a more tyrannical master.  So that every one of them was not only at a loss what opinion he should support in the senate of his own particular state, or in the general diets of the nation; but, even when they deliberated within themselves, they could not, with any certainty, determine what they ought to wish, or what to prefer.  Such was the unsettled state of mind of the members of the assembly, when the ambassadors were introduced and liberty of speaking afforded them.  The Roman ambassador, Lucius Calpurnius, spoke first; next the ambassadors of king Attalus; after them those of the Rhodians; and then Philip’s.  The Athenians were heard the last, that they might refute the discourses of the Macedonians.  These inveighed against the king with the greatest acrimony of any, for no others had suffered from him so many and so severe hardships.  So great a number of speeches of the ambassadors succeeding each other took up the whole of the day; and about sun-set the council was adjourned.

20.  Next day the council was convened again; and when the magistrates, according to the custom of the Greeks, gave leave, by their herald, to any person who chose to offer advice, not one stood forth; but they sat a long time, looking on each other in silence.  It was no wonder that men, revolving in their minds matters of such contradictory natures, and who found themselves puzzled and confounded, should be involved in additional perplexity by the speeches continued through the whole preceding day; in which the difficulties, on all sides, were brought into view, and stated in their full force.  At length Aristaenus, the praetor of the Achaeans, not to dismiss the council without any business being introduced, said:—­“Achaeans, where are now those violent disputes, in which, at your feasts and meetings, whenever mention was made of Philip and the Romans, you scarcely refrained from blows?  Now, in a general assembly, summoned on that single business, when you have heard the arguments of the ambassadors on both sides, when the magistrates demand your opinions, when the herald calls you to declare your sentiments, you are struck dumb.  Although your concern for the common safety be insufficient for determining the matter, cannot the party zeal which has attached you to one side or the other extort a word from any one of you? especially when none is so obtuse as not to perceive, that the time for declaring and recommending what each either wishes or thinks most advisable, must be at the present moment; that is, before we make any decree.  When a decree shall have been once passed, every man even such as previously may have disapproved the measure, must then support it as good and salutary.”  These persuasions of the praetor, so far from prevailing on any one person to declare his opinion, did not excite, in all that numerous assembly, collected out of so many states, so much as a murmur or a whisper.