Anecdote about Roman vs. Greek envoy

[Scapula]

Hi everyone,

this will be a very specific question.

In "The Story of Civilization", either in the volume on Greece or the one on Rome, I have read a brief anecdote, which was meant to illustrate the difference in Greek/Athenian and Roman mentality at the time, and went something like this.

A Roman envoy met with an envoy from some Greek state which was either at war or about to be at war with Rome. The Greek envoy complained about how all the Romans ever thought about was war, conquering, power, and politics, whereas his fellow Greeks were much more interested in philosophy and Epicurean ideals. The Roman envoy replied that, by all means, if the Greeks wanted to spend their time with philosophy, the Romans wouldn't mind at all (i.e., the Romans would be glad to find their opponent thusly preoccupied and underprepared).

I have been trying (and failing) to find this anecdote again for at least a couple of years now. So if anyone is familiar with it and could either send me a link to the complete story or provide some information as to when and where it happened, who the Greek state was, or anything that might help me find this anecdote online or in the book, that would be fantastic.

Thank you very much.