Kitap 34
33
The general himself was more inclined to peace. He saw clearly that if the enemy were driven within his walls there was nothing for it but a siege, and a long one too, for it was not Gytheum they would have to attack-that place had, however, been surrendered, not stormed-but Lacedaemon, a city exceptionally strong in men and arms. His one hope had been, so he told the council, that on the approach of his army a revolutionary outbreak might occur, but though the citizens saw the standards carried up to the gates no one stirred. He went on to inform them that Villius had returned from his mission to Antiochus and reported that they could no longer depend upon maintaining peace with him, as he had landed in Europe with a far larger force, both military and naval, than on the former occasion. If he, Quinctius, employed his army in investing Lacedaemon, what other troops, he asked, would he have available for war against so strong and powerful a monarch? This was what he gave out in public; his secret motive was the fear that when the new consuls balloted for their provinces Greece might fall to one of them, and the war which he had begun so victoriously might be brought to a triumphant close by his successor.
