the Achaeans on their part had sent Apollonidas of Sicyon, and others, to justify themselves to Caecilius for his having received no answer, and generally to inform the Senate on the question of Sparta; and at the same time Areus and Alcibiades had come from Sparta as ambassadors,—two of the old exiles recently restored by Philopoemen and the Achaeans. And this was a circumstance that particularly roused the anger of the Achaeans; because they thought it the height of ingratitude on the part of the exiles, after receiving so important and recent a service at their hands, to be now sending a hostile embassy, and accusing to the sovereign people those who had been the authors of their unlooked-for preservation and restoration to their country.
[Sidenote: The Spartan envoys.]
[Sidenote: The decision.]
+16.+ Both parties were heard in their defence in each other’s presence. Apollonidas of Sicyon and his colleagues tried to convince the Senate that the affairs of Sparta could not have been better managed than they were managed by Philopoemen. Areus and his colleagues attempted to establish the reverse: alleging, first of all, that the power of the city was entirely destroyed by the violent withdrawal of so large a number; and, in the second place, that even those that were left were so few that their position was insecure, now that the walls were pulled down; and that their freedom of speech was entirely destroyed by the fact that they were not only amenable to the general decrees of the Achaean league, but were also made specially subject to the magistrates set over them from time to time. After hearing these envoys also, the Senate decided to give the same legates instructions regarding them as well as the others, and appointed Appius Claudius and his colleagues commissioners for Greece.
[Sidenote: Defence of the refusal to call the Achaean assembly.]
But the ambassadors from the Achaeans offered an explanation also to Caecilius in the Senate, on behalf of the magistrates, asserting that “They did not act wrongly or deserve blame for refusing to summon the assembly, unless it were requisite to decide on an alliance or a war, or unless some one brought a letter from the Senate. The magistrates had therefore impartially considered the subject of summoning the assembly, but were prevented from doing so by the laws, because he neither brought a despatch from the Senate nor would show them any written instructions.” At the conclusion of this speech Caecilius rose and made an attack on Philopoemen and Lycortas, and the Achaeans generally, and on the policy they had pursued towards the city of Sparta. After listening to the arguments, the Senate answered the Achaeans by saying that they would send commissioners to investigate the matter of Sparta; and they accompanied this answer by an admonition to them to pay attention to the ambassadors sent by them from time to time, and show them proper respect, as the Romans did to ambassadors who came to them....
[Sidenote: Philip’s vengeance on the people of Maroneia, early in B. C. 184. Livy, 39, 33.]
[Sidenote: He attempts to evade responsibility for it.]