Titus Flamininus

This, to begin with, gave rise to mutual quarrels and recriminations; put afterwards the Aetolians vexed Titus more and more by ascribing the victory to themselves and prepossessing the minds of the Greeks with the fame of it, so that they were mentioned first in the writings and songs of poets and historians who celebrated the event.

Of these the one most in vogue was the following epigram in elegiac verses:— Unwept and without graves are we, O traveller, who on this ridge of Thessaly lie dead, in number thirty thousand, subdued by the sword of the Aetolians, and of the Latins whom Titus led from spacious Italy, Emathia’s great bane. And the bold spirit that Philip had displayed was gone; it showed itself more agile than swift deer.

This poem was composed by Alcaeus in mockery of Philip, and its author exaggerated the number of the slain; however, being recited in many places and by many persons, it gave more annoyance to Titus than to Philip. For Philip simply made fun of Alcaeus with an answering elegiac distich:—

1. Leafless and without bark, O traveller, on this ridge
2. A cross is planted for Alcaeus, and it towers in the sun;

but Titus was ambitious to stand well with the Greeks, and such things irritated him beyond measure. For this reason he conducted the rest of his business by himself, and made very little account of the Aetolians. They on their part were displeased at this, and when Titus received an embassy from the Macedonian king with proposals for an agreement, they went round to the other cities vociferously charging him with selling peace to Philip, when it was in his power to eradicate the war entirely and destroy a power by which the Greek world had first been enslaved.

While the Aetolians were making these charges and trying to make trouble among the Roman allies, Philip himself removed all grounds for suspicion by coming to terms and putting himself and his realm in the hands of Titus and the Romans. And in this manner Titus[*](Rather, the ten commissioners sent from Rome to settle the affairs of Greece (chapter x. 1). Cf. Livy, xxxiii. 30 (Polybius xviii. 44).) put an end to the war; he returned to Philip his kingdom of Macedonia, but ordained that be should keep aloof from Greece, exacted from him an indemnity of a thousand talents, took away all his ships except ten, and taking one of his sons, Demetrius, to serve as hostage, sent him off to Rome, thus providing in the best manner for the present and anticipating the future.