red
sufficient ground for imprisonment: in fact they even entered the
dwellings of the Roman envoys to seize the Lacedaemonians who had
taken shelter there, and hard words were uttered against the Romans,
although they did not lay hands on their persons. The envoys
returned home in indignation, and made bitter and even exaggerated
complaints in the senate; but the latter, with the same moderation
which marked all its measures against the Greeks, confined itself at
first to representations. In the mildest form, and hardly mentioning
satisfaction for the insults which they had endured, Sextus Julius
Caesar repeated the commands of the Romans at the diet in Aegium
(spring of 607). But the leaders of affairs in Achaia with the new
-strategus- Critolaus at their head -strategus- (from May 607 to May
608), as men versed in state affairs and familiar with political arts,
merely drew from that fact the inference that the position of Rome
with reference to Carthage and Viriathus could not but be very
unfavourable, and continued at once to cheat and to affront the
Romans. Caesar was requested to arrange a conference of deputies of
the contending parties at Tegea for the settlement of the question.
He did so; but, after Caesar and the Lacedaemonian envoys had waited
there long in vain for the Achaeans, Critolaus at last appeared
alone and informed them that the general assembly of the Achaeans
was solely competent in this matter, and that it could only be settled
at the diet or, in other words, in six months. Caesar thereupon
returned to Rome; and the next national assembly of the Achaeans
on the proposal of Critolaus formally declared war against Sparta.
Even now Metellus made an attempt amicably to settle the quarrel, and
sent envoys to Corinth; but the noisy -ecclesia-, consisting mostly of
the populace of that wealthy commercial and manufacturing city, drowned
the voice of the Roman envoys and compelled them to leave the platform.
The declaration of Critolaus, that they wished the Romans to be their
friends but not their masters, was received with inexpressible delight;
and, when the members of the diet wished to interpose, the mob
protected the man after its own heart, and applauded the sarcasms
as to the high treason of the rich and the need of a military
dictatorship as well as the mysterious hints regarding an impending
insurrection of countless peoples and kings against Rome. The spirit
animating the movement is sho