ar, and not
judging from the behaviour which he then assumed for the time, they
knew that, on the conclusion of the war, they should find him a more
tyrannical master. So that every one of them was not only at a loss
what opinion he should support in the senate of his own particular
state, or in the general diets of the nation; but, even when they
deliberated within themselves, they could not, with any certainty,
determine what they ought to wish, or what to prefer. Such was the
unsettled state of mind of the members of the assembly, when the
ambassadors were introduced and liberty of speaking afforded them. The
Roman ambassador, Lucius Calpurnius, spoke first; next the ambassadors
of king Attalus; after them those of the Rhodians; and then Philip's.
The Athenians were heard the last, that they might refute the
discourses of the Macedonians. These inveighed against the king with
the greatest acrimony of any, for no others had suffered from him so
many and so severe hardships. So great a number of speeches of the
ambassadors succeeding each other took up the whole of the day; and
about sun-set the council was adjourned.

20. Next day the council was convened again; and when the magistrates,
according to the custom of the Greeks, gave leave, by their herald,
to any person who chose to offer advice, not one stood forth; but they
sat a long time, looking on each other in silence. It was no wonder
that men, revolving in their minds matters of such contradictory
natures, and who found themselves puzzled and confounded, should be
involved in additional perplexity by the speeches continued through
the whole preceding day; in which the difficulties, on all sides,
were brought into view, and stated in their full force. At length
Aristaenus, the praetor of the Achaeans, not to dismiss the council
without any business being introduced, said:--"Achaeans, where are
now those violent disputes, in which, at your feasts and meetings,
whenever mention was made of Philip and the Romans, you scarcely
refrained from blows? Now, in a general assembly, summoned on that
single business, when you have heard the arguments of the ambassadors
on both sides, when the magistrates demand your opinions, when the
herald calls you to declare your sentiments, you are struck dumb.
Although your concern for the common safety be insufficient for
determining the matter, cannot the party zeal which has attached you
to one side or the other extort a word from