Book 35
12
Neither the Boii nor the Spaniards, however, with whom Rome had been warring that year, were such bitter enemies as the Aetolians. After the Roman armies had evacuated Greece they expected that Antiochus would take possession of that part of Europe vacated, and that neither Philip nor Nabis would remain inactive. When they saw no movement anywhere they decided that to prevent their designs from being thwarted by delay they must do something to produce agitation and confusion, and accordingly a council was convened at Naupactus. Here Thoas, their chief magistrate, complained of their unjust treatment by the Romans and the position in which the Aetolians were placed, for after a victory which was won through them, they, of all the States and cities in Greece, had been shown the least consideration. He advised that envoys should be sent to each of the three kings to find out their intentions and to urge such arguments on each as would goad them into a war with Rome. Democritus was sent to Nabis, Nicander to Philip, and Dicaearchus, the brother of Thoas, to Antiochus. Democritus pointed out to the tyrant that by the loss of his maritime cities the very sinews of his power were cut; it was from them that he drew his soldiers, his ships and his crews. Little more than a prisoner within his own walls, he saw the Achaeans fording it over the Peloponnese; he would never have another opportunity of winning back his dominion if he let this one go by; there was no Roman army in Greece, and they would never think it worth their while to send their legions back again for the sake of Gytheum and the other Laconian cities on the coast. Such were the arguments used to influence the tyrant, so that when Antiochus landed in Greece the consciousness of having broken his amity with Rome through his ill-treatment of her allies might force him to join arms with the Syrian monarch.
