At the conclusion of this speech the unanimous feeling was in favour of the Romans. Damocritus, the chief magistrate of the Aetolians, who was currently reported to have been bribed by the king, refused to support either side. [2] "In a matter of such serious consequence," he said, "nothing is so fatal to wise counsels as doing things in a hurry. This is followed by quick repentance which, however, is too late, and quite unavailing; decisions hastily and precipitately formed cannot be recalled, nor can the mischief be undone." [3] He thought that an interval ought to be allowed for mature deliberation, and the time could be fixed there and then. As they were forbidden by law to discuss questions of peace and war anywhere but in the Pan-Aetolian Council, they ought at once to pass a decree exempting the chief magistrate from all penalties, if he summoned a [4??] council when he thought the time had come to submit the question of peace and war, and the decrees of that council should have the same force and validity as though they had been passed in a regular Pan-Aetolian Council. [5] After the matter was adjourned the envoys were dismissed, and Damocritus said that the decision come to was in the highest degree favourable to the nation, for whichever side had the better fortune in the war, that side they would be able to join. Such were the proceedings in the Pan-Aetolian Council.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.