Crete and Rhodes Ask the Achaeans for Help
This year the Cretans sent Antiphatas, son of Telamnestus of Gortyn, with envoys to the Achaeans asking for help, and the Rhodians sent Theophanes
note
with a similar mission. The Congress of the
Achaeans was that year at Corinth: and on each
body of ambassadors pleading their respective causes, the
assembled people were more inclined towards
the Rhodians, from respect to the reputation of
their state, and the general character of their
policy and statesmen. When Antiphatas saw this, he wished
to come forward to make another speech; and, having obtained
permission from the Strategus to do so, he spoke in weightier
and more exalted terms than might be expected from a Cretan;
for, in fact, the young man was in no way of the ordinary
Cretan type, but had shunned the characteristic principles of
his countrymen. Accordingly the Achaeans received his plain
speaking with favour; and still more for the sake of his father
Telamnestus, who had taken a spirited part with them at the
head of five hundred Cretans in their war against Nabis.
However, none the less for that, after listening to him they
were still inclined to aid the Rhodians, until Callicrates
of Leontium stood up and said that they ought not to go to
war in favour of either, or to send aid to either of the two
peoples without the consent of the Romans. This argument
decided them in favour of non-intervention. . . .
