Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 37
Evan T. Sage, PhD professor of latin and head of the department of classics in the University of Pittsburgh, Ed.

54. The speech of the king pleased the Fathers, and it was quite evident that they would deal with the whole matter generously and in a sympathetic spirit. [2] A brief audience was then accorded the delegation from the Zmyrnaeans, since one of the Rhodians had not yet arrived. [3] The Zmyrnaeans were conspicuously lauded because they had preferred to endure all extremities rather than submit to the king,¹ and the Rhodians were introduced. The chief of their embassy, after setting forth the origins of their friendship with the Roman people and the services of the Rhodians, first in the war with Philip [4??] and later in the war with Antiochus, continued thus: [5] “Nothing in all our pleading, conscript Fathers, is so difficult for us or so painful as the fact that our difference of opinion is with Eumenes, with whom alone of kings and in preference to all others, both individuals of our community privately and, what moves us more, our state publicly, is in relations of hospitality.² [6] But it is not our personal feelings, [p. 455]conscript Fathers, which part us, but the nature of³ things, which is all-powerful, so that we who are free are pleading the cause of liberty for others as well, while kings wish everything to be enslaved and subject to their will. [7] Yet, however that may be, the fact is rather that it is our respect for the king which stands in our way than that the question itself is either involved for us or likely, as it seems, to cause you any hesitancy in deciding. [8] For if in no other way could honour be paid an allied and friendly king and one who had rendered good service in this very war, about whose compensation there was debate, than by your giving free cities into servitude to him, the [9??] discussion would be of doubtful issue, lest you either send away a friendly king without his meed of honour or depart from your tradition and stain the glory won in the war with Philip by now enslaving so many cities; [10] but from this necessity of either diminishing your recompense to a friend or detracting from your own fame, fortune offers you a splendid escape. For by the bounty of heaven, your victory brings not more glory than riches, and it may easily discharge what you may call your debt. [11] For Lycaonia and both Phrygias⁴ and all Pisidia and the Chersonesus, all of which adjoin Europe, are in your power, and any of [12??] these, bestowed upon the king, can greatly enlarge the kingdom of Eumenes, and the gift of them all can make him equal to the greatest of kings. [13] It is possible for you both to enrich your allies with prizes of war and not to depart from your tradition and to remember what banner you displayed before you earlier in the war against Philip and now in the war against Antiochus —what [14] you have done after [p. 457]defeating Philip and what to-day, not more because⁵ you did so formerly than because it becomes you to do so, is desired and expected at your hands. [15] One nation has one and another nation has another just and reasonable cause for taking up arms; those that they may possess lands, these cities, these towns, these harbours and some strip of coast; you have neither desired these things before you had them, nor now, when the world is in your hands, can you desire them. [16] For the sake of standing and fame in the eyes of the whole world, which for long now has regarded your name and empire as next after those of the immortal gods, you have waged your wars. What it was difficult to get and acquire, it may be perhaps still more difficult to keep. [17] You have undertaken to defend against slavery to a king the liberty of a most ancient people, most famed either from the renown of its achievements or from universal praise of its culture and learning; this championship of a whole people taken under your protection and guardianship⁶ it befits you to guarantee for ever. [18] The cities which are on the ancient soil are not more Greek than their colonies, which once set out from there for Asia; nor does a change of habitation change race or manners. We⁷ have dared to vie in reverent rivalry in every noble art and virtue with our fathers, every city too with its founders. [19] Many of you have visited the cities of Greece, have visited the cities of Asia⁸ ; except that we are [p. 459]farther distant from you, we are inferior in no⁹ respect. [20] The people of Massilia, whom, if inborn nature could be conquered, so to speak, by the temper of a land, so many untamed tribes [21??] around them would long ago have barbarized, we hear are held in the same respect and deservedly paid the same honour by you as if they dwelt in the very navel of Greece. For they have kept not only the sound of their speech along with their dress and their outward appearance, but, before all, their manners and laws and character pure and free from the corruption of their neighbours. [22] The Taurus mountains are now the limit of your empire; nothing, whatever lies within this boundary, should seem remote to you; where your army had made its way, thither too let your law advance and make its way. [23] Let barbarians, to whom the mandates of their lords have ever served as laws, since in that they take delight, have kings; Greeks have their own fortunes, but souls like yours. [24] Once they even possessed empire, as a result of their own might; now they hope that empire may abide for ever where it now resides; they hold it sufficient to maintain liberty through your arms since they cannot through their own. [25] But, someone may say, some cities sided with Antiochus. [26] True, and others formerly with Philip and the Tarentines with Pyrrhus; not to mention other peoples, Carthage is free and enjoys its own laws. See, conscript Fathers, how much you owe to your own precedent; you will persuade yourselves to refuse to the ambition of Eumenes what you have refused to your own wrath, just as it may be. [27] Both in this and in all wars which you waged in our region, we Rhodians leave it to you to judge [p. 461]with what courageous and constant aid we have¹⁰ assisted you. [28] Now in peace we offer you this counsel, and if you approve it all men will think that you have used your victory more gloriously than you have won it.” This speech seemed well adapted to the high position of Rome.¹¹