Book 36
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The consul quite agreed, but he felt it somewhat humiliating to abandon the siege without accomplishing anything. Finally the matter was left for Quinctius to settle. He went back to that section of the walls from which the Aetolians had been calling out to him. They were still there and began to implore him still more earnestly to take pity on the nation of the Aetolians. On this he told some of them to come out to him; Phaeneas and others of their leaders at once went out. As they prostrated themselves at his feet, he said, "Your unhappy plight makes me check the expression of my angry feelings. What I told you beforehand would come to pass has actually happened, and you have not even the comfort left you of believing that you do not deserve your fate. Since, however, I have been somehow destined to be the nursing father of Greece, I shall not desist from showing kindness even to those who have shown themselves ungrateful. Send a deputation to the consul and ask him for an armistice to allow you time to send envoys to Rome with instructions to place yourselves entirely at the mercy of the senate. I will support you before the consul as your advocate and intercessor." They followed his advice and the consul was not deaf to their appeal; an armistice was granted until the result of the mission to Rome was known; the siege was raised and the army sent into Phocis. The consul accompanied by T. Quinctius went to Aegium to attend a meeting of the Achaean council. The subjects of discussion were the entrance of the Eleans into the league and the restoration of the Lacedaemonian exiles. Neither question was settled; the Achaeans preferred that the latter should be left to them to carry out as an act of grace, and the Eleans wished their incorporation into the league to be spontaneous on their part rather than that it should be effected through the Romans.
