The consul Acilius and the Romans gave them to him, when they were the property of enemies. If the donors chose to resume what they had given, he knew he must submit, but in that case they would, for the gratification of inconstant and unprofitable allies, do injury to a more useful and more faithful friend. For no favour produced less permanent gratitude than the gift of liberty, especially among people who were ready to corrupt it by using it badly.” After examining the merits of the cause, the ambassadors pronounced their judgment, that “the Macedonian garrisons should be withdrawn from the cities in question, and that the kingdom of Macedonia should be limited by its ancient boundaries. That with regard to the injuries which both parties complained of being done to them, it would be requisite to institute some compact for the attainment of justice, in order to decide the controversies between those states and the Macedonians.” 27. The king being grievously offended, the ambassadors proceeded thence to Thessalonica, to give a hearing to the business concerning the cities of Thrace. Here the ambassadors of Eumenes said, that “if the Romans wished that Ænus and Maronea should be independent, the king felt ashamed to say more, than to recommend it to them to leave those people free in fact, and not in words; nor to suffer their kindness to be intercepted by another. But if they had not so much concern for the states situated in Thrace, it was much more reasonable that Eumenes should possess, as the rewards of war, the places which had been under the dominion of Antiochus, than Philip; and that, either on account of his father Attalus’s deserts in the war, waged by the Roman people against Philip himself, or on account of his own, because he had shared all the toils and dangers on land and sea, during the war with Antiochus. Besides, he had the previous judgment of the ten ambassadors to that purpose; who, when they granted the Chersonesus and Lysimachia, surely yielded at the same time Ænus and Maronea; which, even from the proximity of situation, were but a sort of appendage to the larger gift. For, as to Philip, by what merits towards the Roman people, or what right of dominion, had he put garrisons into those places, which were at so great a distance from the borders of Macedonia? They then desired that the Romans would order the Maronites to be called, from whom they would receive more positive information of the condition of those cities.” The Maronite ambassadors being called in, declared, that “not in one spot of the city, as in other garrisoned towns, but in every quarter of it, there was a party of the king’s troops, and that Maronea was full of Macedonians; in consequence of which, the favourites of the king domineered over the rest; they alone had liberty of speaking, either in the senate or assemblies of the people. All posts of eminence they assumed to themselves, or conferred on whom they thought proper.