Book 29
1
THEIR one idea, expressed at parties or conversations in B. C. 168. Coss. L. Aemilius Paullus, C. Licinius Crassus. A fragment of the speech of L. Aemilius before starting for Macedonia. See Livy, 44, 22. the street, was, that they should manage the war in Macedonia while remaining quietly at home in Rome, sometimes by criticising what the generals were doing, at others what they were leaving undone. From this the public interests never got any good, and often a great deal of harm. The generals themselves were at times greatly hampered by this ill-timed loquacity. For as it is the invariable nature of slander to spread rapidly and stop at nothing, the people got thoroughly infected by this idle talk, and the generals were consequently rendered contemptible in the eyes of the enemy. . . .
2
The Senate being informed that Antiochus In answer to an embassy from Ptolemy Physcon and his sister Cleopatra, the Senate sends Gaius Popilius Laenas to Alexandria. Livy, 44, 19. had become master of Egypt, and all but taken Alexandria, and conceiving that the aggrandisement of that king was a matter affecting themselves, appointed Gaius Popilius and others to go as ambassadors to put an end to the war, and generally to inspect the state of affairs. . . .
