Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 42
Rev. Canon Roberts, Ed.

---

The king replied: "A defence which before impartial judges would be a good one, I have now to make before judges who are also accusers. [2] As to the charges brought up against me, some of them I rather think I ought to be proud of, others I am not ashamed to admit, others again, which are simply assertions, it is enough for me simply to deny. [3] If I were standing my trial under your laws, what evidence could either the Brundisian informer or Eumenes bring against me which would make their accusations appear true rather than false and malicious? [4] Eumenes, who oppresses so many of his subjects both in his public and private life, has had, I suppose, no other enemy but me, and I have, it seems, been unable to discover a more capable agent for criminal deeds than Rammius, a man whom I had never seen before, and was never to see again. [5] I have also to account for the deaths of the Thebans, who everybody knows were drowned at sea, and for the death of Arthetaurus; here, however, no charge is brought against me beyond the fact that his murderers found refuge in my dominions. [6] I will not protest against the unfairness of this argument, if you in your turn allow that if any refugees have escaped to Italy or to Rome you were the authors of the crimes of which they have been found guilty. [7] If you, in common with all other nations, refuse to admit this, then I shall be with the rest of the world. Good heavens! what boots it for a man to be free to go into exile, if there is nowhere a place where an exile can go? [8] Nevertheless, as soon as I was advised by you and ascertained that these men were in Macedonia, I ordered that search should be made for them, and that they should quit the kingdom, and I forbade them ever to cross my frontiers.

[9] "These charges have been brought against me as though I were a defendant in a criminal trial, but those others touch my conduct as king, and depend upon the interpretation of the treaty which is in force between us. [10] If that treaty expressly says that not even if anyone levies war against me am I allowed to defend myself and my realm, then I must admit that I have violated the treaty by defending myself in arms against Abrupolis, an ally of Rome. [11] If, however, it is allowed by treaty and established as a rule of international law that arms may be repelled by arms, what ought I to have done after Abrupolis had devastated the frontiers of my kingdom right up to Amphipolis, and carried off many freeborn persons, a large body of slaves, and many thousand head of cattle? Was I to keep quiet and let him go on till he had carried his arms into Pella and taken possession of my palace? [12] Yes, but granting that I was justified in opposing him by force, it is said that he ought not to have been vanquished or suffer all the evils which befall the vanquished. Since it was I who was attacked and ran the risk of all these evils, how can he complain of their happening to him who was the cause of the war? [13] I am not going to defend my coercion of the Dolopians on the same grounds, Romans, because whatever they may have deserved, I exercised my sovereign rights; they were my subjects, a part of my dominions, assigned by your own decree to my father. [14] Seeing that they put to death Euphranor, whom I had appointed governor, with such cruelty that death was the lightest of his sufferings, I cannot possibly be thought to have exercised undue or unjust severity-I do not say by you and your federal allies, but-by those who disapprove of cruelty and injustice even towards slaves.