I am conscious to myself that I have not, knowingly, done wrong; and that, if I have done any wrong, erring through imprudence, I am capable of receiving correction and reformation from these reproofs. I have certainly committed no fault that is incurable, or deserving punishment by war and plunder: for surely the fame of your clemency and consistency of conduct, spread over the world, is ill-founded, if, on such causes as are scarcely deserving of complaint or expostulation, you take up arms against kings in alliance with you.” 43. As he uttered these words with the apparent approbation of the ambassadors, Marcius advised him to send ambassadors to Rome, as he thought it best to try every expedient to the last, and to omit nothing that might afford any prospect of peace. The consideration still remained, how the ambassadors might travel with safety; and although, to this end, it was necessary that the king should ask a truce, which Marcius wished for, and in fact had no other view in consenting to the conference, yet he granted it with apparent reluctance, and as a great favour to the persons requesting it. At that juncture the Romans had not made sufficient preparations for war; they had no army, no general: whereas Perseus had every thing prepared and ready; and if a delusive hope of peace had not blinded his judgment, he might have commenced hostilities at a time most advantageous to himself and distressing to his enemies. At the breaking up of this conference, (the truce being ratified by both parties,) the Roman ambassadors bent their route towards Bœotia, where great commotions were now beginning; for several of the states withdrew themselves from the union of the general confederacy of the Bœotians, from the time that the answer of the ambassadors was announced, that “it would appear what particular states were displeased at the formation of the alliance with the king.” First deputies from Chæronea, then others from Thebes, met the Romans on the road, and assured them, that they were not present in the council wherein that alliance was resolved on. The ambassadors, giving them no answer at the time, ordered that they should go with them to Chalcis. At Thebes a violent dissension arose out of another contest. The party defeated in the election of prætors of Bœotia, resolving to revenge the affront, collected the multitude, and passed a decree at Thebes, that the new Bœotarchs should not be admitted into the cities. All the persons thus exiled betook themselves to Thespiæ; being recalled from it (for they were received there without hesitation) to Thebes, owing to a change in the minds of the people, they passed a decree that the twelve persons who, without being invested with public authority, had held an assembly and council, should be punished by banishment: and afterwards the new prætor, (he was Ismenias, a man of distinction and power,) by another decree, condemns them, although absent, to capital punishment.