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According to Claudius no reply was vouchsafed to them, but the decree of the senate was read over, in which the people of Rome made an order that Caria and Lycia should be free States, and it was decided that this decree should be at once transmitted to both nations. [2] On hearing this the leader of the legation, whose boastful language the House had a few moments before hardly been able to endure, fell down in a state of collapse. [3] Other writers assert the reply they received was to the following effect: At the outset of the war the Roman people had ascertained on trustworthy evidence that the Rhodians had been forming secret designs in conjunction with Perseus against the Republic, [4??] and if there had been any doubt as to this before, the language of the envoys had now reduced it to a certainty. Dishonest dealing, even if at the beginning it has been somewhat cautious, generally betrays itself in the long run. [5] The Rhodians were now acting as arbitrators of peace and war over the whole world; the Romans were to take up and lay down their arms at the beck and nod of Rhodes; it was no longer the gods who were to be invoked as the witnesses and guardians of treaties, but the Rhodians. [6] Was this really so? Unless they obeyed the orders of Rhodes and withdrew their armies from Macedonia, were the Rhodians going to consider what steps to take? [7] What steps they would take the Rhodians knew best, but the people of Rome would consider, after Perseus had been crushed, and they hoped that time was not far off, what recompense they should make to each State according to its deserts in that war. [8] However, a present of 2000 ases was sent to each of the delegates, but they refused to accept it.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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