32.
When the Achaean ambassadors returned with an account of these proceedings, war was declared against the Lacedaemonians, by a unanimous vote of all the states of the confederacy; but the winter prevented its being commenced immediately.
[2]
However, the confines of the Lacedaemonians were laid waste by small expeditions, more like freebooting than a regular war, made not only by land, but also by ships at sea.
[3]
This commotion brought the consul into Peloponnesus, and, by his order, a council being summoned at Elis, the Lacedaemonians were called on to plead their own cause.
[4]
There were not only violent debates then, but even altercation. To which the consul, although his answer had been indecisive in other respects, since he encouraged both parties through a very eager desire to please, put an end, by one decisive order, that they should desist from hostilities, until they sent ambassadors to Rome, to the senate.
[5]
An embassy was despatched by both parties to Rome. The Lacedaemonian exiles intrusted their cause and embassy to the Achaeans.
[6]
Diophanes and Lycortas, both of them Megalopolitans, were at the head of the Achaean embassy, who, being at variance in their own republic, there also delivered speeches by no means in unison.
[7]
Diophanes was for leaving the determination of every point to the senate —that they would best decide the controversies between the Achaeans and Lacedaemonians;
[8]
while Lycortas, according to the instructions of Philopœmen, required, that the senate should permit the Achaeans to execute their own decrees, made conformable to the treaty, and their own [p. 1757]laws; and that they should concede to them, uninfringed, the liberty which they themselves had bestowed.
[9]
The Achaean nation was, at that time, in high esteem with the Romans; yet it was resolved, that no alteration should be made respecting the Lacedaemonians;
[10]
but the answer given was so confused, that, while the Achaeans understood it as full permission given to them in relation to Lacedaemon, the Lacedaemonians construed it, that unlimited power was not conceded to them.
Livy. History of Rome by Titus Livius, books thirty-seven to the end, with the epitomes and fragments of the lost books. literally translated, with notes and illustrations, by. William A. McDevitte. York Street, Covent Garden, London. Henry G. Bohn. John Child and son, printers, Bungay. 1850. 4.
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