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45. They said that the commissioners had been assigned to Gnaeus Manlius1 for the purpose of making peace with Antiochus and of putting into final form the terms of the treaty which had been initiated by Lucius Scipio. [2] Gnaeus Manlius, they said, had striven with all his might to break the peace and to take Antiochus by treachery, if the king should have given him any opportunity to do so; but he, being aware of the deceitfulness of the consul, although often approached with requests for conferences, had [p. 155]avoided, not merely a meeting with him, but even the2 sight of him.3 [3] Manlius, they said, when he desired to cross the Taurus,4 had with difficulty been held back by the pleas of all his lieutenants from trying to test the prediction of ruin found in the verses of the Sibyl5 for those who crossed the fateful boundaries, but, none the less, had [4??] moved up the army and encamped near by on the very crest at the parting of the waters. [5] Finding no pretext for war there, the king's forces remaining passive, he led the army around against the Galatians, a people against whom war had not been declared by the authority of the senate or the vote of the assembly.6 [6] Who, they asked, had ever ventured to do this on his own motion? The most recent wars were those with Antiochus, Philip, Hannibal and the Carthaginians; in all these cases the senate had passed decrees, the assembly had voted, restitution had previously been demanded by ambassadors, finally, delegates had been sent to declare war.7 [7] "Which of these things was done, Gnaeus Manlius, so that we can consider this a public war of the Roman people and not a private piratical expedition of your own? [8] Were you even content with that and did you lead your army directly against those whom you had picked out to be your enemies? [9] Or, moving by all the roundabout ways, stopping at [p. 157]every cross-road, that, wherever Attalus, the brother8 of Eumenes, turned his course, there you, a money-seeking consul, might follow with a Roman army, did you travel over all the nooks and corners of Pisidia and Lycaonia and Phrygia, exacting tribute from tyrants and commanders of out-of-the-way fortresses? What business did you have with the people of Oroanda? What with other equally innocent peoples?

"But the war proper, on account of which you ask a triumph, how did you conduct it? [10] Did you fight on favourable ground, at a time selected by you? [11] Rightly in truth do you demand that honour be paid to the immortal gods, first, because they refused to exact the penalty from the army for the rashness of the commander, who was waging war under no law of nations; second, because they confronted us with dumb animals, not enemies.

1 The commissioners could have had relations with Manlius only because he had succeeded to the tasks left unfinished by Scipio. According to xxxvii. 11 above they did not reach Asia until after the Galatian campaign was concluded, and they could have had no military duties as legati except on the return, although Manlius speaks of them as eye-witnesses of his victory (xlvii. 4 below).

2 B.C. 187

3 There seems to be no basis for either charge in the preceding narrative of Livy, but this may be due to his selection of sources.

4 This may explain the rather aimless invasion of Pamphylia mentioned in xv. 5-6 above.

5 There seems to be no other allusion to this prophecy, but there may have been many such oracles in independent circulation and attributed to the Sibyl to increase their authority.

6 The senate had foreseen the probability of a war with the Gauls (XXXVII. li. 10), but there is no record of a formal declaration of war or of the performance of the ceremonial acts mentioned in sect. 6 below.

7 speaker is describing the formal fetial procedure.

8 B.C. 187

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load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, 1873)
load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
load focus Summary (English, Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., 1936)
load focus Summary (Latin, W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
load focus Summary (Latin, Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., 1936)
load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, 1873)
load focus English (William A. McDevitte, Sen. Class. Mod. Ex. Schol. A.B.T.C.D., 1850)
load focus Latin (Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., 1936)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
hide References (30 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (7):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.27
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 35.11
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 37.51
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.7
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 43.1
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 44.2
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, book 45, commentary, 45.37
  • Cross-references to this page (13):
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (10):
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