The king was brought back into the senate house by the praetor and requested to speak his mind.“I should," he began,“have persisted in my silence, senators, had it not been that you will presently call in the delegates from Rhodes, and after they had been heard it would have been necessary for me to speak. It will be all the more difficult for me to say what I have to say, because their demands will apparently not be in any way opposed to my interests or in any way affect you. They will plead the cause of the city-states of Greece and will say that they ought to be declared free. If they gain their point, who can doubt that they will sever from us not only those cities which. will be declared free, but also those which from ancient times have been tributary to us, and a f ter placing them all under obligation for so great a kindness will hold them nominally as allies but really as subiects.whollv under their dominion? And while they grasp at this immense power they will pretend that it does not in. concern their interests, and that you are only doing what is rig性and proper and consistent with your policy in the past. .1)o not let these processions deceive you, you will have to be on your guard, lest you not only lower the status. of some of yo ur allies and raise unduly that of others, but afro place those w ho have borne arms against you in a better position than those who have been your allies and friends. As regards myself, I wouldratherbethou ghtb yanythought to have vielded within the limits of my rights. so far as other things are concerned. than to have shown excessive obstinacy in maintaining them;but when it is a question of being worthy of your friendship, of giving you every proof of affection and goodwill, of upholding the honour which comes from you-in such a contest I cannot resign myself to defeat. This is the most precious inheritance I have received from my father. He was the first of all who dwell in Greece or Asia to be ad而tted to your friendship, and he preserved it with unbroken and unchanging loyalty to the end of his life. Nor was it only in heart that he was a good and faithful friend. He took his part in all the wars that you have waged in Greece, he assisted you- by sea and land and provided you with supplies of all kinds to an extent beyond anything which your other allies have done. last, whilst he was seeking to persuade the Boeotians to accept your alliance, he became unconscious in the middle of his speech, and shortly afterwards expired. Treading as I have done in his footsteps, I could not have shown in any way greater goodwill or a stronger desire to cherish your favour than he did, for those indeed were unsurpassable. That I have been able to go further than he did in actual achievement, in services rendered, in the sacrifices which duty加poses, is due to the opportunities afforded by the circumstances of the time, by Antiochus and your war in Asia. Antiochus, when monarch whenmonarchof Asia and a part of Europe, offered to give me his daughter in marriage and to restore at once the cities which had revolted from us, and he also held out great hopes of enlarging. my dominions in the future if I would join him in lighting against you. “I will not pride myself on never having been false to you; I would rather dwell upon those things in which I showed myself worthy of the friendship which has existed from very ancient times between you and my dynasty. I assisted your commanders with my military and, naval forces in a way in which none of your allies can be compared with me;I supplied your commissariat both by land and sea;I took part in every one of the sea fights which occurred in so many different places; I never spared myself in toil or danger;I experienced what brings the worst suffering in war-a siege, and was shut Pergamum with my life and realm in imminent danger. After I had been relieved, in spite of the fact that Antiochus on the one side and Seleucus on the other were threatening the citadel and heart of my kingdom, I left my own interests to protect themselves and went with the whole of my fleet to the Hellespont to meet your consul, L. Scipio, and assist in transporting his army. When once yo ur army had landed in Asia I never left the consul's side. No Roman soldier was more regularly in his place in the camp than I and my brothers were;there was no expedition no cavalrv action. in which I was not present; .少，J‘尸 I took my place in the battle line and held the post which the consul assigned to me.LL T 7 77 7.，.。， ”I shall not ask. senators. wno, in respect of .services rendered 产了产J‘ in this war. can be compared with me:there is none out of all the peoples or monarchs whom you hold in high honour with whom I would not dare to compare myself. Masinissa was your enemy before he was vour ally, nor was he friendly to you J砂沙 safe and he could have given you military was a homeless fugitive and all his forces were lost he sought refuge in your camp with a solitary troop of cavalry. And yet, because he stood by you loyally and effectively against Syphax and the Carthaginians, you have not only restored to him his kingdom, but by adding the richest part of the dominions of Syphax to it you have made him the most powerful of African kings. What reward or honour then do we seem in your eyes to deserve, we who have never been your enemies, but always your friends?Not only in Asia have my father, my brothers and myself taken up arms on your behalf, but far from home in the Peloponnesus, in Boeotia, in Aetolia, in the wars with Philip and Antiochus and the Aetolians, on sea as well as on land. “Someone will say,‘What, then, do you ask for?’As you insist, senators U P on my speaking freely, I must comply. If, then, your intention in removing Antiochus beyond the range is that you may hold those lands yourselves, I wo rather have you than any others as my neighbours, nor do I see how my kingdom could be more secure or less liable to distur卜 ance under any other arran gement. But if you purpose to retire and withdraw your armies from those parts, I would venture to suggest that there is none of .your allies more worthy to occupy the territories you have conquered than myself. But I may be told it is a splendid thing to liberate cities from servitude. I think so too, if they have done nothing hostile to you. But if they have taken part with Antiochus, how much more worthy of your wisdom and justice is it to study the interest of allies who have done you good, rather than the interest of your foes."