Book 30
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About the same time king Prusias also came to Rome The abject conduct of king Prusias. to congratulate the Senate and the generals on their success. This Prusias was in no sense worthy of the royal title, as we may judge from the following facts: When the Roman envoys first appeared at his court, he met them with shorn head and wearing a cap, toga, and shoes, and in fact exactly in the garb worn by those recently manumitted at Rome, whom they call liberti: and greeting the envoys respectfully, he exclaimed, Behold your freedman, who is willing to obey you in all things and to imitate your fashions! than which a more contemptible speech it would be difficult to imagine. And now, again, when he reached the entrance of the Senate-house he stopped at the door facing the senators, and, dropping both his hands he paid reverence to the threshold and the seated Fathers, exclaiming, Hail, ye gods my preservers! seeming bent on surpassing all who might come after him in meanness of spirit, unmanliness, and servility. And his behaviour in the conference which he held when he had entered the Senatehouse was on a par with this; and was such as might make one blush even to write. However this contemptible display served in itself to secure him a favourable answer.
