Leiden conventions rendered as EpiDoc: restorations as supplied(reason=lost), gaps as gap, abbreviations as expan(abbr+ex), omitted letters as supplied(reason=omitted), surplus as surplus, corrections as corr. Critical apparatus as listApp. The facing translation is div type=translation; the historical commentary is div type=commentary.
… we exercised [zeal for] the liberty [of the Greeks], making for [this reason] no small concessions and distributing money besides; and to further this we sent out together Aeschylus with Demarchus. As long as there was agreement on this, we kept up the conference on the Hellespont; and if certain men had not interfered, the matter would then have been settled.
But now, when discussions had arisen with Cassander and Ptolemy about a truce, and when Prepelaus and Aristodemus had come to us on the subject — although we saw that some of Cassander's demands were rather burdensome — since agreement was being reached about the Greeks, we thought it necessary to overlook this, in order that the main issue might be settled as quickly as possible. For we should have valued highly arranging everything for the Greeks as we had preferred; but because this was taking rather long, and because in delay many unexpected things often happen, and because we were anxious that the settlement for the Greeks be accomplished in our own time, we thought we ought not, for small matters, to risk the whole not being arranged. How much zeal we have shown in these things will, I think, be evident to you and to all others from the settlement itself. When our agreements with Cassander and Lysimachus had been completed — for which they had sent Prepelaus with full powers — Ptolemy sent envoys to us, asking that a settlement be made with him too and that he be written into the same treaty.
We saw that it was no small thing to give up part of an ambition for which we had had no little trouble and had spent much money; but, these matters with Cassander and Lysimachus being already settled and the remaining business being easier — and moreover because the terms concerning the Greeks were agreed between us, with none of them opposing, and because of our existing friendship with him, and seeing besides that you and our other allies were burdened by the campaign and its expenses — we thought it well to overlook this too and to make the settlement with him as well. We sent jointly Aristodemus, Aeschylus and Hegesias to make the agreements. They have now returned, having received the pledges; and Aristobulus and his colleagues came from Ptolemy to receive them from us. Know, then, that the settlements are concluded and that peace is made.
We have written into the agreement that all the Greeks are to swear to join in guarding for one another their freedom and autonomy, reckoning that, while we live, these would in all human likelihood be safeguarded, but that for the future, all the Greeks and those in power being under oath, freedom would remain more securely for the Greeks. To swear also to help guard the terms we have agreed with one another seemed to us neither inglorious nor disadvantageous for the Greeks. It seems to me good, therefore, that you swear the oath we have sent. And for the future we shall try to provide whatever we can of advantage to you and the other Greeks. On these matters it seemed good to me to write and to send Acius to discuss them. He brings you also copies of the agreement we have made and of the oath. Farewell.
The letter belongs to the Peace of 311 BCE, which closed the Third War of the Diadochi. After Ptolemy's victory at Gaza (312) had let Seleucus re-establish himself in Babylon, and with Cassander and Lysimachus checking him in Macedon and Thrace, Antigonus the One-Eyed needed a breathing-space; the price was a formal recognition of the status quo and of the independence of his three antagonists (Welles 1934, 7; cf. Diod. 19.105).
The decisive clause — that all the Greeks swear to guard one another's freedom and autonomy (ll. 53–61) — is the key-note of the settlement as the letter presents it, and Antigonus turned an unfavourable peace into a stroke of propaganda. More than any of the diadochi he grasped the value of public opinion in the Greek cities, the source alike of mercenaries and of war-contributions; the proclamation was in effect a circular, meant to circulate throughout the Greek world and to lay the ground for a renewed bid for universal empire (Welles 1934, 8, 11).
The letter is not special to Scepsis: nothing but the heading and the envoy's name need change for any other city (Welles 1934, 11). On the stone it is followed by the Scepsian decree, which voted Antigonus a precinct, altar and cult-image, the games called Euangelia, and a gold crown — the worship that acknowledged his suzerainty — together with money and the sworn oath (Welles 1934, 9). Prepelaus and Aristodemus (l. 11) were Cassander's plenipotentiaries (Welles 1934, 10); the personal ἐφ' ἡμῶν, 'in our own time' (ll. 21, 56), carries weight from a writer then about eighty-one (Welles 1934, 10).