Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 35
Evan T. Sage, PhD professor of latin and head of the department of classics in the University of Pittsburgh, Ed.

Book XXXV

1. In the beginning of the year in which these¹ events occurred, Sextus Digitius, praetor in Hither Spain,² fought battles, numerous rather than memorable, with the tribes which had, in great numbers, revolted after the departure of Marcus Cato,³ and most of these engagements were so unfortunate [2??] in result that he turned over to his successor barely half as many soldiers as he had received. [3] Nor is there any doubt that all Spain would have taken courage to rebel had not the other praetor, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the son of Gnaeus,⁴ fought many successful battles beyond the Ebro and so intimidated the natives that not less than fifty towns surrendered to him. [4] These were Scipio's achievements as praetor; [5] when he was propraetor he fell upon the Lusitani as they were returning home after plundering the farther province, laden with much spoil, while they were still on the march, and from the third hour of the day to the eighth maintained an indecisive action. [6] He was unequal in number of [p. 5]troops, superior in all else; for with his troops in a⁵ compact body he had clashed with a column long drawn out and hindered by the great [7??] number of its pack-animals, and he fought with fresh troops against an enemy worn out by a long march. [8] For they had set out during the third watch; three daylight hours had been added to their night march, and the battle had followed at once upon the labour of the journey, with no time given for repose. Accordingly, only at the outset of the fight did they retain some energy of mind and body, and at first they had thrown the Romans into confusion; later the battle became gradually more even. [9] At this crisis the propraetor vowed games to Jupiter⁶ if he should rout and slaughter the enemy. [10] At length the Romans pressed on with greater vigour and the Lusitani gave way and finally fled; and while the victors pursued the fleeing foe, about twelve thousand of the enemy were killed, five [11??] hundred forty were taken prisoners, almost all cavalry, and one hundred thirty-four standards were captured. From the Roman army seventy-three were lost. [12] The battle was fought not far from the city of Ilipa;⁷ thither Publius Cornelius led the army flushed with victory and enriched with spoils. [2] All the booty was exposed to view before the city, and the opportunity was afforded the owners of identifying their property; the rest was turned over to the quaestor to sell and the proceeds were divided among the soldiers.

[3] II. Gaius Flaminius⁸ had not yet left Rome when this happened in Spain. [4] Therefore defeat rather than victory was the constant burden of the talk of [p. 7]him and his friends, and, since a great war had⁹ flared up in the province and he was to take over from Sextus Digitius the scanty remnants of his army, and even these filled with panic and terror, he had tried to induce them to decree to him one of the city-legions,¹⁰ and when he had added to this the [5??] force which he had enlisted in accordance with the decree of the senate, that he should choose from the whole number six thousand two hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry: with this legion —for little confidence could be placed in the army of Sextus Digitius —he would carry on the campaign. [6] The elders declared that no decree of the senate should be passed on the basis of rumours causelessly invented by private individuals to gratify magistrates; [7] unless either the praetors should send reports from the provinces or their legates bring word, nothing should be considered settled; if an emergency existed in Spain, it was their will that the praetor should enlist emergency troops outside of Italy. It was the senate's intention that these emergency troops should be raised in Spain. [8] Valerius Antias writes that Gaius Flaminius sailed also to Sicily to conduct his levy and that on his way from Sicily to Spain he was driven by a storm to Africa and administered the oath to stragglers from the army of Publius Africanus; [9] that to the contingents from these two provinces he added a third in Spain.¹¹

3. Nor was the war with the Ligures in Italy any slower to begin. Pisa was already besieged by about forty thousand men, large numbers daily pouring in by reason of the report of the war and in [p. 9]the hope of booty. [2] The consul Minucius arrived at¹² Arretium on the day on which he had ordered the troops to assemble.¹³ Thence he led the force in a hollow-square formation toward Pisa, and since the enemy had moved their camp across the river,¹⁴ no more than a mile from the town, the consul marched into the city that had without doubt been saved by his arrival. [3] The next day he too crossed the river and encamped about five hundred paces from the enemy. [4] From this base he defended the allies' country from ravage by fighting petty battles; he did not dare to march out in battle-line with raw troops, collected from many tribes and not yet well enough known to one another to feel confidence in their comrades.¹⁵ [5] The Ligures both marched out to battle, trusting in their numbers and prepared to risk a decisive engagement, and, since they had abundance of men, sent out many parties to plunder in all directions on the borders of the territory, [6??] and when a large number of animals and much booty had been collected, guards were available to conduct them to their forts and villages.

4. While the Ligurian war was at a standstill around Pisa, the other consul, Lucius Cornelius Merula, led his army through the farthest lands of the Ligures into the country of the Boii, where the war was conducted in a fashion far different from that in the war with the Ligures. [2] The consul marched out to offer battle, the enemy declined to engage; the Romans scattered to plunder when no one confronted them, and the Boii preferred the [p. 11]devastation of their lands without interference on their¹⁶ part to the risk of a decisive battle while protecting them. [3] When everything had been sufficiently wasted with sword and fire, the consul retired from the enemy's country and marched toward Mutina, his column taking no precautions as if it was traversing a pacified country. [4] When the Boii saw that the enemy had withdrawn from their territory, they followed stealthily, seeking a place for an ambush. At night they passed the Roman camp and seized a defile through which the Romans had to march. [5] Since their precautions for secrecy were insufficient, the consul, who had been accustomed to break camp late in the night, waited for daylight, that darkness might not increase the terror from a sudden attack, and, although he was moving by day, he nevertheless sent out a troop of cavalry to reconnoitre. [6] When word came back how strong the enemy was and where he was stationed, he ordered the baggage of the whole column brought into the midst and the triarii¹⁷ to construct a rampart around it, and with the remainder of the army in battle-array marched towards the enemy. [7] The Gauls did the same when they realized that their stratagem was discovered and that they would have to fight in regular and fair combat where constant courage would conquer.

5. At about the second hour the battle began. The left squadron¹⁸ of the allies and the irregular troops¹⁹ were fighting in the front line; their commanders were two lieutenants of consular rank, Marcus Marcellus²⁰ and Tiberius Sempronius,²¹ consul of the preceding year. [2] The new consul was now with the leading standards, now holding back the legions [p. 13]in reserve, lest in their ardour for the fight they²² should rush forward before the signal was given. [3] He ordered two military tribunes, Quintus and Publius Minucius, to lead the cavalry of these legions beyond the flanks of the battle-line into open ground, whence, when the signal was given, they were to attack from the open.²³ [4] As he was thus engaged, a runner from Tiberius Sempronius Longus came to him, saying that the irregulars were not holding the Gallic attack [5??] and that many of them had been killed and that those who were left, partly as a result of their exertions, partly from fear, had lost their zest for fighting. He should send in, if he saw fit, one of the two legions before a disgraceful defeat was sustained. [6] The second legion was sent forward and the irregular troops relieved.²⁴ [7] Then the battle was restored, since fresh troops, a legion with full ranks, had entered the fight; and the left squadron was withdrawn from the battle and the right took its place in the battle-line. The sun with its fierce rays scorched the bodies of the Gauls, which were little capable of enduring heat; nevertheless, in dense ranks, resting now on one another, now on their shields, they withstood the attacks of the Romans. [8] When the consul saw this, he ordered Gaius Livius Salinator,²⁵ who commanded the auxiliary cavalry, to charge at the utmost speed, the legionary cavalry to be in support. [9] This storm of horsemen at first threw the battle-line of the Gauls into confusion and disorder, then scattered it, but without causing a rout. [10] The captains prevented this, striking with their staffs the backs of the terror-stricken and forcing them back into the line, but the auxiliary cavalry, riding among them, would not allow this.²⁶ [11] The [p. 15]consul urged the troops to make a little more effort;²⁷ victory, he said, was in their grasp; they should press on while they saw the enemy disordered and in terror; if they permitted the ranks to be reformed they would fight again a new and doubtful battle. He ordered the standard-bearers to advance. [12] All joined in the effort and at last turned the enemy to flight. As they were fleeing and scattering this way and that in rout, at that moment the legionary cavalry was let loose to pursue them. [13] Fourteen thousand of the Boii perished on that day; one thousand and ninety-two were captured alive, seven hundred and twenty-one cavalrymen, with three of their commanders, two hundred and twelve standards and sixty-three carts were taken. [14] But for the Romans the victory was not bloodless; more than five thousand of the soldiers, Romans and allies, fell, twenty-three centurions, four commanders of allies, and Marcus Genucius and Quintus and Marcus Marcius, military tribunes of the second legion.

6. At about the same time letters from the two consuls arrived at Rome, one from Lucius Cornelius reporting the battle with the Boii near Mutina, the other from Quintus Minucius from Pisa: [2] the latter said that it had fallen to his lot to preside at the consular elections,²⁸ but so unsettled were conditions generally among the Ligures that he could not leave there without loss to the allies and danger to the state. [3] If it pleased the Fathers, they should write to his colleague, who had finished his campaign, to return to Rome for the elections; [4] if he protested against doing this, because the task had not fallen to him by lot, he would himself do the senate's bidding; only let the senate consider again [p. 17]and again whether an interregnum²⁹ would not be³⁰ more advantageous to the state than his absence from his province at such a time. [5] The senate entrusted to Gaius Scribonius the task of sending two commissioners from the senatorial order to Lucius Cornelius the consul, to deliver to him the letter forwarded by his colleague to the senate, and to inform him that if he did not [6??] come to Rome to elect the magistrates the senate, rather than take Quintus Minucius away from an unfinished war, would suffer an interregnum to begin. The commissioners who were sent brought back the reply that Lucius Cornelius would come to Rome to choose the magistrates. [7] Regarding the despatches of Lucius Cornelius, which he had written after he had fought the battle with the Boii, a controversy broke out in [8??] the senate because his lieutenant, Marcus Claudius,³¹ had written privately to many senators that gratitude was due to the good fortune of the Roman people and the valour of the soldiers because the issue had been successful; [9] but that by the action of the consul, both heavy losses of men had occurred and the army of the enemy had escaped, though there had been the opportunity to destroy it; the loss of men had been heavier since troops to replace the exhausted had come up too slowly from the reserve; [10] the enemy had slipped from their hands both because the legionary cavalry had received their orders too ate and because they had not been permitted to pursue the fleeing enemy.

[p. 19] 7. Regarding this matter, it was decreed that³² no unconsidered action should be taken; the decision was postponed for a fuller meeting. [2] This was due to the fact that another anxiety was weighing upon them —that the public was burdened by interest-payments,³³ and that, although greed was held in check by numerous laws governing usury, a way of evasion was opened because accounts were transferred to allies, who were not under the operation of these laws;³⁴ thus debtors were overwhelmed with unrestricted charges. [3] When a method of curbing this practice was sought, it was determined that a day should be fixed, namely, the last occurrence of the festival of the Feralia,³⁵ that whatever allies had, after that date, loaned money to Roman citizens, should make a public statement to that effect, and that proceedings regarding money so loaned after that date should be [4??] governed by the laws of whichever state the debtor should elect. [5] Then, after the greatness of the debt contracted by this evasion was revealed by these public declarations, Marcus Sempronius, tribune of the people, with the authorization of the senate proposed to the assembly, and the assembly voted, that the allies of the Latin confederacy should have the same law regarding the loan of money that applied to Roman citizens. [6] Such were the events, civil and military, which took place in Italy.

In Spain the war was by no means so serious as the exaggerated report of it had been. [7] Gaius Flaminius in Hither Spain captured the town of Inlucia in the land of the Oretani and then [p. 21]conducted the troops to their winter stations, and during³⁶ the winter fought several battles, unworthy of record, against raiding parties of brigands rather than soldiers, with varying results but not without the loss of men. Greater things were done by Marcus Fulvius.³⁷ [8] Near the town of Toletum he engaged the Vaccaei, the Vettones and the Celtiberi in pitched battle, routed and put to flight the armies of these tribes, and captured alive their king Hilernus.

8. While this was going on in Spain, the day of the elections was drawing near. And so Lucius Cornelius the consul left Marcus Claudius with the army and returned to Rome. [2] When he had discoursed in the senate about his achievements and the condition in which his province was, he voiced a complaint [3??] to the Fathers because, after so great a war had been so successfully finished by a single victory, no honour had been paid to the immortal gods. He then demanded that they decree a thanksgiving and a triumph at the same time. [4] Before, however, the formal motion was put, Quintus Metellus, who had been consul and dictator,³⁸ said that letters had arrived at the same time, addressed both to the senate by Lucius Cornelius and to a great part of the senators by Marcus Marcellus, that these reports contradicted one another, and that a decision had been postponed for the reason that the debate might be held in the presence of the writers of these letters. [5] He had accordingly assumed that the consul, who knew that something unfavourable to himself had been written by his subordinate, since he had himself to come to Rome, would bring his lieutenant with him to the City, especially as it would have been more correct to entrust [6??] the army [p. 23]to Tiberius Sempronius, who had the imperium,^{39 40} than to a [7] lieutenant: as matters stood, it seemed that he had wilfully kept away a man who, if he made in person the statement which he had made in writing, might both bring his charges openly and, supposing he asserted what was untrue, be himself charged, until the truth was clearly revealed. It was his proposal, therefore, that nothing which the consul demanded should be decreed for the [8] present. When he pressed his claims with undiminished vigour, that the [9??] thanksgiving be voted and that he be allowed to ride into the City in triumph, Marcus and Gaius Titinius, tribunes of the people, declared that they would veto it if any decree of the senate were passed regarding the question.

9. Censors had been elected the previous year, Sextus Aelius Paetus and Gaius Cornelius Cethegus.⁴¹ Cornelius closed the lustrum.⁴² [2] The number of citizens rated was one hundred forty-three thousand seven hundred four.⁴³ There were great floods that year, and the Tiber overflowed the flat parts of the City; around the Porta Flumentana certain buildings even collapsed and fell. [3] Also, the Porta Caelimontana was smitten by a thunderbolt and the wall in several places round about was struck by [p. 25]lightning; [4] and at Aricia, at Lanuvium and on the Aventine⁴⁴ there were showers of stones; it was also reported from Capua that a great swarm of wasps had flown into the forum and settled in the temple of Mars; the wasps, it was said, were carefully collected and consumed by fire. [5] By reason of these prodigies the decemvirs were directed to consult the Books,⁴⁵ and a nine-day sacrifice was performed, a supplication proclaimed, and the City purified. [6] At the same time a shrine to Victoria Virgo near the temple of Victory was dedicated by Marcus Porcius Cato, two years after he had vowed it.⁴⁶

[7] In the same year a Latin colony was established at Castrum Frentinum⁴⁷ by the triumvirs Aulus Manlius Volso, Lucius Apustius Fullo and Quintus Aelius Tubero; by the law of the last-named the colony was created. Three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry joined it, a small number in proportion to the size of the tract. The allotments of land could have been thirty iugera per infantryman and sixty per cavalryman. [8] At the suggestion of Apustius one-third of the land was reserved, whereby they were enabled later to enroll new colonists if they saw fit. Twenty iugera were given to each infantryman, forty to each cavalryman.

10. It was now the end of the year, and canvassing at the consular election was more spirited than ever before.⁴⁸ [2] The candidates were many and [p. 27]influential, patricians and plebeians,⁴⁹ Publius Cornelius⁵⁰ Scipio, the son of Gnaeus, who had recently returned from Spain after performing great deeds,⁵¹ and Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, who had commanded the fleet in Greece,⁵² and Gnaeus Manlius Volso;⁵³ these were the patricians; [3] the plebeians now were Gaius Laelius,⁵⁴ Gnaeus Domitius,⁵⁵ Gaius Livius Salinator,⁵⁶ and Manius Acilius.⁵⁷ [4] But the eyes of all men were turned upon Quinctius and Cornelius; for both were patricians, contending for one place, and recently-won military glory lent favour to each. But before all else, the brothers of the candidates⁵⁸ increased their rivalry, since they were the two most celebrated commanders of their age. [5] The greater fame was Scipio's, and the greater it was, the more it was exposed to jealousy; that of Quinctius was fresher, inasmuch as he had triumphed that very year.⁵⁹ [6] There was also the fact that the other had been for about ten years constantly in the public eye, a fact which renders prominent men less venerated from sheer surfeit of seeing them: he had been consul for the second time after the defeat of Hannibal and censor;⁶⁰ in the case of Quinctius, everything was new and fresh for winning favour; [7] he had neither asked anything from the people since his triumph nor obtained anything. He said that he was campaigning for a real brother, not a cousin, [p. 29]for his lieutenant and a sharer in the conduct of the⁶¹ war; [8] he on land, his brother on the sea, had conducted the operations. [9] By such arguments he brought it to pass that his brother was preferred to the candidate whom his brother, Africanus, favoured, whom the Cornelian gens supported, while a consul Cornelius presided at the election, and who was honoured with so powerful a preliminary recommendation from the senate, which chose him as the best man of the state to receive the Idaean Mother when she came from Pessinus to Rome.⁶² [10] Lucius Quinctius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus were chosen consuls: so little weight did Africanus have even in the selection of the plebeian consul, although he was working for Gaius Laelius. [11] The next day the praetors were chosen, Lucius Scribonius Libo, Marcus Fulvius Centumalus, Aulus Atilius Serranus, Marcus Baebius Tamphilus, Lucius Valerius Tappo, Quintus Salonius Sarra. [12] The aedileship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Aemilius Paulus was notable that year; they condemned many grazers;⁶³ out of the fines they set up gilded shields on the roof of the temple of Jupiter, constructed one portico outside the Porta Trigemina, adding a wharf on the Tiber, and another portico from the Porta Fontinalis to the altar of Mars, where the way led into the Campus Martius.

11. For a long time nothing worth recording occurred among the Ligures; but at the end of this year on two occasions situations of grave peril arose, for in [2??] the first place the consul's camp was assailed and with difficulty defended, and a little later, when the Roman column was being led through a narrow glade, the very exit was blocked by an army of [p. 31]the Ligures. [3] Since the way there was not open,⁶⁴ the consul began to move to the rear and retrace his steps. In the rear too the exit of the pass was closed by part of the enemy, and visions of the Caudine disaster⁶⁵ not only flitted through their minds but also appeared before their eyes. [4] He had about eight hundred Numidian cavalry among the auxiliaries. Their commander promised the consul that he and his men would break through wherever he wished, if only the consul would inform him on which side the towns were more numerous; [5] he would attack them and give his first attention to setting fire to the buildings, that the alarm might compel the Ligures to withdraw from the pass which they were holding and scatter to aid their friends. [6] The consul praised him and loaded him with hopes of reward. The Numidians mounted their horses and began to ride up to the outposts of the enemy, attacking no one. [7] At first nothing was more contemptible than their appearance: horses and men were tiny and gaunt; the riders unequipped and unarmed, except that they carried javelins with them; the horses without bridles, their very motion being the ugly gait of animals running with stiff necks and outstretched heads. [8] Purposely making themselves more contemptible, they would fall from their horses and make themselves a spectacle to be jeered. [9] So those who had been in the outposts, eager and ready if they should be attacked, now for the most part sat unarmed and watching the show. [10] The Numidians kept riding up to them, then retiring, but coming gradually closer to the pass, like men incapable of controlling their horses and carried by them against their will. [11] At last they applied their [p. 33]spurs and burst through the midst of the enemy's⁶⁶ outposts, and riding out into the more open country set fire to all the buildings along the road; then they hurled their torches upon the nearest village; with sword and fire they ravaged everything. [12] First the smoke was seen, then the shouts of frightened villagers were heard, and finally the fleeing elders and children caused panic in the camp. [13] And so without design, without orders, each for himself hurried to defend his own, and in a moment the camp was abandoned and the consul, freed from siege, arrived at his intended destination.

12. But neither the Boii nor the Spaniards, with whom war was carried on that year, were so hostile and so dangerous to the Romans as the people of the Aetolians.⁶⁷ [2] After the evacuation of Greece by the armies they had at first been in hopes that Antiochus would come to occupy masterless Europe⁶⁸ and that neither Philip⁶⁹ nor Nabis⁷⁰ would remain quiet. [3] When they saw that no movement was being made, thinking that some agitation and confusion should be caused, lest their scheming should become feeble from lack of exercise, they called a council at Naupactus.⁷¹ [4] There Thoas, their chief magistrate, complained of the injuries inflicted by the Romans and of the condition of Aetolia, because of all the states and cities of Greece they were the [5??] least honoured, after that victory for which they [p. 35]themselves had been the chief cause, and proposed that⁷² ambassadors should be sent around to the kings, who should not only sound out their sentiments but should rouse each, by proper inducements, to a Roman war. [6] Damocritus was dispatched to Nabis, Nicander⁷³ to Philip, Dicaearchus, the praetor's brother, to Antiochus. [7] To the Spartan tyrant Damocritus pointed out the weakening of the tyranny from the loss of the coast towns;⁷⁴ thence he had drawn soldiers, thence ships and naval allies; shut up, almost, within his own walls, he saw the Achaeans lording it in the Peloponnesus; [8] he would never have a chance to recover his own if he let pass the one which then existed; there was, moreover, no Roman army in Greece; Gytheum and the other Spartan towns on the coast would not be considered by the Romans an adequate reason why they should again transport their legions to Greece. [9] This was said to rouse the zeal of the tyrant, that, when Antiochus had crossed to Greece, the consciousness that the Roman friendship had been violated by the injuries done their allies might unite him with Antiochus. [10] As to Philip, Nicander tried to provoke him by a somewhat similar argument; there was also more material for his persuasiveness, in proportion to the greater height from which the king had fallen, in comparison with the tyrant, and in proportion to the heavier losses he had suffered. [11] In addition, he spoke of the ancient renown of the kings of Macedonia and the victorious progress of that race throughout the earth. [12] He said, moreover, that the advice which he offered was safe, whether in the beginning or at the end: for he would not counsel Philip to move before Antiochus with his [p. 37]army should cross to Greece, and [13??] when he, who⁷⁵ without Antiochus had so long sustained the war against the Romans and the Aetolians, was joined by Antiochus and had as allies the Aetolians, who had been at that time more dangerous foes than the Romans, with what strength, pray, could the Romans withstand him? [14] He spoke further of the general Hannibal, born an enemy to the Romans, who had destroyed both their commanders and their soldiers in greater numbers than now remained. [15] Such was Nicander's message to Philip; Dicaearchus approached Antiochus in another fashion, and first of all he said that the booty from Philip had become the Romans', the victory was the Aetolians'; none other than the Aetolians had given the Romans ingress to Greece and furnished them with the strength to conquer. [16] Finally, he told Antiochus how great forces, infantry and cavalry, they would furnish him for the war, what stations for his land forces, what harbours for his navies. [17] Then he employed a gratuitous lie regarding Philip and Nabis: each was ready to rebel and would seize the earliest opportunity to regain what he had lost in war. Thus throughout the whole world at once the Aetolians were arousing war against the Romans.

[18] 13. And the kings, nevertheless, either were unmoved or were moved too slowly; Nabis at once sent agents around all the maritime towns to stir up seditions in them, and some of the leading men he won over to his side by gifts, others, who stubbornly adhered to the Roman alliance, lie put to death. [2] The Achaeans had been entrusted with the responsibility for all maritime affairs in Sparta by Titus Quinctius,⁷⁶ So immediately they sent [p. 39]ambassadors to the tyrant to remind him of the [3??] Roman⁷⁷ treaty and to warn him not to disturb the peace which he had so earnestly sought, and sent reinforcements to Gytheum, which was now being besieged by the tyrant, and ambassadors to Rome to report these doings.

[4] King Antiochus,⁷⁸ having given his daughter in marriage to King Ptolemy of Egypt at Raphia in Phoenicia during that winter,⁷⁹ when he had retired to Antioch, came by way of Cilicia, crossing the Taurus mountains well on towards the end of the winter, to Ephesus; [5] thence at the beginning of spring, sending his son Antiochus into Syria to guard the remotest parts of his kingdom, lest any disturbance behind him should occur in his absence, he himself set out with all his land forces to attack the Pisidae who dwell around Sida. [6] At that time the Roman commissioners, Publius Sulpicius and Publius Villius, who had been sent to Antiochus, as has already been stated,⁸⁰ having been ordered to visit Eumenes⁸¹ first, came to Elaea; thence they climbed up to Pergamum, where Eumenes' capital was located. [7] Eumenes was anxious for war against Antiochus, believing that a king so much more powerful than himself was a dangerous neighbour, if there was peace, and also that, if war should be provoked, he was no more likely to be a match for the Romans than Philip had been, and that either he would be utterly destroyed or, if peace were granted him [8??] after he had been defeated, much that was [p. 41]taken from Antiochus would fall to his own lot, so⁸² that thenceforth he could easily defend himself against Antiochus without any Roman aid. [9] Even if some misfortune should befall, it was better, he thought, to endure whatever fate with the Romans as allies than by himself either to submit to the sovereignty of Antiochus or, if he refused, to be compelled to do so by force of arms; [10] for these reasons with all his prestige and all his diplomatic skill he urged the Romans to war.⁸³

14. Sulpicius was ill and remained at Pergamum; but Villius, when he learned that the king was involved in the war in Pisidia, set out for Ephesus, and while he tarried there for a [2??] few days he saw to it that he had frequent meetings with Hannibal,⁸⁴ who [3??] happened to be there, that he might explore his sentiments and, if it was in any way possible, dispel his fear that any danger threatened him from the Romans. [4] By these conversations nothing else was accomplished, yet it followed automatically, as if it had been consciously sought, that Hannibal, by reason of them, was less highly valued by the king and was more an object of suspicion in all respects.

[5] Claudius, following the Greek history of Acilius,⁸⁵ reports that Publius Africanus was a member of that embassy and that at Ephesus he conferred with Hannibal, and he even relates one conversation: [6] [p. 43]when Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion,⁸⁶ was the greatest general, Hannibal named Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, because with a small [7??] force he had routed armies innumerable and because he had traversed the most distant regions, even to see which transcended human hopes.⁸⁷ [8] To the next request, as to whom he would rank second, Hannibal selected Pyrrhus;⁸⁸ saying that he had been the first to teach the art of castrametation;⁸⁹ [9] besides, no one had chosen his ground or placed his troops more discriminatingly; he possessed also the art of winning men over to him, so that the Italian peoples preferred the lordship of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, so long the master in that land. When he continued, asking whom Hannibal considered third, he named himself without hesitation. [10] Then Scipio broke into a laugh and said, “What would you say if you had defeated me?” [11] “Then, beyond doubt,” he replied, “I should place myself both before Alexander and before Pyrrhus and before all other generals.”⁹⁰ [12] Both this response, with the unexpected turn given it by Punic cleverness,⁹¹ and this unlooked-for kind [p. 45]of flattery, he says, stirred Scipio deeply, because⁹² Hannibal had segregated him from all other commanders as one beyond estimation.⁹³

15. Villius proceeded from Ephesus to Apamea and there Antiochus came when he learned of the arrival of the Roman commissioners. [2] At Apamea there was almost the same debate that had taken place in Rome between Quinctius and the king's ambassadors.⁹⁴ The announcement of the death of Antiochus, the king's son, who, as I had said just previously,⁹⁵ had been sent to Syria, broke off the conference. [3] There was great grief at the court and great regret at the loss of the young man, for he had already shown such revelations of himself that it was clear that if longer life had been his fate the character of a great and just king would have been his. [4] The dearer and more pleasing he was to all, the more did his death cause a suspicion that his father, believing that such a successor, following close upon his own old age, would bring discredit upon him, had, through the agency of certain eunuchs, who, by their services in such crimes, commend themselves to kings, removed him by poison. [5] They even furnished a cause for this secret crime, that he had given Lysimachia to his son Seleucus, but had not had a similar capital to bestow upon Antiochus, that he might banish him far from his presence even while conferring a mark of honour upon him.⁹⁶ [6] Nevertheless, a show of deep mourning filled the palace for some days, and the Roman ambassador, not to be an inconvenient visitor at an inopportune time, withdrew to Pergamum. [7] The king gave up the war that he had undertaken and returned to Ephesus. There, while the palace was closed during the [p. 47]mourning, the king continued secretly plotting with⁹⁷ one Minnio, who was the chief of his friends. [8] Minnio, who was totally unacquainted with foreign affairs, and who judged the king's strength from events occurring in Syria or Asia, believed that Antiochus not only had a better cause, since the Roman demands were in no wise fair, but would conquer in war as well. [9] When the king shunned a meeting with the commissioners, whether he had already found this debate unprofitable or because he was confused in mind by his recent grief, Minnio convinced him that he would say whatever was appropriate to the situation and that the commissioners should be summoned from Pergamum.

16. Sulpicius had now recovered, and so both came to Ephesus. Minnio apologized for the king's inability to be present, and in his absence the discussion began. [2] Then Minnio opened the debate with a prepared speech. “I see, Romans,” he said, “that you employ the plausible pretext of liberating Greek states, but your actions are inconsistent with your words, and you lay down one rule of conduct for Antiochus but yourselves follow another. [3] For how are the people of Zmyrna and Lampsacus more Greek than the men of Naples or Rhegium or Tarentum, from whom you exact tribute, from whom you exact ships in accordance with treaty-stipulations? [4] Why do Syracuse and other Greek cities of Sicily receive every year a praetor with the imperium and the rods and axes? Assuredly you make no other assertion than that you have imposed these conditions upon cities that have been conquered in battle.⁹⁸ [5] Learn from Antiochus that the case is the same with Zmyrna and Lampsacus [p. 49]and the cities which are in Ionia or Aeolis. [6] Conquered⁹⁹ in war by his forefathers¹⁰⁰ and made tributaries and vassals, he restores them to their ancient status; therefore I wish that he be answered on these points, if this is a discussion based on equity and not a search for a pretext for war.” [7] To this Sulpicius replied: “Antiochus has acted modestly, who, if there is nothing else to be said on his behalf, has preferred that anyone else should say this rather than himself. [8] What likeness is there in the status of the states which you have mentioned? From the people of Rhegium and Naples and Tarentum we demand what they owe in accordance with the treaty from the time they came under our sovereignty, with one unbroken continuity of right, always recognized, never interrupted. [9] Pray, can you say that as those peoples have changed the treaty neither through themselves nor through anyone else, so the Asian cities, when once they came into the possession of Antiochus' forefathers, have remained in the [10??] continuous possession of your empire, and that some have not passed under the power of Philip, some into the hands of Ptolemy, and some have enjoyed liberty with none to challenge them? [11] For if the fact that they have once been slaves, constrained by the injustice of the times, is to confer the right of reasserting control and forcing them into slavery after so many generations, how does this differ from saying that our labours have been fruitless, in that we have freed Greece from Philip and that his descendants may again demand Corinth, Chalcis, Demetrias, and the whole state of the Thessalians? [12] But why do I plead the cause of [p. 51]these cities, which it is fairer [13??] that both we and the¹⁰¹ king should learn from their own pleadings?”¹⁰²

17. He then ordered the embassies of the cities to be summoned, which had previously been made ready and coached by Eumenes, who considered that in whatsoever degree the strength of Antiochus was diminished, by so much his own power would be increased. [2] These embassies, being admitted in great numbers, while each one brought in now its own complaints, now its demands, and all mingled the just with the unjust, converted the meeting from an orderly debate into a wrangle. And so, with nothing conceded or gained, just as they had come, the ambassadors, uncertain of everything, returned to Rome.

[3] When they had been dismissed the king held a council regarding the Roman war. [4] There each tried to outdo the other in violence, since each thought that he would win greater favour in proportion to the severity of his attitude towards the Romans, while others assailed the insolence of their demands, seeing that they were imposing terms upon Antiochus the supreme monarch of Asia, just as upon the conquered Nabis; [5] and yet to Nabis had been left the control in his own homeland and in the country of Lacedaemon; [6] while in the ease of Antiochus it seemed monstrous should Zmyrna and Lampsacus do his bidding; [7] others argued that these [p. 53]states were of small importance and scarcely worthy of¹⁰³ mention as causes of war for so great a king; but always the beginnings of tyrannical rule were small, unless one believed that the Persians, when they demanded water and earth from the Spartans,¹⁰⁴ actually needed a clod of soil or a sip of water. [8] A like experiment the Romans were attempting in the case of the two cities; but other states, once they saw these two throwing off the yoke, would revolt to the people that would set them free. [9] If liberty was not preferable to slavery,¹⁰⁵ nevertheless, no existing situation was so attractive to anyone as the hope of a change of circumstances.

18. Alexander the Acarnanian was present at this council; [2] he had once been the friend of Philip, but lately had left him and attached himself to the more flourishing court of Antiochus and, as a man well acquainted with Greece and not without knowledge of the Romans, had advanced so far in the friendship of the king that he was accepted as a member even of secret councils. [3] He, as if the question were not whether there should be war or no, but where and in what fashion the war should be conducted, asserted that he foresaw in his mind a certain victory if the king should have crossed to Europe and fixed the seat of hostilities in some part of Greece. [4] Even now, at the beginning, he would find the Aetolians, who dwelt in the navel of Greece, in arms, advanced troops ready for the utmost hardships; [5] on the two wings of Greece, so to speak, Nabis from the [p. 55]Peloponnesus would cause universal confusion, trying to¹⁰⁶ recover the city of the Argives, trying to recover the coast towns from which the Romans had ousted him when they shut him up within the walls of Lacedaemon; [6] from Macedonia Philip, the moment he heard the trumpet sound, would take up arms; he was acquainted with his high spirits and with his temper; he knew that like wild beasts which were confined in cages or by chains he had long been turning over in his mind wild passions; [7] he himself, moreover, recalled how often in the war Philip had been wont to pray to the gods that they would grant him Antiochus as an ally; if now he should attain the fulfilment of his prayer, he would delay not one instant in rebelling. [8] Only let there be no delay or hesitation, for victory turned upon the question whether suitable ground and allies were secured in advance. Hannibal too should be sent to Africa without delay in order to distract the Romans.¹⁰⁷

19. Hannibal had not been invited to this council, being an object of suspicion to the king on account of his conferences with Villius, and being held in no honour after that. [2] At first he endured this humiliation in silence; then, thinking that it was better both to inquire the reason for this sudden change of attitude and to clear himself, he chose a suitable time and frankly asked the reason for the [3??] king's anger, and having heard it, he said, “My father Hamilcar, Antiochus, led me, still a little boy, to the altar when he was sacrificing and bound me by an oath never to be a friend to the Roman people. [4] Under this oath I fought for six and thirty years¹⁰⁸ ; this oath drove me from my fatherland in time of peace; it brought me, an exile from my home, to [p. 57]your court; with it as my guiding principle, if you¹⁰⁹ disappoint my hopes, wherever I know that strength and arms are found, searching throughout the whole earth, I shall find some enemies of the Romans. [5] And so, whoever of your courtiers have a fancy to win favour with you by insinuations against me, let them choose another means of winning it at my expense. [6] I hate and am hateful to the Romans. That I speak the truth my father Hamilcar and the gods are witnesses. So long as you plan concerning a war on Rome, consider Hannibal among your first friends; if anything inclines you towards peace, seek for that advice some other man with whom to consult.” [7] This speech not only convinced the king but reconciled him to Hannibal. The council broke up with the decision that war should be begun.

20. At Rome,¹¹⁰ in talk at least, they had no¹¹¹ thoughts except for Antiochus as their enemy, but as yet there were no preparations for war except in their minds. [2] To both consuls¹¹² Italy was decreed as a province, with the qualification that they should arrange between themselves or decide by lot which should preside at the elections that year; [3] the one to whom that responsibility did not fall should be prepared to lead the legions outside of Italy if any need should arise anywhere.¹¹³ [4] This consul was authorized to recruit two new legions and, from the allies of the Latin confederacy, twenty thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry; [5] to the other consul were assigned the two legions which Lucius Cornelius, consul of the preceding year, had commanded and, of the allies of the Latin confederacy from the same army, fifteen thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry. [6] In the case of Quintus [p. 59]Minucius, along with the army which he had in¹¹⁴ Liguria, his imperium was prolonged; it was added that as reinforcements four thousand Roman infantry should be enlisted and one hundred and fifty cavalry, and the allies were ordered to furnish the same general with five thousand infantry and two hundred and fifty cavalry. [7] Gnaeus Domitius received from the lot a province outside Italy, wherever the senate should decree; to Lucius Quinctius fell Gaul and the holding of the elections. [8] The praetors then drew for their provinces, and Marcus Fulvius Centumalus received the urban jurisdiction, Lucius Scribonius Libo that between citizens and aliens, Lucius Valerius Tappo Sicily, Quintus Salonius Sarra Sardinia, Marcus Baebius Tamphilus Hither Spain, Aulus Atilius Serranus Farther Spain. [9] But the provinces of these two were changed first by the senate and then by vote of the people also: [10] to Atilius the fleet and Macedonia were assigned, to Baebius the Brutti.¹¹⁵ [11] The imperium of Flaminius and Fulvius in the Spanish provinces was prolonged. To Atilius¹¹⁶ for service among the Brutti were assigned the two legions which had been in reserve the year before, and it was ordered that the allies should furnish him with fifteen thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry. [12] Baebius Tamphilus was directed to build thirty quinqueremes and to launch from the dockyards whatever old ships were seaworthy, and to enlist naval allies; the consuls were also directed to turn over to him two thousand allies of the Latin confederacy and one thousand Roman infantry. [13] These two praetors and two armies, on land and sea, were prepared, it was said, to operate against Nabis, who was now openly attacking the allies of the Roman [p. 61]people¹¹⁷ ; but the ambassadors sent to Antiochus¹¹⁸ were awaited, and in [14??] the expectation of their return the senate had forbidden the consul Gnaeus Domitius to leave the City.

21. The praetors Fulvius and Scribonius, to whom had been allotted the province of administering justice in Rome, were instructed to make ready, in addition to the fleet which Baebius was to command, one hundred quinqueremes.

[2] Before the consul and praetors set out for their provinces, a supplication was held by reason of prodigies. [3] A she-goat was reported from Picenum to have given birth to six kids at one time, and at Arretium a boy with one hand was born, at Amiternum [4??] there was a shower of earth, at Formiae the wall and gate were struck by lightning, and, a thing which caused the greatest terror, at Rome a cow belonging to the consul Gnaeus Domitius spoke, saying, “Rome, for thyself beware.” [5] The period of prayer was held on account of the other portents; the haruspices ordered that the cow be carefully kept and fed. [6] The Tiber, attacking the city with a more violent rush than the year before, swept away the two bridges¹¹⁹ and many buildings, especially around the Porta Flumentana. A huge stone, dislodged either by the rains or by an earthquake too slight to be felt otherwise, fell into the vicus lugarius¹²⁰ from the Capitoline and killed many people. In the flooded lands round about many cattle were washed away and damage was done to the farmhouses.

[7] Before the consul Lucius Quinctius arrived in his province, Quintus Minucius, in the neighbourhood [p. 63]of Pisa, met the Ligures in a pitched battle; [8] he killed¹²¹ nine thousand of the enemy, routed and put to flight the rest and drove them into their camp. This was vigorously attacked and defended until nightfall. [9] By night the Ligures secretly withdrew and at daybreak the Romans entered the abandoned camp; less booty was found there because the spoils from the country were from time to time sent home. [10] Minucius then gave the enemy no rest; from Pisan territory he marched into the land of the Ligures and completely laid waste their citadels and towns with fire and sword. [11] There the booty of Etruria, which had been sent on by the raiders, sated the Roman soldiers.

22. About the same time the commissioners returned from the kings¹²² to Rome; [2] when they had no report to make which furnished a sufficiently pressing cause for war, except against the Lacedaemonian tyrant, whom the Achaean ambassadors also reported to be attacking the Spartan coast in contravention of the treaty, the praetor Atilius was ordered to Greece with the fleet to defend the allies. [3] Both the consuls were directed to depart for their provinces, since no action was imminent from Antiochus. Domitius by way of Ariminum, where the way was most direct, Quinctius through Liguria, came into the Boian territory. [4] The columns of the two consuls in different directions ravaged the land of the enemy far and wide. At first a few of their cavalry with their commanders, and then the senate as a body, and finally all who possessed anything of fortune or rank, to the number of fifteen hundred, took refuge with the consuls. [5] In both the Spanish provinces as well things went prosperously this year, for [p. 65]Gaius Flaminius captured by storm the rich fortified¹²³ town of Licabrum and took alive the noble chieftain [6??] Conribilo, and Marcus Fulvius the proconsul¹²⁴ engaged with two armies of the enemy in two successful battles, captured two Spanish towns, Vescelia and Helo, and numerous forts; others voluntarily deserted [7] to him. Then he marched against the Oretani, and after capturing two towns, Noliba and Cusibis, advanced to the river Tagus. There lay Toletum, a small town but on a naturally [8] strong site. While he was besieging this city, a large force of the Vettones came to the aid of the Toletani. With them he fought successfully in a pitched battle, and after routing the Vettones he took Toletum by siege.¹²⁵

23. But at that time the wars which were going on caused less concern to the Fathers than the anticipation of the war with Antiochus which had not yet begun. [2] For although everything was repeatedly investigated by commissioners, yet rumours, anonymous and groundlessly circulated, mingled much falsehood with the truth. [3] Among them was the story that Antiochus, on his arrival in Aetolia, would immediately send a fleet to Sicily. [4] Therefore the senate, although it had sent the praetor Atilius with a fleet to Greece, still, because there was need not only [5??] of military forces to influence the temper of the allies, but also of prestige, sent Titus Quinctius and Gnaeus Octavius and Gnaeus Servilius and Publius Villius as ambassadors to Greece, and decreed that Marcus Baebius should march his legions from [p. 67]Bruttian territory to Tarentum and Brundisium,¹²⁶ thence, if the situation should demand it, should cross to Macedonia; [6] that Marcus Fulvius the praetor should send a fleet of twenty vessels to defend the coast of Sicily; [7] that he who commanded the fleet should have the imperium (the commander was Lucius Oppius Salinator, who had been plebeian aedile the previous year); that the same praetor should write to his colleague Lucius Valerius that there was danger that the fleet of King Antiochus would [8??] cross to Sicily from Aetolia, and that consequently the senate had resolved that in addition to the army which he had he should enlist an emergency force of about twelve thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry with which to defend the sea-coast of the province on the side which faced Greece.¹²⁷ [9] This levy the praetor raised not only from Sicily proper but from the surrounding islands also, and all the towns on the coast which looked toward Greece he strengthened with garrisons. Further food was given to the rumours by the coming of Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, who brought the news [10??] that King Antiochus had crossed the Hellespont with his army and that the Aetolians were making such preparations that they would be in arms at his arrival. [11] Both Eumenes who was absent and Attalus who was present were thanked, and a free lodging was given Attalus, a place of entertainment and gifts were presented to him —two horses, two suits of equestrian armour, silver vases of one hundred pounds weight and golden vases of twenty pounds.

24. When one messenger after another kept reporting that the war was close at hand, it seemed important under the circumstances that the consuls [p. 69]should be chosen at the first possible opportunity.¹²⁸ [2] Therefore a decree of the senate was passed to the effect that Marcus Fulvius the praetor should at once send despatches to the consul, in which he should be informed of the senate's desire that he should turn over his province and army [3??] to his lieutenants and return to Rome, and send ahead while on the road the edict in which he announced the election for the choice of consuls. [4] The consul obeyed the message, and sending his edict ahead he came to Rome. In this year also there was a hotly-contested campaign, since three patricians were contending for one place —Publius [5] Cornelius Scipio, the son of Gnaeus, who had suffered defeat the year before, and Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Manlius Volso. Publius Scipio, that it might seem in the case of so great a man that the honour was postponed but not refused, received one consulship; he was given as colleague from the plebeians Manius Acilius Glabrio. [6] The next day the praetors were chosen — Lucius Aemilius Paulus, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus Junius Brutus, Aulus Cornelius Mammula, Gaius Livius and Lucius Oppius, both of whom had the surname Salinator; it was Oppius who had led the fleet of twenty ships to Sicily. [7] Meanwhile, until the new magistrates should cast lots for the provinces, Marcus Baebius was directed to cross with all his forces from Brundisium to Epirus and to hold his troops around Apollonia, and Marcus Fulvius [8??] the urban praetor was entrusted with the task of building fifty new quinqueremes.

25. And the Roman people, for its part, was thus making itself ready for any undertaking of Antiochus; [2] Nabis by now was not putting off the [p. 71]war but was besieging Gytheum with all his might,¹²⁹ and in his wrath at the Achaeans, because [3??] they had sent aid to the besieged, was devastating their fields. [4] The Achaeans did not venture to begin hostilities until their deputies had returned from Rome, that they might know what was the will of the senate, but after the return of the ambassadors they both called a council at Sicyon and sent agents to Titus Quinctius to ask advice from him. [5] In the council the votes of all were for an immediate beginning of the war; the letter of Titus Quinctius caused some hesitation, since in it he suggested that the praetor and the Roman fleet should be awaited. [6] When some of the chiefs thought that they should abide by their decision, while others argued that the advice of him whom they themselves had consulted should be followed, the multitude waited for the opinion of Philopoemen.¹³⁰ [7] He was then chief magistrate and surpassed everyone at that time in wisdom and influence. Beginning his speech by saying that it was a good practice among the Aetolians that the praetor, when he had put the question of war before them, should not himself state his opinion, he bade them to take as soon as possible what action they wished: [8] as praetor he would carry out their orders faithfully and diligently and would strive, so far as this depended on human wisdom, that they should not regret either peace or war. [9] This speech had more weight in urging them to war than if he had, by openly counselling it, revealed a desire to command. [10] And so with complete agreement the war was decreed, and the time and method of prosecuting it left to the discretion of the praetor. [11] Philopoemen himself, in addition to the fact that Quinctius wished it, also [p. 73]believed that he should wait for the Roman fleet¹³¹ which could defend Gytheum by sea; [12] but fearing that the situation would not permit delay and that both Gytheum and the garrison sent to defend the city would be lost, he launched the ships of the Achaeans.

26. The tyrant also had prepared a fleet of modest size to keep away any garrisons that might be sent by sea to aid the beleaguered; three decked ships and some smaller vessels and cutters, since his old fleet had been surrendered to the Romans under the treaty. [2] That he might try the speed of these new ships and that at the same time everything might be made ready for battle, he daily sailed out into the open water and drilled the oarsmen and marines in mock naval engagements, thinking that the hope for the siege depended on his ability to cut off reinforcements coming by sea. [3] While the praetor of the Achaeans excelled, in his knowledge of fighting on land, anyone you will of famous commanders, either in experience or in aptitude, yet he was without [4??] experience in naval warfare, being an Arcadian, a man from an inland country, unacquainted with the practices of other countries, except that in Crete he had served as a commander of auxiliaries. [5] There was an old ship, a quadrireme, captured eighty years previously when it was transporting Nicaea, the wife of Crater,¹³² from Naupactus to Corinth. [6] Prompted by its reputation —for it had been in its time a famous craft in the royal fleet —he ordered it to be launched at Aegium although it was now quite rotten and was falling to pieces from age. [7] At this time, with this flagship leading the fleet, with Tiso of Patrae sailing in it as admiral of the fleet, the [p. 75]Spartan ships from Gytheum met them; [8] and at the¹³³ first shock with a new and stout vessel, the old ship, which even before had been taking in water through every seam, broke up and everyone who sailed in it was made prisoner. [9] The rest of the fleet, when their flagship was lost, fled as fast as the oars could drive them. Philopoemen himself escaped in a light scouting vessel and did not stop his flight until he reached Patrae. [10] In no wise did this mishap affect the courage of this man, a soldier born and tried by many vicissitudes; on the contrary, rather, if he had failed in a naval battle, in which he was inexperienced, he conceived the greater hope in respect to that in the experience of which he excelled, and he asserted that he would render the tyrant's joy of short duration.

27. Nabis, both gladdened by the victory and filled also with the unquestioning hope that there would no longer be any danger from the sea, wanted to close the land approaches too by suitably-placed guards. [2] Withdrawing one-third of his troops from the siege of Gytheum, he encamped near Pleiae; this place threatens both Leuci and Acriae, where it was evident that the enemy would bring up their army. [3] When he had placed his base there and only a few had tents, but the rest of the throng had huts woven out of reeds and thatched with leaves, which offered nothing but shade, Philopoemen, before he came [4??] in sight of the enemy, determined to attack him unexpectedly with a new kind of warfare. [5] He collected small boats in a secret haven in Argive territory; into them he loaded lightly-equipped soldiers, mostly caetrati,¹³⁴ with slings and darts and other kinds of light ordnance. [6] Then, skirting the [p. 77]shore, when he came to a headland near the camp¹³⁵ of the enemy, he landed and travelling over familiar trails by night came to Pleiae and, the sentinels being asleep, like men in no immediate peril, hurled firebrands upon the huts on every side of the camp. Many were consumed by the flames before they knew of the enemy's approach, and those who did know of it were able to bring them no aid. [7] With sword and fire everything was destroyed; a very few escaped from this two-fold destruction to Gytheum and the larger camp. [8] Having thus inflicted a defeat upon the enemy, Philopoemen marched straight to ravage Tripolis in Spartan territory, this being nearest the borders of the Megalopolitae, and having [9??] carried off thence a large number of animals and men departed before the tyrant from Gytheum could send guards over the land. [10] Thence, having mustered the army at Tegea and calling a council at the same place,¹³⁶ of both Achaeans and allies, at which the leading [11??] men of the Epirotes and Acarnanians were also present, he determined, since on the one hand the courage of his own men was [12??] restored after the shame of the defeat on the sea, and on the other the enemy was terrified, to lead the army against Lacedaemon, thinking that in that way alone the enemy could be drawn away from the siege of Gytheum. He first pitched camp at Caryae in the enemy's country. On that very day Gytheum was captured. [13] Philopoemen, in ignorance of this fact, moved his camp forward to Barnosthenes —this is a mountain ten miles from Lacedaemon. [14] And Nabis, having regained Gytheum, left there with his army in light marching order, and having speedily passed Lacedaemon, occupied what they call the camp of Pyrrhus,¹³⁷ [p. 79]a place that he did not doubt would be attacked by¹³⁸ the Achaeans. There he met the enemy. [15] They were now spread out over a stretch of about five miles, their column being elongated on account of the narrowness of the road; the rearguard was composed of the cavalry and the mass of the auxiliaries, because Philopoemen thought that the tyrant would attack him from the rear with his mercenary troops, in whom he placed most confidence. [16] Two unexpected situations at one time filled him with dismay: first, the fact that the place which he sought had already been occupied; second, that he saw the enemy confronting his van, where, since the way led through rough country, he did not see how the standards could be advanced without a screen of light troops.

28. Philopoemen, however, was a man of unusual astuteness and experience in leading troops and choosing positions, and not only in war-times but in peace as well he had trained his mind particularly in these arts. [2] When he was travelling anywhere and had reached a pass difficult to get through, viewing the character of the ground from every angle, when he was travelling alone, he would consider with himself, when he had companions, he would ask them, if the enemy had shown himself at that point, what plan should be adopted if he attacked from the front, what if on this or that flank, what if from the rear; [3] it was possible to meet him while drawn up in regular array, it was possible to do so in a less orderly formation suited only to the march. [4] What ground he himself would occupy he would try to determine, by reflecting or by asking questions, or how many troops or what kind of [p. 81]weapons —for this was of the greatest importance —¹³⁹ he would use; [5] where he would put the trains, where the baggage, where the unarmed mass, with how strong guards, and of what sort, he would protect them, and whether it would be better to continue by the way he had intended to go or to return the way he had come; [6] what place too he would choose for his camp, how much space he would enclose in the fortifications, where there was a suitable water-supply and where were supplies of forage and wood; where, when he moved his camp the next day, would be his safest route, and what would be his order of march. [7] With such concerns and thoughts he had from boyhood filled his mind, so that now no new subject of consideration faced him at such a crisis.¹⁴⁰ [8] And at this time he first of all formed his column, then he sent the Cretan auxiliaries and the cavalry whom they call the Tarentini,¹⁴¹ each leading two horses with him, to the van, and ordering the cavalry to follow he seized a cliff above a stream whence they could get water; [9] then he threw an armed guard around all the baggage and the assembled throng of camp followers and fortified the camp as the nature of the ground required; it was difficult to pitch tents on the rough and uneven ground. The enemy was about five hundred paces away. [10] Both sides, using light-armed guards, drew water from the same stream, but before a regular battle had begun, which is the usual occurrence when camps are close together, the night fell. It was clear that on the next day they must fight at the stream in defence of the watering-parties. [11] At night, in a valley out of sight of the [p. 83]enemy, he placed as large a force of caetrati as the¹⁴² place could conceal.

29. When day broke the light-armed Cretans and the Tarentine cavalry began the battle on the banks of the river; Telemnastus the Cretan commanded his countrymen, Lycortas of Megalopolis the cavalry; the enemy also employed Cretan auxiliaries and cavalry of the same kind, that is, Tarentini, to protect their water-carriers. [2] For a time the battle was doubtful, since the troops on both sides were of the same character and fought with similar equipment; [3] as the fight went on the tyrant's auxiliaries gained the upper hand, both because they were superior in numbers and because Philopoemen had given his commanders specific instructions that after offering a fairly stiff resistance they should begin to retire and draw the enemy towards the place of the ambuscade. Following the retreating enemy headlong through the defile, many were wounded and slain before they spied the hidden foe. [4] The caetrati had been resting in formation, so far as the width of the valley permitted, so that they easily permitted the fugitives to pass through the intervals in their ranks. [5] Then they themselves arose, unwounded, fresh, in regular array; against an enemy in disorder, scattered, wearied alike by exertions and wounds, they made their charge. [6] Nor was the issue in doubt, and at a rate no little faster than that of their pursuit the soldiers of the tyrant immediately fled and in their rout were driven into their camp. [7] Many were killed and captured in this flight; and there would have been panic in the camp too had not Philopoemen ordered the recall sounded, in fear of the rough [p. 85]and uneven ground where he had heedlessly advanced¹⁴³ rather than of the enemy.

[8] Then, drawing inferences both from the outcome of the battle and from the character of the commander what his present fright must be, he sent to him one of the auxiliaries in the guise of a deserter, who reported it as an assured fact that the Achaeans would next [9??] day advance to the Eurotas river, which flowed almost beneath the very walls,¹⁴⁴ to block the road, that the tyrant might neither have a way to retreat into the city when he wished nor to transport supplies from the city to the [10??] camp, and that the Achaeans might make an effort to find out whether anyone could be influenced towards an inclination to desert the tyrant. The deserter did not so much produce confidence in his words as offer to a man stricken with terror a plausible excuse for abandoning his camp. [11] The next day Nabis ordered Pythagoras with the auxiliaries and the cavalry to stand guard before the rampart; [12] he himself, setting out with the main body of the army, as if to the battlefield, ordered the standards to proceed at quickened pace towards the city.

30. When Philopoemen saw that the rapidly moving column was being hurriedly led over a narrow and steep road, he sent out all the cavalry and the Cretan auxiliaries against the guard of the enemy which was in front of the camp. [2] When they saw the enemy approaching and themselves abandoned by their friends, they first tried to withdraw within the camp, then, when the whole battle-line of the Achaeans [3??] was moving forward, fearing that they would be captured camp and all, they decided to follow the column of their troops which was some [p. 87]distance ahead. [4] Straightway the Achaean caetrati¹⁴⁵ assailed the camp and plundered it; the rest proceeded to pursue the enemy. The road was such that it could with difficulty be traversed by a column even if free from fear of an enemy; [5] but when the battle began in the rear and a dreadful shout from panic-stricken men behind reached those in the van, each for himself threw away his weapons and plunged into the forests which lined the road, and in an instant the way was blocked by piles of arms, especially spears, many of which, falling with their points toward the enemy,¹⁴⁶ closed the road as if with a palisade placed in the way. [6] Philopoemen ordered the auxiliaries to press on and follow wherever they could and —since the flight would not be easy, especially for the cavalry —himself conducted the heavier troops by a more open road toward the Eurotas river. [7] There he pitched camp at sunset and waited for the lighter troops which he had left to pursue the enemy. [8] When they arrived during the first watch, reporting that the tyrant with a few men had made their way into the city and the rest of the army was wandering without weapons hither and thither through all the woods, he ordered them to care for their bodies; [9] he himself, out of the other body of troops who, because they had arrived in camp at an earlier hour, had been refreshed both by the food they had taken and by a brief rest, chose some, taking nothing with them but their swords, led them out at once and posted them at the roads from two gates which they call Pharae and Barnosthenes, where he thought the enemy would [p. 89]return from the flight. [10] Nor did his expectation¹⁴⁷ deceive him, for the Lacedaemonians, as long as any light remained, kept to the paths invisible in the interior of the forest; when evening came and they saw the lights in the enemy's camp, they kept themselves to paths hidden from their direction; when they had passed the camp, thinking it was now safe, they went down into the open roads. There they were picked up by the enemy waiting all around, and so many were killed or captured that barely a fourth of the whole army escaped. [11] Philopoemen, having shut up the tyrant in the city, spent about the ensuing thirty days in laying waste the fields of the Laconians, and having weakened and well-nigh broken the tyrant's power, returned home, the Achaeans equalizing him in the glory of- his achievements with the Roman commander and, so far as the Spartan war was concerned, even placing him ahead.¹⁴⁸

XXXI. While the war between the Achaeans and the tyrant was in progress, the Roman commissioners were going around the cities of the allies, being afraid that the Aetolians had turned the thoughts of some of the allies toward Antiochus. [2] They spent the least effort in approaching the Achaeans, who, since they were hostile to Nabis, were, they felt certain, faithful enough in other relations as well. [3] To Athens first, then to Chalcis, then to Thessaly they took their course, and after addressing the Thessalians in a full council they turned aside to Demetrias. [4] There a council of the Magnetes had been called. It was necessary to employ more carefully-chosen language at this council because some of the chiefs were alienated [5??] from the Romans and wholly devoted [p. 91]to Antiochus and the Aetolians because, when it¹⁴⁹ was reported that Philip's son, who was a hostage, was being returned to him and the tribute which had been imposed remitted,¹⁵⁰ among [6??] other falsehoods it was said that Demetrias also would be given back to him by the Romans. [7] To prevent this from happening, Eurylochus, the chief of the Magnetes, and some members of his party preferred that everything be thrown into confusion by the coming of Antiochus and the Aetolians. [8] Against them such arguments had to be used that in taking from them their groundless fear the destruction of his hope might not alienate Philip, who was more important in every way than the Magnetes. [9] The main facts were merely mentioned, that not only all Greece was indebted to the Romans for the blessing of liberty, but this state especially; for not only had there been a Macedonian garrison there, but a royal palace had been built, that their master in person might always be held before their eyes; [10] but their liberation would prove to have been in vain if the Aetolians should install Antiochus in the palace of Philip and if they should have a new and unknown king in place of one who was old and tried. [11] They call their chief magistrate the Magnetarch: Eurylochus then held the office, and relying on that authority he said that he and the Magnetes should not dissemble regarding the rumour that was in circulation that Demetrias was to be given back to Philip; [12] to prevent that, the Magnetes would both try and venture anything. [13] And, carried too far away in the passion of speaking, he threw out the remark that even then Demetrias was free in appearance, while in reality everything was done at the Romans' nod. At these [p. 93]words there arose a shout from the crowd, some expressing¹⁵¹ agreement, some indignation that he should have dared to say this; Quinetius, indeed, was so inflamed with wrath that raising his hands to heaven he implored the gods to witness the ungrateful and treacherous spirit of the Magnetes. [14] All were terrified by these words, and Zeno, one of the leading citizens, and possessed of great influence both because he pursued a seemly mode of life and because he had always indisputably belonged to the Roman party, with tears begged Quinctius and the other commissioners not to charge the insanity of one man against the community: [15] each one was mad at his own peril; the Magnetes, he admitted, owed not merely their freedom but everything which man holds sacred and dear to Titus Quinctius and the Roman people; [16] no man could pray to the immortal gods for anything which the Magnetes did not have from the Romans, and they would rather rage in madness against their own persons than violate the Roman friendship.

32. His speech was followed by the prayers of the multitude; Eurylochus left the council by secret paths leading to the gate and thence fled straight into Aetolia. [2] For now and more clearly every day the Aetolians were revealing their desertion, and at that very time it chanced that Thoas,¹⁵² a leading man of the nation, whom they had sent to Antiochus, had returned from [3??] him and had brought with him Menippus as an ambassador from the king. [4] They, before an audience was granted them, had filled the ears of all with talk about the land and naval forces: [5] a huge contingent of infantry and cavalry was coming, elephants had been [p. 95]requisitioned from India, and before all —and by this they¹⁵³ believed that the mind of the crowd was especially influenced —so much gold was being brought that he could buy the Romans themselves. [6] It was evident what commotion such talk would cause in the council; for both the fact that they had come and what business brought them was all reported to the Roman commissioners; [7] and although hope was not entirely cut off, nevertheless it seemed to Quinctius not to be disadvantageous that some representatives of the allies should attend the council, to remind the Aetolians of the Roman alliance and to dare to speak out freely against the ambassador of the king. [8] The Athenians seemed especially suitable for the purpose, on account of the dignity of their state and in addition their ancient alliance with the Aetolians.¹⁵⁴ Quinctius begged them to send delegates to the Panaetolian council. [9] Thoas was the first to speak at that meeting, reporting on his mission. [10] Menippus was given audience after him and said that it would have been best for all who lived in Greece and Asia if Antiochus could have intervened while Philip's condition was unimpaired: [11] each one¹⁵⁵ would have his own and everything would not have become subject to the nod and control of the Romans. [12] “Even now,” he said, “if only you steadfastly carry out to the end the plans which you have formed, by the grace of the gods and with the Aetolians as allies, Antiochus will be able to restore the affairs of Greece, however injured, to their former position. [13] But this rests on liberty, which exists by its own might and does not depend on another's will.” [14] The Athenians, to whom next after the king's ambassador had been granted the opportunity of saying what they wished, [p. 97]omitting all mention of the king, reminded the¹⁵⁶ Aetolians of the Roman alliance¹⁵⁷ [2] and of the services rendered to all Greece by Titus Quinctius: they should not heedlessly, by too great haste in deciding, spoil all this; hot-headed and bold decisions were fair at first sight, hard to follow through, disastrous in result. [3] The Roman commissioners, and among them Titus Quinctius, were not far away; before decisive action was taken, let them settle by words those matters which were in dispute rather than arm Asia and Europe for a fatal war.

[4] XXXIII. The multitude was eager for a change and was all in favour of Antiochus, and they voted that the Romans should not even be admitted to the council; among the chiefs it was especially the elder men who by their influence secured them audience before the council. [5] When the Athenians reported this vote, it seemed best to Quinctius that he should go to Aetolia: he would either cause them some uncertainty or all men would be witnesses that the responsibility for the war would rest with the Aetolians and that the Romans would take up arms with justice and almost from necessity. [6] After his arrival there Quinctius in the council began with the origin of the alliance of the Aetolians with the Romans and how often the faith imposed by the treaty had been broken by them, and spoke briefly of the status of the cities about which there was debate: [7] if, nevertheless, they considered that they had any just claim, how much better would it be to send ambassadors to Rome,¹⁵⁸ whether they preferred to arbitrate or to appeal to [p. 99]the senate, than for the Roman people to go to war¹⁵⁹ with Antiochus, the Aetolians being the matchmakers,¹⁶⁰ not without great disturbance to mankind and the ruin of Greece. [8] Nor would any experience the calamity of this war sooner than those who had caused it. This prophecy, as one might call it, of the Roman was in vain. Thoas then and others of the same party were heard with universal applause and succeeded in carrying a motion, without even adjourning the council or awaiting the departure of the Romans, and by this decree Antiochus was invited to liberate Greece and to arbitrate between the Aetolians and the Romans. [9] To this so insolent vote a personal insult was added by their praetor Damocritus: for when Quinctius asked for the actual decree, he, showing no respect for the high position of the man, replied that there was now a matter which was more pressing which he had to attend to; [10] the decree and the answer he would presently deliver in Italy when his camp was pitched on the banks of the Tiber:¹⁶¹ [11] such madness had at that time seized the Aetolian people and such their magistrates.

34. Quinctius and the ambassadors returned to Corinth. Then, as each message came from Antiochus, that the Aetolians might not seem to be doing nothing on their own account, but to be sitting still waiting [2??] for the coming of the king,¹⁶² they held indeed no meeting of the entire people [p. 101]after the dismissal of the Romans, but through the¹⁶³ apocletes —so they call their inner council: it consists of selected persons —they considered the question in what manner revolutions might be caused in all Greece. [3] It was evident to all that in the cities the leading men and all the aristocracy¹⁶⁴ were in favour of the Roman alliance and were pleased with the present state of affairs, while the multitude and those whose affairs were not in the best condition desired a complete change. [4] The Aetolians formed a plan not only bold but even shameless, both in its character and in its expectations, of seizing Demetrias, Chalcis,¹⁶⁵ and Lacedaemon. [5] One of their chiefs was sent to each city, Thoas to Chalcis, Alexamenus to Lacedaemon, Diocles to Demetrias. [6] The last was aided by the exile Eurylochus, of whose flight and its cause I have spoken above,¹⁶⁶ because he had no other hope of restoration to his home. [7] Prompted by the letters of Eurylochus, his relatives and friends and those who belonged to the same party summoned his children and wife, dressed in mourning garb and carrying the badges of suppliants, into a crowded assembly, beseeching one and all not to permit a man, innocent and unjudged, to grow old in exile. And simpleminded men were moved by pity and wicked and seditious men by the hope of causing confusion by [p. 103]means of an Aetolian uprising. [8] Thus each man for¹⁶⁷ himself favoured a vote of recall. [9] After these preliminaries Diodes with all the cavalry —and he was then the commander of the cavalry —setting out on the pretext of conducting home his exiled friend, completing a long march by day and night, when he was six miles from the city, at daybreak led the way with three picked troops, ordering the rest of the cavalry to follow. [10] When he was near the gate he ordered them all to dismount and to lead their horses by the reins, breaking ranks just as if on a journey, that they might appear to be the commander's escort rather than an organized guard. [11] Then, leaving one troop at the gate, that the cavalry in the rear might not be shut out, he conducted Eurylochus through the centre of the city and through the market-place, clasping him by the hand, while many men came up and congratulated him. [12] Presently the city was full of troopers and the strategic points were occupied; then soldiers were sent to the houses to kill the leaders of the opposing party. Thus Demetrias fell into the possession of the Aetolians.

35. At Lacedaemon the city was not to be treated with violence but the tyrant taken by craft; [2] he had been stripped of the coast towns by the Romans and shut up within the walls of Lacedaemon itself by the Achaeans, and whoever took the initiative in killing him would win the complete gratitude of the Lacedaemonians. [3] As a pretext for sending men to him they had the fact that he was wearying them with petitions that reinforcements be sent to him, since it was at their instance that he had rebelled. [4] A thousand infantry were given [p. 105]Alexamenus and thirty troopers picked from the¹⁶⁸ youth. [5] These¹⁶⁹ were given instructions by the praetor Damocritus in the secret council of the people which was mentioned above,¹⁷⁰ that they should not believe themselves sent for the Achaean war or for any other purpose that anyone could arrive at by his own conjecture; whatever sudden plan circumstances should prompt Alexamenus to form, they should be prepared to follow obediently, no matter how unexpected, rash and bold it might be, and they should receive it as if they knew that they had been sent from home to do that one thing. [6] With them, thus prepared, Alexamenus came to the tyrant and by his coming immediately filled him with hope: Antiochus, he said, had already crossed into Europe, would soon be in Greece, and would fill the lands and seas with arms and soldiers; [7] the Romans would realize that they were not dealing with Philip; the number of infantry and cavalry and ships could not be calculated; the line of elephants by their very appearance would end the war. [8] The Aetolians with their entire army were ready, he said, to come to Sparta when the situation required, but that they had wished to display their full strength to the king when he arrived. [9] Nabis himself should also take such steps as not to permit what troops he had to grow soft in idleness under roofs, but should lead them out, force them to march under arms and at the same time stimulate their courage and train their bodies; as a result of drill labour would be lighter, and through the courtesy and consideration of their commander could even become not unpleasant. [10] From that time on Nabis began to lead the troops out frequently into [p. 107]the plain before the city along the Eurotas river¹⁷¹ The bodyguard of the tyrant was generally posted in the centre of the line; [11] the tyrant, with at most three cavalrymen, of whom Alexamenus was usually one, would ride in front of the standards, inspecting the flanks to the end; [12] the Aetolians were on the right of the line, both those who had formerly been with the tyrant and the thousand who had come with Alexamenus. [13] Alexamenus had established the habit for himself now of riding around with the tyrant with only a few attendants and of advising him what seemed to be advantageous, now of riding off to [14??] the right flank to his own men and then returning to the tyrant as if he had given some order which the situation demanded. [15] But on the day which he had chosen for the perpetration of the crime, when, after riding for a while with the tyrant, he had returned to his own men, he then addressed the thirty troopers who had been sent from home with him: [16] “We must, young men, do and dare the deed which you were ordered to perform strenuously under my command; prepare your minds and hands that no one may fail in what he sees me do; [17] whoever shall hesitate and substitute his own plan for mine shall know that he has no return to his own home.” Horror seized them all, and they remembered with what orders they had left home. [18] The tyrant was coming from the left wing; Alexamenus ordered the cavalry to put their spears in rest and to watch him; he himself also collected his thoughts, disordered by his pondering over so great a deed. When Nabis approached, he charged and piercing his horse overthrew the tyrant; the troopers ran him through as he lay on the ground; [19] after many blows [p. 109]had fallen vainly upon his armour the wounds at¹⁷² last reached his unprotected body, and before aid could reach him from the centre of the line the tyrant was dead.

36. Alexamenus with all the Aetolians went off at full speed to take possession of the palace. [2] The bodyguard, since the deed had been done before their eyes, was at first terror-stricken; [3] then, after they saw the Aetolian column depart, they assembled around the abandoned body of the tyrant, and a crowd of spectators was formed out of the guardians of his life and the avengers of his death. [4] Nor would anyone have stirred if the multitude had at once been summoned to lay aside their arms and attend an assembly and a speech been delivered suitable to the occasion, and thenceforth numerous Aetolians been kept under arms, without doing injury to anyone; but, as was fitting in plans undertaken with treachery, everything worked together to hasten the destruction of those who had committed the crime. [5] Their leader shut himself up in the palace and spent a day and a night. [6] in going through the tyrant's treasures; the Aetolians, as if they had captured the city which they wished to seem to have set free, turned to plunder. Their shameless conduct and the contempt in which they were held combined to turn the thoughts of the Lacedaemonians towards unity of action. [7] Some said that the Aetolians should be driven out and the liberty, lost at the moment when it seemed restored, should be regained; others, that there might be some head to the movement, thought that someone of the royal house should be brought forward as a symbol. [8] There was a mere boy of the royal stock, [p. 111]Laconicus,¹⁷³ brought up with the sons of the tyrant;¹⁷⁴ him they set upon a horse, and seizing their weapons they slaughtered the Aetolians as they straggled through the city. Next they attacked the palace. [9] Alexamenus with a few companions resisted them there but was slain. The Aetolians gathered around the Chalcioecus¹⁷⁵ —this was a bronze temple to Minerva —were killed; [10] a few threw away their arms and fled, some to Tegea, some to Megalopolis; there they were arrested by the magistrates and sold at auction.¹⁷⁶

37. Philopoemen, who on hearing of the tyrant's death had set out for Lacedaemon, when he found everything in [2??] a confusion of terror, summoning the leading citizens and making a speech such as Alexamenus should [3??] have made, he joined the Lacedaemonians to the Achaean alliance,¹⁷⁷ with the greater ease because Aulus Atilius chanced at the same time to be approaching Gytheum with twenty-four quinqueremes.

[4] During this period, in the neighbourhood of Chalcis, Thoas, through the agency of Euthymidas, one of the chiefs, who had been driven out by the influence of those who belonged to the Roman party, after the arrival of Titus Quinctius and the [5??] commissioners, and also with the aid of Herodorus, a merchant of Cios¹⁷⁸ but powerful at Chalcis on account of his wealth, having made ready for an uprising the men who were of the party of Euthymidas, did not by any means have the same good fortune that Eurylochus had enjoyed in gaining Demetrias. [6] Euthymidas from Athens —he [p. 113]had chosen this place for his home —went first¹⁷⁹ Thebes and then to Salganeus, and Herodorus to Thronium. [7] Not far from there, in the Malian gulf, Thoas had two thousand infantry, two hundred cavalry, and about thirty light cargo-vessels. [8] Herodorus was instructed to take these ships with six hundred infantry to the island of Atalante, so that from there, when he saw the infantry now approaching Aulis and Euripus, he might cross to Chalcis; [9] Thoas himself led the rest of the troops, generally marching by night and with all possible speed, to Chalcis.

38. Micythio and Xenoclides, in whose hands rested supreme power¹⁸⁰ after Euthymidas had been expelled from Chalcis, whether they formed their own suspicions or the plot was betrayed, at first were alarmed and placed no trust in anything but flight; then, when their terror subsided and they realized that they would be deserting and abandoning not only their country but also. [2] the Roman alliance, they increased their courage by the following scheme. [3] It happened that at this time there was an annual festival at Eretria in honour of Diana Amarynthis, which crowds both of the natives and of the Carystii attend.¹⁸¹ [4] They sent there men to beg the people of Eretria and Carystus, born on the same island, to pity their plight and respect the Roman alliance; let them not permit Chalcis to become the property of the Aetolians; they would control Euboea if once they controlled Chalcis; [5] the Macedonians had been hard to endure as masters; the Aetolians would be far less easy to bear. [6] Regard for the Romans had especial influence with the states, which had recently had experience of both their valour in war and their justice and kindness in [p. 115]victory. Therefore whatever strength in young men¹⁸² each state had it armed and sent. [7] When the townspeople had turned over to them the defence of the walls of Chalcis, they themselves with all their forces crossed the Euripus and pitched camp near Salganeus. [8] Thence first a herald and then ambassadors were sent to the Aetolians to inquire what word or action on their part had brought allies and friends to attack them. [9] Thoas, the Aetolian chieftain, replied that they were coming, not to besiege them, but to set them free from the Romans; now a more glittering chain, but a far heavier one, bound them than when they had a Macedonian garrison in their citadel. [10] The Chalcidenses, however, denied that they were slaves to any man or that they needed the protection of anyone. [11] So, leaving the conference, the ambassadors returned to their people; Thoas and the Aetolians, inasmuch as they had placed all their hopes on the chance of catching them off guard, since they were by no [12??] means equal to a regular war and the siege of a city well fortified by sea and land, returned home. [13] After Euthymidas learned that the camp of his countrymen had been pitched at Salganea and that the Aetolians had gone, he himself also returned from Thebes to Athens, and Herodorus, [14??] after waiting several days in vain, anxiously watching from Atalante for a signal, sending out a scouting vessel to ascertain what was causing the delay, when he learned that the attempt had been abandoned by his allies, returned to Thronium whence he had come.

39. Quinctius also, hearing of this, came from Corinth by ship and in the Chalcidian Euripus met King Eumenes.¹⁸³ [2] It was decided that five hundred [p. 117]men should be left at Chalcis as a guard by King¹⁸⁴ Eumenes and that the king himself should go to Athens. [3] Quinctius hurried to Demetrias, for which he had set out, in the belief that the liberation of Chalcis would have some effect upon the Magnetes in favour of renewing [4??] the Roman alliance and, that there might be some protection for the men of his party, he wrote to Eunomus, the praetor of the Thessalians, that he should arm his young men, and he sent Villius ahead to Demetrias, to test their sentiments, without any intention of attempting any action unless some portion of them was disposed to have regard for the former alliance. [5] Villius, in a ship of five banks of oars, sailed up to the mouth of the harbour. When all the people of the Magnetes had rushed there, Villius asked whether they would prefer that he had come to friends or to enemies. [6] Eurylochus the Magnetarch replied that he came to friends; but he should keep out of the harbour and permit the Magnetes to live in harmony and liberty and should not, under the pretence of a conference, stir up the populace. [7] Then there was a violent argument, not a conversation, the Roman reproaching the Magnetes for ingratitude and foretelling impending disaster, the crowd raising an uproar while accusing now the senate and now Quinctius. So without accomplishing anything Villius rejoined Quinctius. [8] But Quinctius sent a messenger to the praetor to lead his troops back home and himself with his ships returned to Corinth.

40. I have been driven out of my course, so to say, by blending events in Greece with those in Rome, not because they were worth the effort of recording [p. 119]them, but because they were the origins of the war¹⁸⁵ with Antiochus. [2] When the consuls were elected —for this was the point at which I turned aside — Lucius Quinctius and Gnaeus Domitius departed to their provinces, Quinctius to the Ligures, Domitius against the Boii. [3] The Boii remained quiet, and their senate with their children and the commanders with the cavalry —there were altogether fifteen hundred of them —even surrendered themselves to the consul. [4] The other consul devastated the Ligurian country far and wide and captured some forts from which they not only secured plunder of all kinds, along with prisoners, but also recovered some citizens and allies who had been in the hands of the enemy.¹⁸⁶ [5] In the same year a colony was established at Vibo in accordance with a decree of the senate and an enactment of the assembly. [6] Three thousand seven hundred infantry went there and three hundred cavalrymen; the commission which established it consisted of Quintus Naevius, Marcus Minucius and Marcus Furius Crassipes; fifteen iugera of land were given to each infantryman and twice that to each cavalryman. The land had recently belonged to the Brutti; they in turn had taken it from the Greeks. [7] At Rome in the same period there were two very serious alarms, one of longer duration but slower in its effect, for the earth trembled through thirty-eight days; for so many days there was a holiday spent in [p. 121]apprehension and fear; by reason of this occurrence a¹⁸⁷ three-day period of prayer was held; [8] the other was no idle panic but actual destruction to many: a fire broke out in the Forum Boarium,¹⁸⁸ and for a day and a night the buildings facing the Tiber burned, and all the shops with merchandise of great value were consumed.

41. The year was now almost at an end and the talk about the war with Antiochus and the concern of the Fathers were growing greater and greater from day to day; [2] in order, therefore, that all might be more attentive to duty, the question of provinces for the magistrates-elect began to be considered. [3] They decreed that for the consuls Italy and wherever the senate ordered —that this province would be the war against King Antiochus was known to everyone —should be the provinces. [4] The one to whom the latter lot fell was authorized to enlist four thousand Roman citizens for the infantry and three hundred cavalry and six thousand allies of the Latin confederacy with four hundred cavalry. [5] The enrolment of these troops Lucius Quinctius the consul¹⁸⁹ was ordered to undertake, that nothing might delay the new consul from going at once to whatever place the senate should have ordered. [6] Moreover, regarding the provinces of the praetors, it was decided that the first lot should cover the two jurisdictions, that between citizens and that between citizens and aliens, the second the Brutti, the third the fleet, to sail wherever the senate should have directed, the fourth Sicily, the fifth Sardinia, the sixth Farther Spain.¹⁹⁰ [7] Instructions were also given to Lucius Quinctius the consul to [p. 123]raise two new legions of Roman citizens and from¹⁹¹ the allies of the Latin confederacy twenty thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry. This army was decreed to the praetor to whom the Brutti should have been allotted as a province.

[8] Two temples to Jupiter were dedicated that year on the Capitoline; Lucius Furius Purpurio¹⁹² had vowed one while praetor in the Gallic war, the other while consul; the dedication was performed by Quintus Marcius Ralla the duumvir. [9] Many prosecutions that year were directed against usurers,¹⁹³ the curule aediles Marcus Tuccius and Publius Junius Brutus bringing charges against private citizens. From the fines imposed on the condemned, gilded four-horse chariots were set up on the Capitoline and in [10??] the inner room of the temple of Jupiter, above the roof of the shrine, twelve gilded shields were also placed, and the same men built a portico outside the Porta Trigemina in the wood-dealers' quarter.¹⁹⁴

42. While the Romans were concentrating on the preparations for the new war, there was no idleness on the part of Antiochus either. [2] Three cities were detaining him, Zmyrna and Alexandria Troas and Lampsacus,¹⁹⁵ which he had up to that time been able neither to take by assault nor to win over to friendship by negotiations, nor was he willing to leave them in his rear when he crossed to Greece. The question of Hannibal also detained him. [3] And at first the open ships which he had planned to send with him to Africa were delayed; [4] then the question whether he should be sent at all was raised, particularly by Thoas the Aetolian, who, after everything [p. 125]in Greece had been thrown into confusion, brought¹⁹⁶ word that Demetrias was in his power, and with lies like those about the king, with which, multiplying his forces in his harangues, he had roused the passions of many in Greece, he excited the hopes of the king also: [5] the prayers of all were calling him, there would be a rush to the shore from which they could catch glimpses of the royal fleet. This same man dared to try to change the king's decision about Hannibal, now almost fully determined. [6] For he said that part of the ships should by no means be detached from the royal fleet, nor, if ships should be sent, was any man less fit than Hannibal to be placed in command: [7] he was an exile and a Carthaginian, to whom either his own luck or his wit could suggest [8??] a thousand new schemes a day,¹⁹⁷ and Hannibal's military fame endowed him with a distinction which was out of place in a mere officer of a king. [9] The king, he said, ought to be the centre of interest, ought to be regarded as the single leader, the single general. If Hannibal should lose a fleet or an army, the loss would be the same as if they were lost by any other leader; [10] if any success were attained, to Hannibal, not to Antiochus, would the credit accrue; but if in the whole war the fortune of conquering the Romans should be vouchsafed [11??] them, what hope was there that Hannibal would live under a king, subject to an individual, when he had practically failed to endure the rule of his own country? [12] He had not conducted himself from youth up, cherishing in his hopes and thoughts the sovereignty of the world, in such a way that in his old age he would be ready, as it seemed, to suffer a master. The king, he concluded, had no need of Hannibal as a commander; as a companion [p. 127]and as an adviser he could use such a man for the¹⁹⁸ war. [13] A moderate employment of such talents would be neither dangerous nor unprofitable; [14] if the greatest use of them were made, it would ruin both the giver and the receiver.

43. No dispositions are so prone to envy as those of men whose abilities do not correspond to their birth and fortune, because they hate excellence and good qualities in another. Immediately the plan of sending Hannibal, which was the only good thing thought of at the beginning of the war, was laid aside.¹⁹⁹ [2] The king, especially rejoiced at the revolt of Demetrias from the Romans to the Aetolians, decided not to postpone longer his departure for Greece. [3] Before he set sail he went up from the coast to Ilium to offer sacrifice to Minerva. Thence he returned and departed with forty decked and sixty open vessels, while two hundred cargo-ships, with all kinds of supplies and equipment for war, followed. [4] He first steered for the island of Imbros; thence crossed to Sciathos; there he first collected the ships that had been scattered in the open sea and arrived at Pteleum, the first point on the mainland. [5] There Eurylochus the Magnetarch and the chiefs of the Magnetes from Demetrias met him, and rejoicing at their number on the next day he sailed into the harbour of the city with his fleet; his troops he landed not far away. [6] There were ten thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry and six elephants, a force scarcely sufficient to take possession of Greece if it were undefended, not to mention the necessity of resistance to the Romans.²⁰⁰

[7] [p. 129] The Aetolians, after it was reported that Antiochus²⁰¹ had arrived at Demetrias, called a council and confirmed the decree by which they had invited him. The king had already left Demetrias, knowing that they would vote thus, and had come to Phalara on the Malian gulf. [8] Thence, after receiving the decree, he came to Lamia and was welcomed with great enthusiasm [9??] on the part of the populace, with hand-clappings and shouts and the other demonstrations with which the unrestrained joy of a crowd is expressed.

44. When they came to the council, silence being with difficulty obtained, the king was introduced by Phaeneas the praetor and the other chiefs and began to speak. [2] The opening of his speech was an apology because he had come with forces so much smaller than everyone had hoped and expected. [3] This, he said, should be the best proof of the goodwill which he felt for them, because, although not fully prepared in any respect and at a premature time²⁰² for sailing, at the summons of their ambassadors he had obeyed without objection and had believed that when the Aetolians saw him they would consider that all their hope of safety depended on himself alone. [4] But the hopes, even of those whose expectations seemed disappointed for the moment, he would realize to the full: [5] for as soon as the early season of the year made the sea navigable he would fill all Greece with arms, men, horses, the whole seacoast with ships, and would spare no expense nor toil [6??] nor danger until, with the Roman yoke removed from their necks, he had made Greece free in truth and the Aetolians the foremost people in the land. [7] With the armies, supplies of every kind also would come [p. 131]from Asia; in the meantime the responsibility should²⁰³ rest upon the Aetolians of supplying him with abundance of grain for his men and with other things at a fair price.

45. Having spoken thus amid loud applause from all, the king left the meeting. [2] After the withdrawal of the king an argument arose between two chiefs of the Aetolians, Phaeneas and Thoas. [3] Phaeneas thought that they should use Antiochus as a restorer of peace and as an arbitrator in those matters which were in dispute with the Roman people rather than as a leader in war: [4] his arrival and his majesty would be more effectual than arms in causing the Romans to observe moderation; men, to avoid the necessity of fighting, would make many voluntary concessions which they could not be compelled to make by war and arms. [5] Thoas asserted that Phaeneas was not interested in peace but was trying to delay preparations for war, that through weariness the energy of the king might relax and also that the Romans might have time for preparation: [6] it was well established by sending so many embassies to Rome and holding so many conferences with Quinctius himself, that no justice could be obtained from the Romans, nor would they have asked aid from Antiochus if all hope had not been lost.²⁰⁴ [7] Since this aid had arrived sooner than anyone expected, there should be, he said, no diminution of effort, but rather the king should be asked, since he had come in person as the avenger of Greece, which was the all-important thing, to summon also his military and naval forces. [8] The king in arms would obtain something; unarmed, he would not have the slightest influence with the Romans, either for the [p. 133]Aetolians or even for himself. [9] This opinion prevailed,²⁰⁵ and they voted that the king should be named commander-in-chief and chose thirty of the leaders with whom, if he wished, he could consult.

46. The council being thus adjourned, the people all scattered to their own cities; the king next day consulted the apocletes as to where the war should begin. [2] It seemed best first to attack Chalcis, on which an attempt had recently been made in vain by the Aetolians; and it was agreed that speed was more necessary for this purpose than great strength or preparation. [3] The king therefore with a thousand infantry who had come with him from Demetrias set out through Phocis and by another road the chiefs of the Aetolians, calling out a few of their young men, hastened to Chaeronia and followed in ten decked ships. [4] The king himself encamped at Salganeus and crossed the Euripus by boat with the Aetolian chiefs and, since he had disembarked not far from the harbour, the magistrates of the Chalcidenses also and the foremost citizens came out before the gate. A few from each side met for a conference. [5] The Aetolians urged them strongly while retaining the Roman friendship to take the king also as an ally and friend: [6] for he had not come to Europe to make war but to free Greece, and to free it in reality, not in words and pretence, as the Romans had done; [7] nothing, moreover, was more useful to the Greek cities than to embrace both friendships, for thus they would always be guarded by the protection and good faith of the one from the injustice of the other. [8] For if they did not receive the king, they would see at once what they would have to endure, when Roman aid was far away and Antiochus, an enemy whom they [p. 135]could not withstand by their own might, was at their²⁰⁶ gates. [9] At this Micythio, one of the chiefs, said that he wondered for whose liberation Antiochus had left his own kingdom and crossed to Europe: for he knew no state in Greece which had a garrison or paid tribute to the Romans or [10??] suffered, under the compulsion of an unfair treaty, laws which it did not wish²⁰⁷ ; therefore the people of Chalcis needed neither any champion of their liberty, since they were free, nor any protection, since by the kindness of the same Roman people they enjoyed peace along with liberty. [11] They did not reject, he said, the friendship of the king nor that of the Aetolians themselves. [12] In their capacity as friends their first act would be to retire from the island and go away: [13] for they were determined not only not to admit them within the walls, but not to conclude any alliance even except in accordance with the authorization of the Romans.

47. When this answer had been conveyed to the king at the ships where he had stayed, for the present —for he had not come with such strength that he could undertake any forcible measures —it was decided to return to Demetrias. [2] There, since their first venture had proved fruitless, the king consulted with the Aetolians what should be done next. It was agreed to try the Boeotians, the Achaeans, and Amynander, king of the Athamanes. [3] They believed that the Boeotians had been unfriendly to the Romans ever since the death of Brachyllas and the events [4??] which followed²⁰⁸ ; they thought that the Achaean magistrate Philopoemen, since he had become a rival in fame as a result of the war in Lacedaemon, was hostile to and hated by [p. 137]Quinctius.²⁰⁹ [5] Amynander²¹⁰ had as wife Apama,^{211 212} daughter of one Alexander of Megalopolis, who, boasting descent from Alexander the Great, had given to his two sons the names of Philip and Alexander and to his daughter that of [6] Apama; when she was joined in royal wedlock her elder brother Philip followed her to [7] Athamania. Since he happened to be vain in character, the Aetolians and Antiochus had induced him to hope for the throne of Macedonia, being, as they told him, truly of the stock of kings, if he allied Amynander and the Athamanes with [8] Antiochus. And this vain promise availed not only with Philip but also with Amynander.

48. In Achaea a hearing before the council was granted the representatives of Antiochus and the Aetolians [2??] in the presence of Titus Quinctius at Aegium. The ambassador of Antiochus was heard before the Aetolians. [3] He, a boaster like most who are maintained by a king's power, filled seas and lands with an empty sound of words: an uncountable number of cavalry was crossing the Hellespont into Europe, partly equipped with breastplates —these they call the cataphracti —partly those who use arrows from horseback, and as a result of which there is no protection against them, since they aimed quite accurately backwards while fleeing on their horses. [4] Although by these forces of cavalry the armies even of all Europe, collected in one body, could be overwhelmed, he added army after army of infantry, and he [5??] caused terror when they heard names of tribes besides, scarcely known by name, talking of Dahae,²¹³ Medes, Elymaeans and Cadusians. [6] As to the naval [p. 139]forces, moreover, which no harbours in Greece could²¹⁴ shelter, the right wing was held by men of Sidon and Tyre, the left by Aradii and Sidetes from Pamphylia, which races none had ever equalled either in skill or in courage in naval combat. [7] At this time to speak of money, at this time to speak of other equipment for war, he said was useless: they themselves were aware that the kingdoms of Asia had always been rich in gold. Therefore the Romans would not have to do with Philip or Hannibal, the one the chief of a single state, the other confined only within the bounds of the Macedonian kingdom, but with the mighty lord of all Asia and part of Europe. [8] Nevertheless, although he came from the farthest parts of the east to liberate Greece, he demanded nothing of the Achaeans by which their loyalty to the Romans, who had priority as allies and friends, would be diminished: for he did not ask that they should take up arms on his side against the Romans, but that they should ally themselves with neither side. [9] Let them wish for peace for both parties, as was befitting the friends of both; let them take no part in war. [10] About the same request was made by the Aetolian ambassador Archidamus, that they maintain peace, which was the easiest and safest course, and as onlookers at the war let them await the outcome of others' destinies without any risk to their own cause. [11] Then he was carried away by the vehemence of his language to the point of insulting now the Romans generally, now Quinctius himself specifically, calling them ingrates and taunting him with the remark [12??] that not only the victory over Philip but Quinctius' own safety had been gained by the valour of the Aetolians, and when, he demanded, had Quinctius ever performed the functions of a commander? [13] [p. 141]Taking auspices and sacrificing and performing vows²¹⁵ like a poor sacrificing priest —thus had he seen Quinctius in the battle, while he himself was exposing his person in behalf of Quinctius to the weapons of the enemy.²¹⁶

49. To this Quinctius replied that Archidamus had considered in whose presence he was speaking rather than whom he was addressing: [2] for the Achaeans knew well that all the fierceness of the Aetolians consisted in words and not in actions, and was seen in councils and assemblies more than in battle: therefore Archidamus took small account of the opinion of the Achaeans, to whom he realized that the Aetolians were known; [3] it was for the benefit of the king's ambassadors and through them of the king that he had boasted thus. [4] But if anyone had been ignorant before what cause had brought Antiochus and the Aetolians together, it could now be clear from the speeches of their delegates that by an exchange of lies and of boasts of strength which they did not possess they filled one another's minds, and in turn were filled, with groundless hopes. [5] “While they are saying that by them Philip was defeated and by their valour the Romans were preserved, and, as you just heard, that you and the other cities and peoples will follow in their path, the king on the other hand is boasting of his clouds of infantry and cavalry and is hiding the sea beneath his fleet. [6] But the whole affair is very like a dinner given by a friend of mine in Chalcis, both an excellent man and a witty table-companion, and when we were entertained at his house at the time of the solstice,²¹⁷ and were wondering where at that time of the year he found so much game and of so many kinds, [7??] this man, not boasting in the manner [p. 143]of our opponents, said with a smile that by seasoning²¹⁸ these varied forms of wild game had been made out of tame swine.” [8] This, he said, could be well applied to the forces of the king, about which there had been so much bragging a little while ago; the different kinds of weapons, the many names of unheard-of peoples, Dahae and Medes and Cadusians and Elymaeans —these were all Syrians, far better fitted to be slaves, on account of their servile dispositions, than to be a race of warriors. [9] “And would that I could, Achaeans, set before your eyes the frantic rush of the great king from Demetrias, now to Lamia for the council of the Aetolians, now to Chalcis; you would scarcely find the like of two poor legions of reduced strength in the camp of the king; [10] you would see the king now almost begging food from the Aetolians to be distributed to his troops, now seeking the loan of [11??] funds on interest for their pay, now standing before the gates of Chalcis and presently, shut out from there, having done nothing more than look at Aulis and the Euripus, going back to Aetolia. Foolishly have they trusted, both Antiochus in the Aetolians and the Aetolians in the vainglory of the king: the less should you be deceived, but you should place your trust rather in the tried and known protection of the Romans. [12] For as to what they say is best, that you should not take any [13??] part in the war, nothing, on the contrary, is so inconsistent with your interests; yes, disregarded and discredited you will be the prize of the conqueror.”

50. Not without point did he appear to have answered both parties, and it was easy for his speech to be received with favouring ears by men who were on his side. [2] For there was no debate or doubt that [p. 145]they would pronounce judgment that the people of²¹⁹ the Achaeans would hold as enemies and friends the same whom the Roman people held as such, and that they would order war declared on Antiochus and the Aetolians. [3] Auxiliaries also, as Quinctius advised, five hundred soldiers to Chalcis and five hundred to Piraeus, were at once sent. [4] For there was at Athens a situation not much different from a rebellion, since some people, from the hope of bribes, were trying to win by money the venal multitude over to the side of Antiochus, until Quinctius was summoned by those who were of the Roman faction, and on the accusation of a certain Leon, Apollodorus, the author of the sedition, was convicted and driven into exile.

[5] And the Achaeans indeed gave the ambassadors an unsympathetic answer to take back to the king; the Boeotians made no positive response: when Antiochus should have come to Boeotia, then, they said, they would consider what course of action they should adopt.

[6] When Antiochus heard that garrisons had been sent to Chalcis by both the Achaeans and King Eumenes, he thought that his men should make haste to anticipate [7??] them and if possible meet them on their arrival, and he sent Menippus with about three thousand soldiers and Polyxenidas with the entire fleet, and a few days later he too led six thousand of his own troops and some few of the Aetolians from such forces as could be mustered on short notice at Lamia. [8] The five hundred Achaeans and a small force sent by King Eumenes, with Xenoclides of Chalcis as their leader, the roads being not yet closed, crossed the Euripus in safety and arrived in Chalcis; [9] the Roman soldiers,²²⁰ these too about five [p. 147]hundred in number, arrived when Menippus already²²¹ had his camp before Salganeus near the Hermaeum, where there is a crossing from Boeotia to the island of Euboea. [10] Micythio was with them, sent from Chalcis to Quinctius to request that very garrison. [11] When he saw that the pass was held by the enemy, he abandoned the march to Aulis and turned toward Delium, planning to cross from there to Euboea.

51. Delium is a temple of Apollo, overlooking the sea; it is five miles away from Tanagra; the crossing by sea from there to the nearest parts of Euboea is less than four miles. [2] Not only were they in a shrine and sacred grove, of so religious a character, and under the law of sanctuary which protects those temples which the Greeks call “asylums,” but also the war had as yet been neither declared²²² nor brought to such an issue that they had seen swords drawn or blood shed anywhere, while the soldiers [3??] were wandering around completely at ease, some going to see the temple and the grove, some strolling along the shore unarmed, and a great part scattering through the country in quest of wood and forage; [4] suddenly Menippus fell upon them as they straggled here and there and slew them,²²³ and captured about fifty alive; a very few got away, among them Micythio, who was picked up by a small trading-vessel. [5] Just as the loss of the soldiers was annoying to Quinctius and the Romans, so too the affair seemed to have given some further justification for [p. 149]declaring war on Antiochus. [6] Antiochus moved his²²⁴ army up to Aulis, and when he had again sent ambassadors to Chalcis, some of his own people and some Aetolians, who urged in more threatening language the same course they had recently advised, although Micythio and Xenoclides vainly strove against it, he easily gained his point that the gates should be opened to him. [7] Those of the Roman party left the city at the approach of the king. The soldiers of the Achaeans and Eumenes held Salganeus, and on the Euripus a few Roman soldiers built a fort to guard the place. Menippus attacked Salganeus, the king himself began to attack the fort on the Euripus. [8] The Achaeans and the soldiers of Eumenes were the first to bargain that they be allowed to depart under safeguard and left their post; with greater stubbornness the Romans tried to hold the Euripus. [9] Nevertheless, even they, when they were besieged by land and sea and saw the engines and artillery being moved forward, did not withstand the siege. [10] Since the king held this, which was the chief city of Euboea, the other cities of the island did not disobey his orders, and he seemed to himself to have made an important start to the war in the fact that so great an island and so many well-situated cities had come under his sway.