content in the case of the others
with a mere formal recognition of his sovereignty; he even gave them
to understand that he was ready to submit to the arbitration of the
Rhodians. In European Greece he could safely count on the Aetolians,
and he hoped to induce Philip again to take up arms. In fact, a plan
of Hannibal obtained the royal approval, according to which he was to
receive from Antiochus a fleet of 100 sail and a land army of 10,000
infantry and 1000 cavalry, and was to employ them in kindling first
a third Punic war in Carthage, and then a second Hannibalic war in
Italy; Tyrian emissaries proceeded to Carthage to pave the way for a
rising in arms there(4) Finally, good results were anticipated from
the Spanish insurrection, which, at the time when Hannibal left
Carthage, was at its height.(5)

Aetolian Intrigues against Rome

While the storm was thus gathering from far and wide against Rome, it
was on this, as on all occasions, the Hellenes implicated in the
enterprise, who were of the least moment, and yet took action of the
greatest importance and with the utmost impatience. The exasperated
and arrogant Aetolians began by degrees to persuade themselves that
Philip had been vanquished by them and not by the Romans, and could
not even wait till Antiochus should advance into Greece. Their policy
is characteristically expressed in the reply, which their -strategus-
gave soon afterwards to Flamininus, when he requested a copy of the
declaration of war against Rome: that he would deliver it to him in
person, when the Aetolian army should encamp on the Tiber. The
Aetolians acted as the agents of the Syrian king in Greece and
deceived both parties, by representing to the king that all the
Hellenes were waiting with open arms to receive him as their true
deliverer, and by telling those in Greece who were disposed to listen
to them that the landing of the king was nearer than it was in
reality. Thus they actually succeeded in inducing the simple
obstinacy of Nabis to break loose and to rekindle in Greece the flame
of war two years after Flamininus's departure, in the spring of 562;
but in doing so they missed their aim. Nabis attacked Gythium, one of
the towns of the free Laconians that by the last treaty had been
annexed to the Achaean league, and took it; but the experienced
-strategus- of the Achaeans, Philopoemen, defeated him at the
Barbosthenian mountains, and the tyrant brought back barely a fourth