.
No long time elapsed before the independence of the Galatians was
expressly recognized and guaranteed by the senate. Eumenes determined
to proceed to Rome in person, and to plead his cause in the senate.
But the latter, as if troubled by an evil conscience, suddenly decreed
that in future kings should not be allowed to come to Rome; and
despatched a quaestor to meet him at Brundisium, to lay before him
this decree of the senate, to ask him what he wanted, and to hint to
him that they would be glad to see his speedy departure. The king was
long silent; at length he said that he desired nothing farther, and
re-embarked. He saw how matters stood: the epoch of half-powerful and
half-free alliance was at an end; that of impotent subjection began.

Humiliation of Rhodes

Similar treatment befell the Rhodians. They had a singularly
privileged position: their relation to Rome assumed the form not of
symmachy properly so called, but of friendly equality; it did not
prevent them from entering into alliances of any kind, and did not
compel them to supply the Romans with a contingent on demand. This
very circumstance was presumably the real reason why their good
understanding with Rome had already for some time been impaired.
The first dissensions with Rome had arisen in consequence of the
rising of the Lycians, who were handed over to Rhodes after the defeat
of Antiochus, against their oppressors who had (576) cruelly reduced
them to slavery as revolted subjects; the Lycians, however, asserted
that they were not subjects but allies of the Rhodians, and prevailed
with this plea in the Roman senate, which was invited to settle the
doubtful meaning of the instrument of peace. But in this result a
justifiable sympathy with the victims of grievous oppression had
perhaps the chief share; at least nothing further was done on the part
of the Romans, who left this as well as other Hellenic quarrels to
take their course. When the war with Perseus broke out, the Rhodians,
like all other sensible Greeks, viewed it with regret, and blamed
Eumenes in particular as the instigator of it, so that his festal
embassy was not even permitted to be present at the festival of Helios
in Rhodes. But this did not prevent them from adhering to Rome and
keeping the Macedonian party, which existed in Rhodes as well as
everywhere else, aloof from the helm of affairs. The permission given
to them in 585 to export grain from Sicily shows the continu