ance of
the good understanding with Rome. All of a sudden, shortly before the
battle of Pydna, Rhodian envoys appeared at the Roman head-quarters
and in the Roman senate, announcing that the Rhodians would no longer
tolerate this war which was injurious to their Macedonian traffic and
their revenue from port-dues, that they were disposed themselves to
declare war against the party which should refuse to make peace, and
that with this view they had already concluded an alliance with Crete
and with the Asiatic cities. Many caprices are possible in a republic
governed by primary assemblies; but this insane intervention of a
commercial city--which can only have been resolved on after the
fall of the pass of Tempe was known at Rhodes--requires special
explanation. The key to it is furnished by the well-attested account
that the consul Quintus Marcius, that master of the "new-fashioned
diplomacy," had in the camp at Heracleum (and therefore after the
occupation of the pass of Tempe) loaded the Rhodian envoy Agepolis
with civilities and made an underhand request to him to mediate a
peace. Republican wrongheadedness and vanity did the rest; the
Rhodians fancied that the Romans had given themselves up as lost;
they were eager to play the part of mediator among four great powers
at once; communications were entered into with Perseus; Rhodian envoys
with Macedonian sympathies said more than they should have said; and
they were caught. The senate, which doubtless was itself for the most
part unaware of those intrigues, heard the strange announcement, as
may be conceived, with indignation, and was glad of the favourable
opportunity to humble the haughty mercantile city. A warlike praetor
went even so far as to propose to the people a declaration of war
against Rhodes. In vain the Rhodian ambassadors repeatedly on their
knees adjured the senate to think of the friendship of a hundred and
forty years rather than of the one offence; in vain they sent the
heads of the Macedonian party to the scaffold or to Rome; in vain they
sent a massive wreath of gold in token of their gratitude for the non-
declaration of war. The upright Cato indeed showed that strictly the
Rhodians had committed no offence and asked whether the Romans were
desirous to undertake the punishment of wishes and thoughts, and
whether they could blame the nations for being apprehensive that Rome
might allow herself all license if she had no longer any one to fear?