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Updated: May 14, 2025
At the ensuing Isthmian games Flamininus solemnly proclaimed the freedom of the Greeks, and was received by them with overwhelming joy and gratitude. The AEtolians, dissatisfied with these arrangements, persuaded Antiochus III., king of Syria, to enter into a league against the Romans. The AEtolians were now compelled to make head against the Romans by themselves.
But Flamininus succeeded In saving Chalcis for the Romans by throwing into it a garrison of 500 Achaeans and 500 Pergamenes. He made an attempt also to recover Demetrias; and the Magnetes wavered.
It is more certain that, while the Roman senate deemed it beneath its dignity to have the old man hunted out in his last asylum for the tradition which inculpates the senate appears to deserve no credit Flamininus, whose restless vanity sought after new opportunities for great achievements, undertook on his own part to deliver Rome from Hannibal as he had delivered the Greeks from their chains, and, if not to wield which was not diplomatic at any rate to whet and to point, the dagger against the greatest man of his time.
It is possible that Flamininus, who knew Nabis and could not but be aware how desirable it was that he should personally be superseded, omitted to take such a step from the mere desire to have done with the matter and not to mar the clear impression of his successes by complications that might be prolonged beyond all calculation; it is possible, moreover, that he sought to preserve Sparta as a counterpoise to the power of the Achaean confederacy in the Peloponnesus.
Thus winter came on; and Philip once more availed himself of it to obtain if possible an equitable peace. At a conference held at Nicaea on the Maliac gulf the king appeared in person, and endeavoured to come to an understanding with Flamininus.
Add to this the personal impression, which most of these Peloponnesian statesmen produced in Rome; even Flamininus shook his head, when one of them showed him on the one day how to perform some dance, and on the next entertained him with affairs of state.
To which we have a witness in Titus Livius, who relates that when Philip of Macedon came to treat with Titus Quintius Flamininus, and while terms were being discussed in the presence of a certain Etolian captain, this man coming to words with Philip, the latter taunted him with greed and bad faith; telling him that the Etolians were not ashamed to draw pay from one side, and then send their men to serve on the other; so that often the banner of Etolia might be seen displayed in two hostile camps.
When Messene declared that she wished to submit to the Romans but not to enter the confederacy, and the latter thereupon employed force, Flamininus had not failed to remind the Achaeans that such separate arrangements as to the disposal of a part of the spoil were in themselves unjust, and were, in the relation in which the Achaeans stood to the Romans, more than unseemly; and yet in his very impolitic complaisance towards the Hellenes he had substantially done what the Achaeans willed.
Flamininus was sufficiently refined to feel himself flattered by the urbanity of the vanquished prince towards himself and his arrogance towards the allies, whom the Roman as well as the king had learned to despise; but his powers were not ample enough to meet the king's wishes.
Moreover, as Flamininus had already attempted, the democratic constitutions of the towns were altogether set aside, and the government in each community was placed in the hands of a council composed of the wealthy.
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