strong hold, along with the rest, consented to come; accordingly, sending a message to Attalus, to leave Ægina, and meet him at Sicyon, he set sail from Anticyra with ten quinqueremes, which his brother Lucius Quintius happened to bring a little before from his winter station at Corcyra, and passed over to Sicyon. Attalus was there before him, who, representing that the tyrant ought to come to the Roman general, not the general to the tyrant, brought Quintius over to his opinion, which was, that he should not enter the city of Argos. Not far from it, however, was a place called Mycenica; and there the parties agreed to meet. Quintius came, with his brother and a few military tribunes; Attalus, with his royal retinue; and Nicostratus, the prætor of the Achaans, with a few of the auxiliary officers: and they there found Nabis waiting with his whole army. He advanced, armed and attended by his guards, almost to the middle of the interjacent plain; Quintius, unarmed, with his brother and two military tribunes; the King was accompanied by one of his nobles, and the prætor of the Achæans unarmed likewise. The tyrant, when he saw the King and the Roman general unarmed, opened the conference, with apologizing for having come to the meeting armed himself, and surrounded with armed men. "He had no apprehensions," he said, "from them; but only from the Argive exiles." When they then began to treat of the terms, on which friendship was to be established between them, the Roman made two demands: one, that the Lacedæmonian should conclude a peace with the Achæans; the other, that he should send him aid against Philip. He promised the aid required; but, instead of a peace with the Achæans, a cessation of hostilities was obtained, to last until the war with Philip should be ended.

XL. A debate, concerning the Argives also, was set on foot by King Attalus, who charged Nabis with holding their city VOL. IV.-X x

by force, which was put into his hands by the treachery of Philocles; while Nabis insisted, that he had been invited by the Argives themselves to afford them protection. The King required a general assembly of the Argives to be convened, that the truth of that matter might be known. To this the tyrant did not object; but the King alleged, that the Lacedæmonian troops ought to be withdrawn from the city, in order to render the assembly free; and that the people should be left at liberty to declare their real sentiments. This was refused, and the debate produced no effect. To the Roman general, six hundred Cretans were given by Nabis, who agreed with the prætor of the Achæans to a cessation of arms for four months, and then the conference broke up. Quintius proceeded to Corinth, advancing to the gates with the cohort of Cretans, in order to shew Philocles, the governor of the city, that the tyrant had deserted the cause of Philip. Philocles, came out to confer with the Roman general; and, on the latter exhorting him to change sides immediately, and surrender the city, he answered in such a manner, as showed an inclination rather to defer, than to refuse the matter. From Corinth, Quintius sailed over to Anticyra, and sent his brother thence, to sound the disposition of the people of Acarnania. Attalus went from Argos to Sicyon. Here, on one side, the state added new honours to those formerly paid to the King; and, on the other, the King, besides having on a former occasion redeemed for them, at a vast expence, a piece of land sacred to Apollo, unwilling to pass by the city of his friends and allies without a token of munificence, made them a present of ten talents of silver*, and ten thousand bushels of corn, and then returned to Cenchrea to his fleet. Nabis, leaving a strong garrison at Argos, returned to Lacedæmon; and, as he himself had pillaged the men, he

* 1,9371. 10s.

sent his wife to Argos to pillage the women. She invited to her house, sometimes singly, and sometimes in numbers, all the females of distinction who were related to each other: and partly by fair speeches, partly by threats, stripped them, not only of their gold, but, at last, even of their garments, and every article of dress.

THE

HISTORY OF ROME.

BOOK XXXIII.

Titus Quintus Flamininus, proconsul, gains a decisive victory over Philip at Cynoscephalæ. Caius Sempronius Tuditanus, prætor, cut off by the Celtiberians. Death of Attalus, at Pergamus. Peace granted to Philip, and liberty to Greece. Lucius Furius Purpureo and Marcus Claudius Marcellus, consuls, subdue the Boian and Insubrian Gauls. Triumph of Marcellus. Hannibal, alarmed at an embassy from Rome concerning him, flies to Antiochus, King of Syria, who was preparing to make war on the Romans.

B.C. 197.

I. SUCH were the occurrences of the winter. In the beginning of spring, Quintius urged Attalus to join Y.R. 555. him, which he did, at Elatia; and being anxious to bring under his authority the nation of the Bœotians, who had hitherto been wavering and irresolute, he marched through Phocis, and pitched his camp at the distance of five miles from Thebes, the capital of Boeotia. Next day, attended by one company of soldiers, and by Attalus, together with the ambassadors, who had come to him in great numbers, from all quarters, he proceeded towards the city,

having ordered the spearmen of two legions, being two thousand men, to follow him at the distance of a mile. About midway, Antiphilus, prætor of the Baotians, met him : the rest of the people stood on the walls, watching the arrival of the King and the Roman general. Few arms and few soldiers appeared-the hollow roads, and the vallies, concealing from view the spearmen, who followed at a distance. When Quintius drew near the city, he slackened his pace, as if with intention to salute the multitude, who came out to meet him: but the real motive of his delaying was, that the spearmen might come up. The townsmen pushed forward, in a crowd, before the lictors, not perceiving the band of soldiers who were following them close, until they arrived at the general's quarters. Then, supposing the city betrayed and taken, through the treachery of Antiphilus, their prætor, they were all struck with astonishment and dismay. It was now evident that no room was left to the Boeotians for a free discussion of measures in the assembly, which was summoned for the following day. However they concealed their grief, which it would have been both vain and unsafe to have discovered.

II. When the assembly met, Attalus, first, rose to speak, and he began his discourse with a recital of the kindnesses conferred by his ancestors and himself on the Greeks in general, and on the Boeotians in particular. But, being now too old and infirm to bear the exertion of speaking in public, he lost his voice, and fell; and for some time, while they were carrying him to his apartments, (for he was deprived of the use of one half of his limbs,) the proceedings of the assembly were stopped. Then, Aristænus spoke on the part of the Achæans, and was listened to with the greater attention, because he recommended to the Boeotians no other measures than those which he had recommended to the Achæans. A few words were added by Quintius, extolling the good faith