Flaminīnus
1.
Titus Quinctius. A distinguished Roman general, made consul B.C.
198, before he was thirty years of age, and had the province of Macedonia assigned to him,
with the charge of continuing the war against Philip, which had then lasted for two years,
without any definite success on the part of the Romans. In his first campaign he drove Philip
from the banks of the Aoüs, and, among other important movements, succeeded in
detaching the Achaeans from the Macedonian alliance. In the following year Flamininus, being
confirmed by the Senate in his command as proconsul, before commencing hostilities afresh,
held a conference with Philip on the coast of the Maliac Gulf, and allowed him to send
ambassadors to Rome to negotiate a peace. These negotiations, however, proving fruitless,
Flamininus marched into Thessaly, where Philip had taken up a position, and totally defeated
him in the battle of Cynoscephalae, in a spot broken by small hills, between Pherae and
Larissa. The Macedonians lost 8000 killed and 5000 prisoners. After granting peace to the
Macedonian monarch on severe and humiliating terms, Flamininus was continued in his command
for another year, B.C. 196, to see these conditions executed. In that year, at the meeting of
the Isthmian Games, where multitudes had assembled from every part of Greece, Flamininus
caused a crier to proclaim, “that the Senate and people of Rome, and their
commander Titus Quinctius, having subdued Philip and the Macedonians, now restored the
Corinthians, Phocians, Locrians, Euboeans, Thessalians, Achaeans, etc., to their freedom and
independence, and to the enjoyment of their own laws.” Bursts of applause followed
this announcement, and the crowd pressed forward to express their gratitude to Flamininus,
whose conduct throughout these memorable transactions was marked by a wisdom, moderation, and
liberality seldom found united in a victorious Roman general. He was thus the means of
prolonging the independence of the Greek States for half a century more. In the following
year, B.C. 195, Flamininus was intrusted with the war against Nabis, tyrant of Lacedaemon,
who had treacherously seized upon the city of Argos. The Roman commander marched into
Laconia, and laid siege to Sparta, but met with a brave resistance, and at last agreed to
grant peace to Nabis on condition that he should give up Argos and all the other places which he had usurped, and restore their lands to the descendants of the
Messenians. His motives for granting peace to Nabis were, he said, partly to prevent the
destruction of one of the most illustrious of the Greek cities, and partly the great
preparations which Antiochus, king of Syria, was then making on the coast of Asia. Livy
suggests, as another probable reason, that Flamininus wished to terminate the war himself,
and not to give time to a new consul to supersede him and reap the honours of the victory.
The Senate confirmed the peace with Nabis, and in the following year, B.C. 194, Flamininus,
having settled the affairs of Greece, prepared to return to Italy. Having repaired to
Corinth, where deputations from all the Grecian cities had assembled, he took a friendly
leave of them, withdrew his garrisons from all their cities, and left them to the enjoyment
of their own freedom. On returning to Italy, both he and his soldiers were received with
great demonstrations of joy, and the Senate decreed him a triumph for three days. Before the
chariot of Flamininus, in the celebration of this triumph, appeared, among the hostages,
Demetrius, son of Philip, and Armenes, son of Nabis; and in the rear followed the Roman
prisoners, who had been sold as slaves to the Greeks by Hannibal during the Second Punic War,
and whose liberation Flamininus had obtained from the gratitude of the Grecian States. The
Achaeans alone are said to have liberated 1200, for whom they paid 100 talents (about
$110,000) as compensation-money to their masters. In the year B.C. 183, Flamininus was sent
to Prusias, king of Bithynia, upon the ungracious mission of demanding the person of
Hannibal, then in his old age, and a refugee at the court of Prusias. The monarch was
prevailed upon to violate the claims of hospitality, but the Carthaginian prevented this
treachery by destroying himself with poison. In the year B.C. 168, Flamininus was made augur,
in the room of C. Claudius deceased (Livy , xlv. 44), after which he is no longer mentioned
in history (
Flamin.).
2.
Lucius, brother of the preceding, commanded the Roman fleet
during the first campaign of Quinctius, and scoured the coasts of Euboea, Corinth, and other
districts at that time allied or subject to the king of Macedonia. He was afterwards expelled
from the Senate by Cato , when censor, for having put to death a Gallic prisoner to gratify a
favourite of his (
Flamin.).
