nder, or a
consular army. The maritime cities of Philip's allies were in terror
and confusion; but the inland places were so secure against the Roman
arms, that Philip ravaged the country of the Aetolians, while they in
vain implored succour from those arms. Whereas, in the present case,
the Romans, after bringing to a final conclusion the Punic war, which
they had supported for sixteen years in the bowels, as it were, of
Italy, sent not auxiliaries to the Aetolians in their quarrels, but,
being themselves principals, made a hostile invasion on Macedonia with
land and sea forces at once. Their third consul is now pushing forward
the war with the utmost vigour. Sulpicius, engaging the king within
the territory of Macedonia itself, has overthrown and put him to
flight; and afterwards despoiled the most opulent part of his kingdom.
Then, again, when he was in possession of the strait of Epirus, where,
from the nature of the ground, his fortifications, and the strength
of his army, he thought himself secure, Quinctius drove him out of his
camp; pursued him, as he fled into Thessaly; and, almost in the view
of Philip himself, stormed the royal garrisons and the cities of
his allies. Supposing that there were no truth in what the Athenian
ambassadors mentioned yesterday, respecting the cruelty, avarice, and
lust of the king; supposing the crimes committed, in the country of
Attica, against the gods, celestial and infernal, concerned us not
all; that we had less to complain of than what the people of Cius and
Abydos, who are far distant from us, have endured: let us then, if
you please, forget even our own wounds; let the murders and ravages
committed at Messana, and in the heart of Peloponnesus, the killing of
his host Garitenes at Cyparissia, almost in the very midst of a feast,
in contempt of laws divine and human; the murder of the two Aratuses
of Sicyon, father and son, though he was wont to call the unfortunate
old man his parent; his carrying away the son's wife into Macedonia
for the gratification of his vicious appetites, and all his violations
of virgins and matrons;--let all these, I say, be consigned to
oblivion. Let us suppose our business were not with Philip, through
dread of whose cruelty you are all thus struck dumb; for what other
cause could keep you silent, when you have been summoned to a council?
Let us imagine that we are treating with Antigonus, a prince of the
greatest mildness and equity, to whose kind