So it is in your power, ye men of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, to give a magnificent accretion of strength to your friends, and yet not diminish the splendour of your own rôle.
For the ends you propose to achieve are not the same as those of other people.
Other men are impelled to armed action by the prosper of getting into their power and annexing cities, stores, or ships.
But the gods have made all these things superfluous to you, by subjecting the whole world to your dominion.
What is it, then, that you really are in want of, and what should you most intently study to obtain?
Obviously praise and glory among men, things difficult indeed to acquire and still more difficult to keep when you have them. What we mean we will try to make plainer.
You went to war with Philip and made every sacrifice for the sake of the liberty of Greece. For such was your purpose and this alone — absolutely nothing else — was the prize you won by that war.
But yet you gained more glory by that than by the tribute you imposed on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a>.
For money is a possession common to all men, but what is good, glorious, and praiseworthy belongs only to the gods and those men who are by nature nearest to them.
Therefore, as the noblest of the tasks you accomplished was the liberation of the Greeks, if you now thus supplement it, your glorious record will be complete; but if you neglect to do so, the glory you have already gained will obviously be diminished.
We then, ye men of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, who have been the devoted supporters of your purpose, and who have taken a real part in your gravest struggles and dangers, do not now abandon our post in the ranks of your friends,
but have not hesitated to remind you frankly of what we at least think to be your honour and advantage, aiming at nothing else and estimating nothing higher than our duty."
Rhodians in this speech seemed to all the house to have expressed themselves modestly and well about the situation,
Walbank Commentary