senate.” 41. To this the king answered,—“A cause which would approve itself good if tried before impartial judges, I must plead before judges who are at the same time my accusers. Of the circumstances laid to my charge, some are of such a nature that I know not whether I ought not to glory in them; others there are which I would not blush to confess; and others, which as they are backed by bare assertions, it will be sufficient to deny. Supposing that I were this day to stand a trial, according to your laws, what does either the Brundusian informer, or Eumenes, allege against me that would be deemed a well-founded accusation, and not rather a malicious aspersion? Had Eumenes (although both in his public and private capacity he has done many grievous injuries to so many people) no other enemy than me? Could I not find a better agent for the perpetration of wickedness than Rammius, whom I had never seen before, nor had any probability of ever seeing again? Then, I must give an account of the Thebans, who, it is well known, perished by shipwreck; and of the death of Artetarus, with regard to whom nothing more is alleged against me, than that his murderers lived in exile in my dominions. I will not object to the injustice of this assumption, provided you will admit it on your side; and will acknowledge that, whatever exiles have taken refuge in Rome or in Italy, you are yourselves abettors of the crimes for which they have been condemned. If you admit not this principle, as other nations will not, neither will I. In truth, what advantage were it to any one that exile lay within his grasp, if no where was there room for an exile? As soon however as I understood from your representations, that those men were in Macedon, I ordered that search should be made for them, and that they should quit the kingdom; and I prohibited them for ever from setting foot on my dominions. These accusations are brought against me as if I were a criminal pleading my cause; the others affect me as a king, and must derive their decision from the treaty which exists between you and me. For if it is thus expressed in that treaty, that even if any one would wage war against me, I am not permitted to protect my kingdom; I must then confess I have infringed it, by defending myself with arms against Abrupolis, an ally of the Roman people. But, on the other hand, if it is both allowed by the treaty, and is an axiom established by the law of nations, that arms may be repelled by arms; how, I pray you, ought I to have acted when Abrupolis had spread devastation over the frontiers of my kingdom as far as Amphipolis, carried off great numbers of free persons a vast multitude of slaves, and many thousands of cattle? Ought I to have lain quiet, and let him proceed until he came in arms to Pella, into my very palace? But, allowing that I avenged my wrongs in a just war, yet he ought not to have been subdued, and made to suffer the evils which occur to the vanquished.