New Commissioners Sent to Achaia
When the commissioners with L. Aurelius Orestes
note
arrived in Rome from the Peloponnese, they
reported what had taken place, and declared
that they had a narrow escape of actually losing
their lives. They made the most of the occurrence and put the worst interpretation upon it; for they represented the violence which had been offered them as not
the result of a sudden outbreak, but of a deliberate intention
on the part of the Achaeans to inflict a signal insult upon them.
The Senate was therefore more angry than it had ever been,
and at once appointed Sextus Julius Caesar
and other envoys with instructions to rebuke and
upbraid the Achaeans for what had occurred,
yet in terms of moderation, but to exhort them
"not to listen to evil councillors, not to allow themselves to
be betrayed into hostility with Rome, but even yet to make
amends for their acts of folly by inflicting punishment on the
authors of the crime." This was a clear proof that the Senate
gave its instructions to Aurelius and his colleagues, not with
the view of dismembering the league, but with the object of
restraining the obstinacy and hostility of the Achaeans by
terrifying and overawing them. Some people accordingly
imagined that the Romans were acting hypocritically, because the Carthaginian war was still unfinished; but this was
not the case. The fact is, that they had long regarded the
Achaean league with favour, believing it to be the most trustworthy of all the Greek governments; and though now they
were resolved to give it an alarm, because it had become too
lofty in its pretensions, yet they were by no means minded to
go to war or to have a serious quarrel with the Achaeans. . . .
