The War with Philip
WHEN the time appointed arrived, Philip put to sea from
Congress at Nicaea in Locris, winter of B. C. 198-197. Coss. Titus Quinctius Flamininus, Sext. Aelius Paetus Catus. |
Demetrias and came into the Melian Gulf, with
five galleys and one beaked war-ship (
pristis),
on the latter of which he himself was sailing.
There met him the Macedonian secretaries
Apollodorus and Demosthenes, Brachylles from
Boeotia, and the Achaean Cycliadas, who had
been driven from the Peloponnese for the
reasons I have already described. With Flamininus came king Amynandras, and Dionysodorus,
legate of king Attalus.
The commissioners from cities and nations were
Aristaenus and Xenophon from the Achaeans; Acesimbrotus
the navarch from the Rhodians; Phaeneas their Strategus
from the Aetolians, and several others of their statesmen with
him. Approaching the sea near Nicaea, Flamininus and those
with him took their stand upon the very edge of the beach,
while Philip, bringing his ship close to shore, remained afloat.
Upon Flamininus bidding him disembark, he stood up on
board and refused to leave his ship. Flamininus again asked
him what he feared, he said that he feared no one but the
gods, but he distrusted most of those who were there, especially
the Aetolians. Upon the Roman expressing his surprise, and
remarking that the danger was the same to all and the risk
common, Philip retorted that "He was mistaken in saying that:
for that, if anything happened to Phaeneas, there were many
who would act as Strategi for the Aetolians; but if Philip were
to perish at the present juncture, there was no one to be king of
the Macedonians." Though all thought this an unconciliatory
way of opening the discussion, Flamininus nevertheless bade
him speak on the matters he had come to consider.
Philip
however said that "The word was not with himself but with
Flamininus; and therefore begged that he would
state clearly what he was to do in order to have
peace." The Roman consul replied that" What
he had to say was simple and obvious: it was to bid him
evacuate Greece entirely; restore the prisoners and deserters
in his hands to their several states; hand over to the Romans
those parts of Illyricum of which he had become possessed since
the peace of Epirus; and, similarly, to restore to
Ptolemy all the cities which he had taken from
him since the death of Ptolemy Philopator.