24. After him, Arco, brother to the prætor Xenarchus, said:—“Callicrates hath made the delivery of our sentiments difficult both to me and to every one who differs in opinion from him; for after his pleading in favour of the Roman alliance, alleging that it was undermined and attacked, (although no one either undermines or attacks it,) he has caused that whoever dissents from him must seem to argue against the cause of the Romans. In the first place, as if he had not been here with us, but had just left the senate-house of the Roman people, or had been admitted into the privy councils of kings, he knows and tells us every transaction that passes in secret. Nay more, he divines what would have happened if Philip had lived, why Perseus became heir of the kingdom: in such a manner, what are the intentions of the Macedonians, and what the thoughts of the Romans. But we, who neither know for what cause, nor in what manner, Demetrius perished, nor what Philip would have done, if he had lived, ought to accommodate our resolutions to the transactions that have passed in open view. We know that Perseus, on his coming to the throne, sent ambassadors to Rome, and received the title of king from the Roman people, and we hear that ambassadors came from Rome to the king, and were graciously received by him. I consider that all these circumstances are signs of peace, not of war; and that the Romans cannot be offended, if as we imitated their conduct in war, so we follow now their example in peace. For my part, I cannot see why we alone, of all mankind, wage implacable war against the kingdom of the Macedonians. Are we exposed to insult by a close neighbourhood to Macedon? or are we like the Dolopians, whom Perseus subdued lately, the weakest of all states? No; on the contrary, by the bounty of the gods, we are sufficiently secured, as well by our own strength, as by the remoteness of our situation. But we have as much reason to apprehend ill treatment, as the Thessalians and Ætolians; have we no more credit or influence with the Romans, though we were always their friends and allies, than the Ætolians, who but lately were their enemies? Whatever reciprocal rights the Ætolians, the Thessalians, the Epirots, in short, every state in Greece, allow to subsist between them and the Macedonians, let us allow the same. Why have we alone what may be termed a cursed neglect of the ties of humanity? Philip may have done some act on account of which we should pass this decree against him when in arms and waging war against us: What has Perseus deserved, a king just seated on the throne, guiltless of all injury against us, and effacing by his own kindness his father’s feuds? Why should we be his only enemies? Although I might make this assertion, that so great have been our obligations to the former kings of Macedon, that the ill usage, suffered from a single prince of their line, if any has really been suffered from Philip, * * * especially after his death.