Difficulty of Explaining the Intrigues of Perseus and Eumenes
In venturing upon a narrative of the intrigues of Perseus
note
and Eumenes, I have felt myself in a position
of great embarrassment. For to give full and
accurate details of the negotiations, which these
two kings conducted in secret between themselves, appeared
to me to be an attempt open to many obvious criticisms and
exceedingly liable to error: and yet to pass over in complete
silence what seemed to have exercised the most decisive influence in the war, and which alone can explain many of the
subsequent events, seemed to me to wear the appearance of
a certain sluggishness and entire want of enterprise. On the
whole, I decided to state briefly what I believed to be truth,
and the probabilities and surmises on which I founded that
opinion; for I was, in fact, during this period more struck
than most people at what happened.
