Envoys also came from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a>, first Philocrates and next Philophron and Astymedes.
For the Rhodians, on receiving the answer given to Hagepolis just after the battle of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Pydna&groupId=919&placeId=1647">Pydna</a> and seeing from this the angry and threatening attitude of the senate towards them, at once sent off these two embassies.
Astymedes and Philophron, noticing from the reception they met with both in public and in private the suspicion and hostility with which they were regarded, fell into a state of utter despondency and helplessness.
And when one of the praetors mounted the rostra and urged the people to declare war on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a>, then, entirely losing their senses owing to the danger in which their country stood, they were in such a state of distress that they put on mourning and in seeking the aid of their friends no longer begged for it or asked for it, but implored them in tears not to resort to extreme measures against <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a>.
A few days afterwards, when they were introduced to the senate by the tribune Antonius, who had previously dragged down from the rostra the praetor who was inciting the people to make war, Philophron was the first to speak, and was followed by Astymedes.
On this occasion after singing the dying swan's song, as the saying is, they received an answer which relieved indeed their extreme apprehension of war
but in it the senate reproached them bitterly and severely for the several offences with which they were charged.
The sense of the answer was that, had it not been for a few men who were their friends, and especially had it not been for their own conduct, they would have known well as they richly deserved what was the treatment proper for them.
Astymedes, in his own opinion, had spoken well in defence of his country, but his speech by no means pleased the Greeks resident in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> nor those at home.
For he afterwards wrote out and published his defence, and most of those who perused it thought it strange and quite unconvincing,
inasmuch as he had drawn it up relying not so much on the rights of his country, as on the accusations he brought against others.
In comparing and judging the relative values of kindnesses and assistance rendered to the Romans, he attempted to discredit and belittle the services of other states, while he magnified those of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a>, exaggerating them as much as he could.
In regard to offences, on the contrary, he condemned those of others in a bitter and hostile spirit, but tried to cloak those of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a>, so that when compared the offences of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a> might seem to be small and deserving of pardon, but those of her neighbours great and quite inexpiable, although, as he said, the offenders had all been pardoned.
Such a kind of justification, I think, is by no means becoming in a politician, since surely in the case of men who have taken part in secret designs we do not praise those who either from fear or for money turn informers and betray confidences, but we applaud and regard as brave men those who endure the extremity of torture and punishment without being the cause of similar suffering to their accomplices.
How then could those who heard of it fail to disapprove the conduct of a man who for fear of an uncertain danger revealed to the ruling power and published all the errors of others, errors which time had already veiled from the eyes of their masters?
Walbank Commentary