+20.+ “For myself,” he continued, “though in every other point I would
yield, if it were necessary, to my neighbours, yet in the matter of
your friendship and of my goodwill towards you I will never, if I can
help it, yield to any one alive. And I think that my father, if he
had been living, would have said the same: for as he was the first to
become your friend and ally, so of all the inhabitants of Asia and
Greece he was the most nobly loyal to you to the last day of his life,
not only in heart but in deed. For he took his part in all your wars
in Greece, and furnished the largest contingents of men and ships of
all your allies; contributed the largest share of supplies; and faced
the most serious dangers: and to sum up all, ended his life actually
engaged in the war with Philip, while employed in urging the Boeotians
to join your alliance. I, too, when I succeeded to his kingdom, while
fully maintaining my father’s views, for it was impossible to do more,
have yet gone even beyond him in actual achievements: for the state of
the times brought me to a more fiery test than they did him. Antiochus
offered me his daughter and a share in his whole kingdom: offered me
immediate restoration of all the cities that had been before wrested
from me: and finally promised me any price I chose if I would join him
in his war with you. But so far from accepting any one of these offers,
I joined you in your struggle against Antiochus with the largest
military and naval contingents of any of your allies; contributed the
largest share of supplies at the time of your utmost need; and exposed
myself unreservedly to every danger along with your generals. Finally,
I submitted to being invested in Pergamos itself, and risked my life as
well as my crown in my loyalty to your people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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