[62]
"We first came to Asia with an army when Antiochus, king of Syria, was despoiling you. We drove him out and fixed the boundaries of his dominions beyond the river Halys and Mount Taurus. We did not retain possession of you when we had delivered you from him, but set you free, except that we awarded a few places to Eumenes and the Rhodians, our allies in the war, not as tributaries, but as clients. The proof of this is that when the Lycians complained of the Rhodians we deprived them of their authority. Such was our conduct toward you. You, on the other hand, when Attalus Philometor had left his kingdom to us in his will, gave aid to Aristonicus against us for four years. When he was captured most of you, under the impulse of necessity and fear, returned to your duty. Notwithstanding all this, after a period of twenty-four years, during which you had attained to great prosperity and embellishment, public and private, you again became puffed up by ease and luxury and took the opportunity, while we were preoccupied in Italy, some of you to call in Mithridates and others to join him when he came. Most infamous of all, you obeyed the order he gave to kill all the Italians in your communities, including women and children, in one day. You did not even spare those who fled to the temples dedicated to your own gods. You have received some punishment for this crime from Mithridates himself, who broke faith with you and gave you your fill of rapine and slaughter, redistributed your lands, cancelled debts, freed your slaves, appointed tyrants over some of you, and committed robberies everywhere by land and sea; so that you learned immediately by experiment and comparison what kind of defender you chose instead of your former ones. The instigators of these crimes paid some penalty to us also. It is necessary, too, that some penalty should be inflicted upon you in common, as you have been guilty in common, and something corresponding to your deserts. But may the Romans never even conceive of impious slaughter, indiscriminate confiscation, servile insurrections, or other acts of barbarism. I shall spare even now the Greek race and name so celebrated throughout Asia, and for the sake of that fair repute that is ever dear to the Romans I shall only impose upon you the taxes of five years, to be paid at once, together with the cost of the war expended by me, and whatever else may be spent in settling the affairs of the province. I will apportion these charges to each of you according to cities, and will fix the time of payment. Upon the disobedient I shall visit punishment as upon enemies."
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Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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