When the time came for Diaeus to relinquish his office, Critolaus was elected general by the Achaeans. This Critolaus was seized with a keen but utterly unthinking passion to make war against the Romans. The envoys from the Romans had by this time already arrived to adjudicate on the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and Critolaus had a conference with them at Tegea in Arcadia, being most unwilling to summon the Achaeans to meet them in a general assembly. However, in the hearing of the Romans he sent messengers with instructions to summon the deputies to the assembly, but privately he sent orders to the deputies of the various cities to absent themselves from the meeting.