n
ambassadors, had settled; and, if they thought proper, ratify them by
their authority." He told them, that "they would accomplish this the
more easily, if they were first to give audience to the ambassadors,
who had come from all parts of Greece, and a great part of Asia, and
to those from the two kings." These embassies were introduced to the
senate by the city praetor, Caius Scribonius, and all received kind
answers. As the discussion of the affair with Antiochus required too
much time, it was referred to the ten ambassadors, some of whom had
conferred with the king in Asia, or at Lysimachia. Directions were
given to Titus Quinctius, that, in conjunction with these, he should
listen to the representations of the king's ambassadors, and should
give them such answer as comported with the dignity and interest
of the Roman people. At the head of the embassy were Menippus and
Hegesianax; the former of whom said, that "he could not conceive what
intricacy there was in the business of their embassy, as they came
simply to ask friendship, and conclude an alliance. Now, there were
three kinds of treaties, by which kings and states formed friendships
with each other: one, when terms were dictated to a people vanquished
in war; for after all their possessions have been surrendered to him
who has proved superior in war, he has the sole power of judging and
determining what portion of them the vanquished shall hold, and of
what they shall be deprived. The second, when parties, equally
matched in war, conclude a treaty of peace and friendship on terms
of equality; for then demands are proposed and restitution made,
reciprocally, in a convention; and if, in consequence of the war,
confusion has arisen with respect to any parts of their properties,
the matter is adjusted on the footing either of ancient right or
of the mutual convenience of the parties. The third kind was, when
parties who had never been foes, met to form a friendly union by a
social treaty: these neither dictate nor receive terms, for that is
the case between a victor and a party vanquished. As Antiochus came
under this last description, he wondered, he said, that the Romans
should think it becoming to dictate terms to him; as to which of the
cities of Asia they chose should be free and independent, which should
be tributary, and which of them the king's troops and the king himself
should be prohibited to enter. That a peace of this kind might
be ratified with Phi