⚪️ THE SKILLS OF THE SENATE
“Prudently and always alert to the needs of the moment, the senate took in hand a revision of its benevolences. For when Perseus, proving unexpectedly defiant, prolonged the war to a stalemate, many Greeks had high hopes. The senate, however, by constantly renewed acts of generosity towards the Greeks exerted a contrary influence, and on each occasion made a bid for the support of the masses. What man of affairs who aspires to leadership could fail to admire this? What intelligent historian would pass over without comment the sagacity of the senate? Indeed, one might reasonably conclude that Rome's mastery over most of mankind was achieved by means of just such refinements of policy. This justifies the observation that harmonious adaptation to all occasions — connivance at some things, the turning of a deaf ear to some reports, the timely restraint of some impulse of blind rage, or, laying aside considerations of national dignity and power to pay court to inferiors while paving the way for some success later — that such adaptation indicates consummate excellence in the individual, superb realism in the deliberating body, and virtue and intelligence in the state. All this the Roman senate of those days did, and thereby left, as it were, models and patterns for all who strive for empire and have the imagination to see how necessary it is to deal with problems in the light of circumstances.”
Diodorus Siculus
