Many plans which look plausible and feasible, when brought to the test of actual experience, like base coins when brought to the furnace, cease to answer in any way to their original conceptions....
When Perseus came to the hour of trial his courage all left him, like that of an athlete in bad training. For when the danger was approaching, and it became necessary to fight a decisive battle, his resolution gave way....
As soon as the battle began, the Macedonian king played the coward and rode off to the town, under the pretext of sacrificing to Hercules,—who certainly does not accept craven gifts from cravens, nor fulfil unworthy prayers....
[18.] He was then very young, and it was his first experience of actual service in the field,Scipio Africanus the younger, cf. Livy, 44, 44 (?) and having but recently begun to taste the sweets of promotion, he was keen, ambitious, and eager to be first....
[19.] Just when Perseus had been beaten and was trying to save himself by flight, the Senate determined to admit the ambassadors,The Rhodian mission deliver their message too late. who had come from Rhodes to negotiate a peace, to an audience: Fortune thus appearing designedly to parade the folly of the Rhodians on the stage,—if we may say “of the Rhodians,” and not rather “of the individuals who were then in the ascendant at Rhodes.” When Agesipolis and his colleagues entered the Senate, they said that “They had come to arrange an end to the war; for the people of Rhodes,—seeing that the war was become protracted to a considerable length of time, and seeing that it was disadvantageous to all the Greeks, as well as to the Romans themselves, on account of its enormous expenses,—had come to that conclusion. But as the war was already ended, and the wish of the Rhodians was thus fulfilled, they had only to congratulate the Romans.” Such was the brief speech of Agesipolis. But the Senate seized the opportunity of making an example of the Rhodians, and produced an answer of which the upshot was thatUncompromising answer of the Senate. “They did not regard this embassy as having been sent by the Rhodians in the interests either of the Greeks or themselves, but in those of Perseus. For if they had meant to send an embassy in behalf of the Greeks, the proper time for doing so was when Perseus was plundering the territory and cities of Greece, while encamped for nearly two years in Thessaly. But to let that time pass without notice, and to come now desiring to put an end to the war, at a time when the Roman legions had entered Macedonia, and Perseus was closely beleagured and almost at the end of his hopes, was a clear proof to any one of observation that the Rhodians had sent their embassy, not with the desire of ending the war, but to rescue and save Perseus to the best of their ability. Therefore they deserved no indulgence at the hands of the Romans at this time, nor any favourable reply.” Such was the Senate’s answer to the Rhodians....
[20.] Then Aemilius Paulus speaking once more in Latin bade the members of his council,Perseus, being brought a prisoner before Aemilius Paulus and his council, refuses to reply to his questions, Paulus addresses the king in Greek and then his council in Latin. Livy, 45, 8. “With such a sight before their eyes,”—pointing to Perseus,—“not to be too boastful in the hour of success, nor to take any extreme or inhuman measures against any one, nor in fact ever to feel confidence in the permanence of their present good fortune. Rather it was precisely at the time of greatest success, either private or public, that a man should be most alive to the possibility of a reverse. Even so it was difficult for a man to exhibit moderation in good fortune. But the distinction between fools and wise was that the former only learnt by their own misfortunes, the latter by those of others.”...
[21.] One is often reminded of the words of Demetrius of Phalerum. In his treatise on Fortune,Demetrius of Phalerum on mutability. wishing to give the world a distinct view of her mutability, he fixed upon the period of Alexander, when that monarch destroyed the Persian dynasty, and thus expresses himself: “If you will take, I don’t say unlimited time or many generations, but only these last fifty years immediately preceding our generation, you will be able to understand the cruelty of Fortune. For can you suppose, if some god had warned the Persians or their king, or the Macedonians or their king, that in fifty years the very name of the Persians, who once were masters of the world, would have been lost, and that the Macedonians, whose name was before scarcely known, would become masters of it all, that they would have believed it? Nevertheless it is true that Fortune, whose influence on our life is incalculable, who displays her power by surprises, is even now I think, showing all mankind, by her elevation of the Macedonians into the high prosperity once enjoyed by the Persians, that she has merely lent them these advantages until she may otherwise determine concerning them.” And this has now come to pass in the person of Perseus; and indeed Demetrius has spoken prophetically of the future as though he were inspired. And as the course of my history brought me to the period which witnessed the ruin of the Macedonian kingdom, I judged it to be right not to pass it over without proper remark, especially as I was an eye-witness of the transaction. It was a case I thought both for enlarging on the theme myself, and for recalling the words of Demetrius, who appeared to me to have shown something more than mere human sagacity in his remarks; for he made a true forecast of the future almost a hundred and fifty years before the event....
[22.] After the conclusion of the battle between Perseus and the Romans, king Eumenes found himself in what people callThe unexpected always happens. an unexpected and extraordinary trouble, but what, if we regard the natural course of human concerns, was quite an everyday affair. For it is quite the way of Fortune to confound human calculations by surprises; and when she has helped a man for a time, and caused her balance to incline in his favour, to turn round upon him as though she repented, throw her weight into the opposite scale, and mar all his successes.Eumenes disappointed of his hope of quiet by a rising in Galatia. And was the case now with Eumenes. He imagined that at last his own kingdom was safe, and that he might look forward to a time of ease, now that Perseus and the whole kingdom of Macedonia were utterly destroyed; yet it was then that he was confronted with the gravest dangers, by the Gauls in Asia seizing the opportunity for an unexpected rising....
After reigning in Memphis for a time Philometor made terms with his brother and sister, returned to Alexandria, and there all three were being besieged by Antiochus. See above, 28, [18].
[23.] In the Peloponnesus a mission arrived before the end of the winter from the two kings,Autumn of B.C. 169. Ptolemy (Philometor) and Ptolemy (Physcon), asking for help. This gave rise to repeated and animated discussions. The party of Callicrates and Diophanes were against granting the help; while Archon, Lycortas, and Polybius were for sending it to the kings in accordance with the terms of their alliance. For by this time it had come to pass that the younger Ptolemy had been proclaimed king by the people (at Alexandria), owing to the danger which threatened them; and that the elder had subsequently returned from Memphis, and was reigning jointly with his sister. As they stood in need of every kind of assistance, they sent Eumenes and Dionysodorus to the Achaeans, asking a thousand foot and two hundred horse, with Lycortas to command the foot and Polybius the horse. They sent a message also to Theodoridas of Sicyon, urging him to hire them a thousand mercenaries. For the kings chanced to have become intimately acquainted with these particular men, owing to the transactions I have related before. The ambassadors arrived when the Achaean congress was in session in Corinth. They therefore came forward, and after recalling the many evidences of friendship shown by the Achaeans to the kingdom of Egypt, and describing to them the danger in which the kings then were, they entreated them to send help. The Achaeans generally were ready enough to go to the help of the kings (for both now wore the diadem and exercised regal functions), and not only with a detachment, but with their full levy.Winter of B.C. 169-168. But Callicrates and his party spoke against it; alleging that they ought not to meddle in such affairs at all, and certainly not at that time, but should reserve their undivided forces for the service of Rome. For there was a general expectation just then of a decisive battle being fought, as Q. Philippus was wintering in Macedonia.