The History of Rome, Books 37 to the End / with the Epitomes and Fragments of the Lost Books

by Livy

5 The barbarity connected with this deed added fresh fuel to the flame of public resentment kindled against the king, insomuch that most people uttered imprecations on himself and his children; which curses being in a short time heard by all the gods, caused him to vent his cruelty on his own blood relations. For Perseus, when he perceived that the popularity and high reputation of his brother Demetrius among the Macedonian people, and interest among the Romans, increased more and more every day, and that no hope was left him of obtaining the crown save by the instrumentality of some wicked device, bent all his thoughts to that one object. But not thinking himself alone strong enough even for the dastardly project, which he meditated in his effeminate mind, he began to tamper with each of his father’s friends by dark suggestions. At first, several of these showed an appearance of rejecting with scorn any such overtures, because they entertained higher expectations from Demetrius. Afterwards Philip’s animosity to the Romans increased every day, which Perseus fomented; but Demetrius, with all his might, opposed. Foreseeing the fatal doom of the youth, who heeded not a brother’s guile, and thinking that they must lend their assistance to the accomplishment of what was likely to take place, and cherish the hopes of the more powerful, they united themselves to Perseus. They defer the execution of other measures till their proper season; for the present, it seems good that the king should by every strenuous exertion be inflamed against the Romans, and urged to form resolutions for war, to which he had already of his own accord turned his attention. At the same time, in order that Demetrius might be a greater object of suspicion every day, they used deliberately to prolong the conversations even to the use of insulting language towards the Romans; thereupon, when some depreciating their manners and institutions, some their military achievements, some the appearance of the city itself, unadorned either by public or private structures; others spoke scornfully of some particular individuals among their principal men. On these occasions, the young prince unwary, both out of affection for the Roman nation, and opposition to his brother, by maintaining their cause in all things, rendered himself an object of suspicion to his father, and a fit subject for their accusations. His father therefore kept him a stranger to all his designs respecting the Romans; he was entirely devoted to Perseus, and held with him, daily and nightly, deliberations on that subject. The envoys had returned whom he happened to have sent to the Bastarnians, to solicit aid, and brought with them from thence young men of distinction, and some of royal extraction; one of whom promised his sister in marriage to Philip’s son, and the connexion with that nation raised the king’s spirits. Hereupon Perseus said, “What does that avail? There is by no means as much protection afforded by foreign aid, as there is danger arising from domestic treachery. I am unwilling to call him traitor, but a spy we certainly have in our bosom, and although the Romans have restored to us his body, since he was a hostage at Rome, yet they still possess his heart. The faces of almost all the Macedonians are turned towards him, and they think they are to have no other king but him whom the Romans would give them.” By such discourses the old man’s mind, distempered in itself, was stimulated to passion, and these imputations he received deeper in his mind, than appeared from his countenance.

6 It happened to be the time of the purification of the army; which ceremony is thus performed:—The head and fore part of a dog cut through the middle is laid at the right side of the way, and the hinder part with the entrails at the left. Between the parts of the victim, thus divided, the forces are led under arms. In the front of the van, are carried the remarkable suits of armour of all the kings of Macedon, from the remotest origin; next follows the king himself, with his children; then the royal cohort and body guards, and the remaining body of the Macedonians close the rear. The two young sons of the king attend by his side; Perseus being now in his thirtieth year, Demetrius five years younger; the former in the full strength of manhood, the latter in its bloom; the mature offspring of a fortunate parent, if his mind had been influenced by reason. The custom was, that when the purificatory sacrifice was finished, the army should perform their evolutions, and the two lines divided on both sides should engage in a mock fight. The young princes were appointed commanders in this mock engagement; but it was not the mere representation of a battle, for they engaged as if they were fighting for the throne: many wounds were given with stakes, nor was any thing but the steel wanting to give it the form of a regular battle. The party which was under the command of Demetrius, was far superior. While Perseus was vexed thereat, his considerate friends rejoiced; and said, that that very circumstance would afford grounds for impeaching the youth.

7 Each of the princes gave an entertainment that day to his comrades, who had exercised under his command. Perseus being invited to supper by Demetrius, refused; kind hospitality and youthful merriment led both to excess in wine. Thereupon mention was made of the mock engagement, and numerous remarks were thrown out against the antagonists in such a manner as not to spare even the leaders themselves. To learn these expressions, a spy was sent from among the guests of Perseus; but not conducting himself with sufficient caution, he was detected by some young men who happened to come out of the banqueting-room, and severely beaten. Demetrius, knowing nothing of this matter, said, “Why do we not go to my brother, join with him in merriment, and by our frankness and gaiety assuage his resentment, if any, arising from the engagement, as yet remains?” All with one accord cried out that they would attend him, except those who were afraid of the immediate revenge of the spy that had been beaten by them. When Demetrius pressed these also, they concealed swords under their clothes, with which they might defend themselves if any violence should be offered. In the case of domestic discord, nothing that is concealed can remain so. Both houses were full of spies and traitors. An informer ran on before to Perseus, and told him, that four young men, armed with swords, were coming with Demetrius. Though the reason was evident, (for he had heard that his guest had been beaten by them,) yet, for the purpose of blackening the matter, he ordered his gate to be locked, and from the upper part of the house and the windows facing the street, he drives away the revellers, as if they were come to murder him, from the entrance to the gate. Demetrius flushed with wine, having for a little exclaimed loudly at his being shut out, returns home to his own feast entirely ignorant of the meaning of the whole proceeding.

8 Next day, Perseus, as soon as an opportunity of seeing his father was afforded him, entered the palace, and with looks expressive of disquietude stood silent in the presence of his sire but at some distance. Of whom when his father inquired “if all was well, and what was the cause of that sadness?” he answers, “Know that it is by the sufferance of another that your son survives. We are now attacked by my brother with no secret treachery; he came by night to my house, with armed men to take away my life, and it was by shut doors, and the protection afforded by the walls, that I was saved from his fury.” When he had inspired into his father a horror mixed with wonder, he adds, “If you can listen to me, I shall cause you to understand the affair as an evident truth.” But Philip replied that he would hear him, and ordered Demetrius to be instantly summoned. He then sent for two friends of advanced age, Lysimachus and Onomastus, (who never interfered in the juvenile disputes of the brothers, and were of late rare visitors in the palace,) that he might have their assistance in counsel. While his friends are coming he walked about by himself, secretly revolving many things in his mind; his son still standing at a distance. On being told that they had arrived, he retired with his two friends, and the same number of his life-guards, into an inner apartment; he permitted each of his sons to bring in three persons unarmed. Here, having taken his seat, he says, “I, the most unhappy of fathers, sit here as judge between my two sons, the accuser and the accused of the crime of fratricide; about to find, in my nearest of relations, the foul stain either of falsehood or a commission of crime. For a long time, indeed, I have apprehended an impending storm, after I perceived your mutual looks, which showed no sign of brotherly affection, and after I had overheard some expressions. But I sometimes cherished the hope that your passions would subside, and that your suspicions could be removed; that even enemies lay down their arms and form a treaty, and that the private disputes of many have been ended; and I trusted that the remembrance of your fraternal relationship would at some time or other occur to you, and of the simplicity and intimacy that subsisted between you in your boyish days; and finally, of my instructions, which, I fear, I have fruitlessly poured into deaf ears. How often have I, in your hearing, mentioned, with abhorrence, examples of the disagreements of brothers, and recounted the dreadful consequences of them, by which themselves, their offspring, their houses, and their kingdoms, have been utterly ruined. I have represented, on the other hand, more laudable examples; also the social intercourse between the two kings of the Lacedæmonians, beneficial to themselves and to their country for many ages; and that this same state, after the custom of each one arbitrarily seizing on absolute power prevailed, was quite overturned. Then, that these brothers, Eumenes and Attalus, raised their dominions (from so small circumstances, that they were almost ashamed of the title of king), to an equality with mine, or with those of Antiochus, or indeed of any monarch of this age, and by nothing else than by brotherly concord. Nor did I decline showing you examples even from among the Romans that I had either seen or heard; as of Titus and Lucius Quintius, who carried on the war against me; the two Scipios, Publius and Lucius, who vanquished Antiochus; and their father and uncle, the lasting harmony of whose life even death could not dissolve. But neither could the wickedness of the former, attended by an issue suitable to their crimes, deter you from your foolish quarrels; nor could the sound judgment and good fortune of the latter bend you to wisdom. While I am alive and in health, you have both in your hopes and wicked desires laid hold on my inheritance. You wish me to live just so long as that, surviving one, I should, by my death, make the other king without a competitor. You cannot endure to have either brother or father. You have no sense of affection, no religion, your insatiable passion for regal sway alone has supplied the place of all other feelings. Come, then, pollute your father’s ears, contend with mutual accusations, as you soon will with the sword; speak openly either whatever truth you can, or are pleased to invent. My ears are now opened, which henceforward will be shut against all secret charges of one against the other.” When with furious passion he had uttered these words, tears gushed from the whole assembly and a sorrowful silence long prevailed.

9 At length Perseus spoke to this effect: “I ought then, it seems, to have opened my gate in the night, and admitted those armed revellers, and held out my throat to their swords; since nothing less than the perpetration of the deed can gain belief, and since I, who have been assailed by secret treachery am accosted in the same language as a robber and an assassin might expect. It is not without reason, that those people say that you have but one son, Demetrius; and that I am supposititious, and born of a concubine; for if I held in your breast the rank of a son, or the affection due to one, you would wreak your anger not on me, who complain of discovered treachery, but on him who was the author of it; nor would my life be so worthless in your eyes, that you should neither be moved by the danger which I have already undergone, nor by that to which I must be exposed in future, if punishment be not inflicted on the assassins. If, therefore, it be our doom to die secretly let us be silent, only offering prayers to the gods that the wickedness commenced with me may terminate in me, and that you be not aimed at through my side. But if, as nature itself suggests to those encompassed with perils in a desert place, to implore assistance even from men whom they had never seen, so I, on seeing a sword drawn against me, may be allowed to raise my voice. I beseech you then, by your own person, by the name of father, (and you long know which of us reveres that title most,) that you may hear me in the same manner as you would if, roused by cries and lamentations by night, you had come up, when I was crying for help, and in the dead of night had found Demetrius, with armed men, in the porch of my house. What I should, at that time, and in that case, have exclaimed with terror, I now, next day, lay before you in form of a complaint. Brother, it is long since you and I lived together on the terms of mutual hospitality; you certainly wish to be king; this my expectation, my age, opposes, the law of nations opposes, the ancient practice of Macedon opposes, and moreover the judgment of my father opposes. These you can surmount by no other means than by shedding my blood. You are making every scheme and every attempt. Hitherto, either my care or fortune has prevented the fratricide you intended to commit. Yesterday, on occasion of the purification, the military exercise and mock representation of a fight, you almost rendered it a bloody battle; nor was I saved from death by any other means than by suffering myself and my party to be overcome. Pretending brotherly sport, you wanted to drag me from a hostile fight to your house to supper. Father, do you think that I, to whom they came in arms, that they might drink with me, would have supped there with unarmed guests. Do you think that I would have been in no danger from their swords by night, when they almost killed me with stakes, of which you were a spectator. Why, Demetrius, did you come at that time of night; why an enemy come to a person provoked; why with young men in arms? I did not venture to trust myself with you as a guest, and shall I admit you as a reveller, coming with armed men? Father, if the gate had been open, you would be preparing my funeral at this moment, in which you are hearing my complaint. I do not, as an accuser, urge any thing for the purpose of accusation; nor by collecting doubtful circumstances, in a train of artful arguments. For what can he say? Does he deny that he came to my gate with a large party, or that there were armed men with him? Send for the persons, whom I will name; they who dared to do this, might dare to do any thing; nevertheless, they will not dare to deny it. If I brought before you any who had been caught within my doors in arms, you would consider this an evident proof; consider those who confess in the same light as if actually caught in the fact.

10 “Curse now thirst for dominion. Call up the furies, the avengers of the wrongs of brothers; but, father, let not your curses be undiscriminating. Separate and distinguish the assassin, and him by treachery assailed, and charge the guilty head. Let him, who intended to kill a brother, feel the wrath of the gods, of his father; and let him, who was to have perished by a brother’s wickedness, find refuge in his father’s compassion and justice. For where else shall I seek refuge, who cannot find safety in the solemn purification of your army, in the exercise of the troops, in my own house, in a feast, nor in the night, which nature’s bounty granted to mankind for a season of repose. If I go to my brother, according to his invitation, I must die. If I admit my brother to a party of pleasure within my own gates, I must die. Neither by going, nor by staying, do I escape secret treachery. Whither then shall I betake me? Father, I have courted nothing save the gods and thee. I have not the Romans, to whom I may fly. They seek my destruction, because I grieve at the injuries which they have done you; because I resent your being deprived of so many cities, so many nations, and, lately, of the coast of Thrace. They have no hope that Macedonia will ever be their property, while either you or I am safe. If a brother’s wickedness shall have carried off me, and old age thee, or if even this should not be waited for, they know that both the king and kingdom of Macedonia will become theirs. If the Romans had left you any thing beyond the limits of Macedon, I would suppose that even that had been left me as a shelter. But I have protection enough in the Macedonians. You were an eye-witness yesterday of the attack made on me by the soldiers. What did they want, but the steel? And what they wanted, in the day, my brother’s guests took to themselves in the night. Why need I mention the greater part of the nobles, who have placed all their hopes of honour and fortune in the Romans, and in him who is all-powerful with the Romans? Nor, in truth, do they prefer him merely to me, his elder brother, but, they want little of preferring him to yourself, his king and father. For, he is the person out of regard to whom the senate remitted to you the intended punishment, who now screens you from the Roman arms; who thinks it fit that your advanced age should be under obligation to, and dependent on, his youth. Him the Romans, him the cities freed from thy jurisdiction, and him the Macedonians, rejoicing at the peace with Rome, defend; but for me, father, what hope or protection have I any where except in thee?

11 “What do you suppose to be the intention of the letter lately sent to you by Titus Quintius, in which he not only says, that you acted wisely for your own interest in sending Demetrius to Rome, but also advises you to send him back again, with a greater number of ambassadors, and nobles of Macedonia? Titus Quintius is now his counsellor, and master, in every thing. Having renounced you his father, he has substituted him in your place. There in preference to all other places their secret plans are concocted. When he desires you to send greater numbers, and the chief men of Macedon they are seeking assistants in their schemes. For those who go from this place unchanged and uncorrupted, and impressed with the idea that they had Philip as their king, return from thence tainted—infected by Roman blandishments. Demetrius alone is every thing to them. They give him the title of king already, even in his father’s life-time. If I express my indignation at these things, you must forthwith understand that the crime of thirsting for dominion has been laid to my charge; not only by others, father, but even by you. But this charge, if made against both, I do not admit; for whom do I remove from his place, that I may succeed in his room? My father alone is before me; and that he may long be so, I entreat the gods. I his survivor, (and may I be so only on these terms, if, by my desert, he shall wish me to be so,) shall receive the inheritance of his kingdom, provided my father shall bequeath it to me. He covets rule, and covets it with criminal passion, since he hastily overleaps the order of age, of nature, of the Macedonian custom, and of the laws of nations. An elder brother stands in his way, to whom by right, and by the wish of his father, the kingdom belongs. Let him be carried off: I shall not be the first that acquired a kingdom by spilling a brother’s blood. My father, being old, and forlorn from being bereaved of his son, will rather fear for himself, than revenge his son’s death. The Romans will rejoice, they will approve, they will defend the deed. Father, these prospects are uncertain, but they are not groundless. For the matter stands thus: you can repel from me the fatal danger, by inflicting punishment on those who have taken up arms to kill me; if success attend the daring deed, you the very same shall not be able to avenge my death.”

12 When Perseus concluded his speech, the eyes of all present were turned to Demetrius, as if he were going to reply immediately. Then, when it was evident to all that, bathed in tears, he was unable to speak, silence for a long time reigned: at length necessity itself, inasmuch as they called on him to speak, overcame his grief, and he began thus: “Father, all the aids which heretofore have been the privilege of the accused, my accuser has preoccupied. By his tears, counterfeited for the purpose of working another’s ruin, he has caused my unfeigned tears to be suspected by you. Although, ever since I returned from Rome, he, by holding secret consultations with his confederates, labours night and day to insnare me, yet nevertheless he represents me in the character, not only of a conspirator, but of an open assassin and murderer. He terrifies you with his danger, in order to hasten, through your means, the ruin of an innocent brother. He asserts, that he has a place of refuge no where in the world, that I may have no remaining hope even in thee. Circumvented, destitute, and helpless as I am, he loads me with odium arising from foreign favour, which proves detrimental rather than advantageous. Then how, accuser-like, has he blended that which was the crime of this night with other invectives against my conduct, that he might, by representing the tenor of the rest of my life, throw a colour of guilt both on the late transaction, the true nature of which you shall soon understand; and that he might support the other groundless insinuations respecting my views, wishes, and designs, by this latter, fictitious, fabricated story. He had, at the same time, this design, that his accusation might appear to be sudden and by no means premeditated, as if occasioned by sudden fright and disturbance of this night. But, Perseus, if I were a traitor against my father and his government; if I had formed plans with the Romans, or with other enemies of my father, the tale of last night ought not to have been waited for; I ought to have been long ago brought to answer for my treason. And if the former charge apart from the latter were unfounded, and tended to discover your hatred towards me, rather than my guilt, it ought on the present day also to be either omitted or postponed to some future period; in order that it might clearly appear, whether I plotted against you; or you, with indeed a strange and singular kind of hatred, against me. However, I will, as well as I am able in my present unforeseen perturbation of mind, distinguish those matters which you have confounded; and I will unveil the plot of the preceding evening, whether mine or yours. Perseus wishes it to be believed, that I had formed a design to take his life, with the view, forsooth, that having removed the elder brother, on whom by the law of nations, by the custom of Macedonia, and likewise by your judgment, as he says, the kingdom was to devolve, I, the younger, should succeed in the room of him whom I had slain. What, then, can be the meaning of that other part of his speech, where he says that the Romans were courted by me, and from my reliance on them that I conceived hopes of the crown? For, if I believed that the Romans possessed such influence, that they could appoint whomsoever they pleased king of Macedon, and if I had such confidence in my interest with them, what need was there of fratricide? Could it be my wish to wear a diadem stained with a brother’s blood, or to become execrable and odious in the eyes of those very people, with whom whatever interest I may happen to have, has been procured by zeal, or at least affected integrity of conduct? unless you believe that Titus Quintius, by whose power and advice you allege I am at present governed, though he lives in such cordial affection with his own brother, would recommend to me to murder mine? He has united for me, not only the favour of the Romans, but the opinions of the Macedonians, and the concurring sentiments almost of all the gods and men, by reason of all which he cannot believe that he would prove equal to me in the competition. Yet the same man accuses me of having (though I was inferior to him in every mode of proceeding) had recourse to an act of wickedness as my last resource. Do you wish that the formula of the judicial inquiry should be to this effect, that whichever feared lest the other should seem more worthy of the throne, shall be deemed guilty of designing his brother’s destruction?

13 “But let us examine the process of this accusation, in whatever manner it has been fabricated. He has arraigned me of attempting his life, by several methods; and all these modes of attack he has crowded into the space of one day. I intended to kill him by day when we engaged after the purification, and, if it seems good to the gods, even on the day of purification. I intended, when I invited him to supper, to take him off by poison of course. I intended, when some armed persons followed me to join his party in their conviviality, to kill him with the sword. You see what sort of opportunities were chosen for this murder; those of sport, feasting, and revelling. What? on what sort of a day! On the day in which the army was purified; in which, after the royal armour of all the former kings of Macedon was carried in procession between the divided victim, when we two only rode along with you, father, at your sides, and the body of the Macedonian troops followed. Now, even supposing that I had formerly been guilty of some crime requiring expiation, could I, after being purified and expiated in this sacred solemnity, at the very time especially when I was looking at the victim laid on each side of our road, revolved in my mind fratricide, poisons and swords prepared against the feast? With what other sacred rites could I afterwards atone for the guilt of a mind, contaminated with every kind of villany? But whilst his understanding, blinded by a desire for accusing, wishes to render every thing an object of suspicion, it confounds one thing with another. For if I intended to take you off by poison at supper, what could be more incongruous with my design, than to provoke you to rage by an obstinate contest and engagement, that you might have reason to refuse, as you did, my invitation to supper? But when, in your anger, you had refused, whether ought I to have taken pains to pacify you, that I might find another opportunity, since I had got the poison ready, or to pass over, as it were, from that design to another, namely, that of killing you with the sword, and on that same day, under pretence of feasting with you? If I thought that you declined supping with me, through fear for your life, how could I suppose that you would not, through the same fear, have declined drinking with me also.

14 “Father, I have no cause to blush, that on a festival day, among companions of my own age, I should have indulged too freely in wine; and I wish you would also inquire with what cheerfulness and mirth yesterday’s entertainment, at my house, was rendered festive, that joy also (perhaps a blamable one) increasing it, our party not having been worsted in the fight. This my present misfortune, and my fears, have effectual dissipated the fumes of the liquor; but, if these had not intervened, we, the conspirators, would have been now lying fast asleep. If, Perseus, I designed to storm your house, and after the house had been taken to kill the owner, ought I not to have refrained from wine for that one day, and to have kept my soldiers sober? And that I should not be the only one to defend my cause with excessive candour, my brother himself also, not in the least inclined to malice or suspicion, says, I know nothing more, I charge them with nothing more, than that they came in arms to drink with me. If I should ask, From what source have you become acquainted with that very circumstance? you must necessarily acknowledge, either that my house was full of your spies; or that my companions took arms so openly, as that every one could see them. Lest he should seem either on a prior occasion to have made any investigation, or now to adduce arguments for the purpose of convicting, he desired you to inquire of the persons whom he would name, whether they had swords, in order that, as it were, in a doubtful case, when you had investigated into that which they themselves confessed, they might be deemed convicted. Why do you not rather desire inquiry to be made after this, whether they carried swords for the purpose of killing you; whether by my direction and knowledge? this you wish to be believed, and not that which they confess, and what is, indeed, notorious, they say they carried them for the purpose of defending themselves. Whether they acted right or wrong, let them account for their own conduct. My cause, which is no way affected by this act, do not blend with it. Explain whether we intended to attack you openly, or secretly. If openly, why had we not all swords? why had no one a sword except those who had beaten your spy? If privately, what was the arrangement of our plan? Were four to remain, in order to fall on you in your sleep, when the banquet broke up, and I your guest had departed? How would they have escaped detection, as being strangers, and belonging to me; and, above all, being liable to suspicion, because they had been in a quarrel a little before? But how were they to have escaped after having killed you? Could your house have been taken and stormed by two swords?