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27. Thence, having given serious offence to1 the king, they proceeded to Thessalonica to investigate the condition of the cities of Thrace. [2] There ambassadors of Eumenes told them that if the Romans wished Aenus and Maronea to be free, the king's sense of propriety permitted them to say nothing more, except to suggest that they leave them free in fact and not merely in name, and not allow their own work to be a source of gain to another.2 [3] But if there were less concern for the cities situated in Thrace, it was far more proper that towns which had belonged to Antiochus should fall as prizes of war to Eumenes rather than to [4??] Philip, either in consideration of the services of his father Attalus in the war which the Roman people had waged against Philip himself, or of his own services, in that he had taken part, during the war with Antiochus, in all its labours and perils on land and sea. [5] They said that Eumenes had in addition the preliminary opinion of the ten commissioners3 on the matter, who, since they had given him the Chersonesus and Lysimachia, surely gave him Maronea and Aenus too, which, from their nearness to his country, were mere appendages to the larger gift.4 [6] In consequence of what service to the Roman people, they asked, or of what right to rule had Philip imposed his garrisons upon these cities when they were so far away from the boundaries of Macedonia?5 Let the commissioners order the Maroneans to be summoned: from them they would receive all certain information about the condition of these cities.

[7] The agents of the Maroneans, when called in, said that the royal garrison occupied, not merely one place in the city, as in other towns, but several at [p. 303]once, and that Maronea was full of Macedonians.6 [8] As a result, the king's partisans were in control: they alone were permitted to speak in the senate and in the public meetings; they either held themselves or gave to others all offices. [9] All the aristocrats, who felt some concern for liberty and the laws, were either in exile, driven from their homes, or were silent, unhonoured and at the mercy of their inferiors.7 [10] And as to the boundary rights, they had little new to say: only that Quintus Fabius Labeo, when he had been in that region, had fixed as the boundary for Philip the ancient royal road which leads to Paroreia in Thrace, nowhere approaching the sea: Philip had later laid out a new road which encompassed the cities and lands of the Maroneans.8

1 B.C. 185

2 By “another” they, of course, mean Philip. The words have a peculiar sound on the lips of Eumenes, who had profited so much from Rome's victory over Antiochus.

3 The commissioners who had been sent to Asia to formulate the peace-treaty with Antiochus.

4 Aenus and Maronea had apparently been in some way overlooked in the final settlement with Antiochus.

5 Philip's claim to these cities seems weak in comparison with his rights to some of the other districts in dispute.

6 B.C. 185

7 The aristocratic party in a Greek city of this period was generally pro-Roman, and the constitutions of Flamininus (cf. XXXIV. li. 6; XXXV. xxxiv. 3 and the note) favoured this element. It is interesting to note that the commissioners feel no necessity of hearing from the opposing (democratic and pro-Macedonian) party in Maronea.

8 The meaning seems to be that Labeo had established as a boundary between Macedonia and the territory surrendered by Antiochus an old road which perhaps followed the general course of the Roman Via Egnatia. Since the boundary was probably described by a term as vague as “a certain road,” Philip had availed himself of the vagueness by relocating the old road or building a new one which put Maronea on his side of the boundary as thus described. But corruption in the text and the lack of any other version of the affair leave the true sense in doubt. It may be added that the authority of Labeo to take such action as is here described (Livy has not mentioned it before) is more than questionable.

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load focus Summary (Latin, W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
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load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus English (William A. McDevitte, Sen. Class. Mod. Ex. Schol. A.B.T.C.D., 1850)
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hide References (27 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (8):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 31.15
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 31.25
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 32.33
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 35.46
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 40.16
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 40.4
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 44.10
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, book 45, commentary, 45.18
  • Cross-references to this page (9):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Maronitae
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Paroreia
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Thessalonisa
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Aenus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Eumenes
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TUBA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PAROREIA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), THRA´CIA
    • Smith's Bio, Cassander
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (10):
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