[NUMERIUS AUREOLUS]: The question of Ptolemic Thrace is an interesting one. My immediate reaction is that it might be delayed until the mid-term session of Senate. Initially, we can concentrate on repelling the Thracians from Illyria and North Italy, driving them back towards the Danube. And we must also attend to the lost eagle. While that is being done, at least temporarily, we can leave a buffer of weakened Macedonian settlements between us and Ptolemic Thrace to avoid war with Egypt. They may serve much like the two Gallic settlements that lie between Massila and Iberia, which have kept us out of war with Spain. Given the location of our armies, it will take time to humble the Thracian kingdom - the Ptolemic province of Thrace is not a priority at this moment.

In the longer term, this reasoning may change. Thrace is a natural terminus to our eastern frontier and I am reluctant to allow Macedon to regroup. A war with Egypt over Thrace might be more easily resolved than one with Iberia over Gaul. Distance and separation by sea may lead hostilities to peter off, much as they have done with Carthage after we drove her from Sicily and the islands around Italy. By contrast war with Iberia may well prove interminable until she is utterly crushed and occupied. However, these are matters for the future - perhaps beyond even the next five years - and I agree that an entanglement with Egypt is the last thing the Republic needs at the moment. Motion 9.18 reflects a long term war goal, not an immediate objective.