At the same time some considerations, suggested by the political conditions of the time, were submitted in common to Eumenes and Antiochus. Perseus reminded them that free commonwealths and monarchs are in the nature of things antagonistic. Rome was attacking them one by one, and what was still worse, kings were using their power against kings. His own father had been crushed by the help of Attalus; the attack on Antiochus had been made with the assistance of Eumenes and, to some extent, of his own father Philip; now Eumenes and Prusias were in arms against himself. If royalty were abolished in Macedonia, Asia would be the next. They had already become masters of some parts of it under the pretext of making the cities free. Then Syria's turn would come. Prusias was now held in higher honour than Eumenes, and Antiochus was kept out of the Egypt which he had conquered - the prize of war. He urged them to reflect on these things, and either insist upon the Romans making peace with him, or else regard those who persisted in carrying on an unjust war as the common enemies of all kings. The communication to Antiochus was sent openly, the emissary to Eumenes was sent ostensibly to arrange for the ransom of the prisoners. As a matter of fact, more clandestine negotiations were going on, which for the time aroused suspicion and ill-will against Eumenes amongst the Romans, and still graver, though unfounded, charges were made against him, for he was regarded as a traitor and a declared enemy. There was a Cretan called Cydas, an intimate friend of Eumenes. This man went with a certain Chimarus, a country man of his, who was serving under Perseus, to Amphipolis, then afterwards to Demetrias, where he held conversations under the actual walls of the city, first with Menecrates and then with Antimachus, both of them generals of Perseus. Hierophon also, who was the emissary on this occasion, had previously been on two missions to Eumenes. These secret missions and colloquies were notorious, but what had actually taken place, or what agreement had been come to between the monarchs, was not known. The facts were these.