and blamed Eumenes in particular as the instigator of it, so that his festal embassy was not even permitted to be present at the festival of Helios in Rhodes.  But this did not prevent them from adhering to Rome and keeping the Macedonian party, which existed in Rhodes as well as everywhere else, aloof from the helm of affairs.  The permission given to them in 585 to export grain from Sicily shows the continuance of the good understanding with Rome.  All of a sudden, shortly before the battle of Pydna, Rhodian envoys appeared at the Roman head-quarters and in the Roman senate, announcing that the Rhodians would no longer tolerate this war which was injurious to their Macedonian traffic and their revenue from port-dues, that they were disposed themselves to declare war against the party which should refuse to make peace, and that with this view they had already concluded an alliance with Crete and with the Asiatic cities.  Many caprices are possible in a republic governed by primary assemblies; but this insane intervention of a commercial city—­which can only have been resolved on after the fall of the pass of Tempe was known at Rhodes—­requires special explanation.  The key to it is furnished by the well-attested account that the consul Quintus Marcius, that master of the “new-fashioned diplomacy,” had in the camp at Heracleum (and therefore after the occupation of the pass of Tempe) loaded the Rhodian envoy Agepolis with civilities and made an underhand request to him to mediate a peace.  Republican wrongheadedness and vanity did the rest; the Rhodians fancied that the Romans had given themselves up as lost; they were eager to play the part of mediator among four great powers at once; communications were entered into with Perseus; Rhodian envoys with Macedonian sympathies said more than they should have said; and they were caught.  The senate, which doubtless was itself for the most part unaware of those intrigues, heard the strange announcement, as may be conceived, with indignation, and was glad of the favourable opportunity to humble the haughty mercantile city.  A warlike praetor went even so far as to propose to the people a declaration of war against Rhodes.  In vain the Rhodian ambassadors repeatedly on their knees adjured the senate to think of the friendship of a hundred and forty years rather than of the one offence; in vain they sent the heads of the Macedonian party to the scaffold or to Rome; in vain they sent a massive wreath of gold in token of their gratitude for the non-declaration of war.  The upright Cato indeed showed that strictly the Rhodians had committed no offence and asked whether the Romans were desirous to undertake the punishment of wishes and thoughts, and whether they could blame the nations for being apprehensive that Rome might allow herself all license if she had no longer any one to fear?  His words and warnings were in vain.  The senate deprived the Rhodians of their possessions on the mainland, which yielded a yearly produce of 120 talents (29,000