20.
Many are the noble ventures which the Rhodians have undertaken on land and sea, to testify to their loyalty to the Roman people and
[
2]
in behalf of the whole race of the Greeks, but they have done nothing more glorious than on this occasion, when, unterrified by the magnitude of the impending war, they sent ambassadors to the king, ordering him not to pass Chelidoniae —a promontory in Cilicia, made famous by the ancient treaty
1 between the Athenians and the Persian kings:
[
3]
if Antiochus did not keep his fleet and army within this limit, they vowed that they would oppose him, not from any ill-will towards him, but to prevent his joining Philip and interfering with the Romans who were undertaking to liberate
[p. 333]Greece.
[
4]
Antiochus was at the time besieging
2 Coracesium, having recovered Zephyrium and Soli and Aphrodisias and Corycus, and Selinus, after rounding Anemurium —this also is a cape in Cilicia.
[
5]
All these and other forts on this coast having surrendered to him without resistance, either from fear or voluntarily, Coracesium unexpectedly closed its gates and delayed him. There the ambassadors of the Rhodians were given audience.
[
6]
And although their message was one to inflame the king's mind, he restrained his anger and answered
[
7]
that he would send ambassadors to Rhodes with instructions to renew the long-standing relations existing between him and his ancestors and that state, and to bid them have no fears of the king's coming: no fraud or mischief was planned either for them or for their allies; for he would not violate the friendship of the Romans, in evidence whereof he cited both his own recent embassy to them and the senate's complimentary decrees and replies to him.
3
[
8]
At that time, as it happened, his ambassadors had returned from Rome, where they had been heard and dismissed courteously, as the situation demanded,
[
9]
the outcome of the war with Philip being still in doubt. While the ambassadors of the king were relating this before the assembly of the Rhodians, the news came that the war had been ended at Cynoscephalae.
[
10]
Their fear of Philip having been dispelled by the receipt of this news, the Rhodians abandoned their design of going to meet Antiochus with the fleet; their other concern they did not forget, to wit, that of maintaining the liberty of the cities allied with Ptolemy, which were threatened with war by Antiochus.
[
11]
For some they helped with
[p. 335]reinforcements, some by warnings and information
4 as to the enemy's plans,
[
12]
and they were responsible for preserving the liberty of the people of Caunus, Myndus, Halicarnassus, and Samos.
[
13]
It is hardly worth while to record in detail the events in this part of the world, since I am scarce able to recount those things which belong properly to the Roman war.