er
at Argos, having intrusted the defence of the city to Timocrates of
Pellene, with a thousand mercenary soldiers, and two thousand Argives,
came to Lacedaemon and joined Nabis.

30. Although Nabis had been greatly alarmed at the first arrival of
the Roman fleet, and the surrender of the towns on the sea-coast,
yet, as long as Gythium was held by his troops he had quieted his
apprehensions with that scanty hope; but when he heard that Gythium,
too, was given up to the Romans, and saw that he had no room for any
kind of hope on the land, where every place round was in the hands
of the enemy, and that he was totally excluded from the sea, he
considered that he must yield to fortune. He first sent a messenger
into the Roman camp, to learn whether permission would be given to
send ambassadors. This being consented to, Pythagoras came to the
general, with no other commission than to propose a conference between
that commander and the tyrant. A council was summoned on the proposal,
and every one present agreeing in opinion that a conference should
be granted, a time and place were appointed. They came, with moderate
escorts, to some hills in the interjacent ground; and leaving their
cohorts there, in posts open to the view of both parties, they went
down to the place of meeting; Nabis attended by a select party of his
body-guards; Quinctius by his brother, king Eumenes, Sosilaus, the
Rhodian, Aristaenus, praetor of the Achaeans, and a few military
tribunes.

31. Then the tyrant, having the choice given him either to speak first
or to listen, began thus: "Titus Quinctius, and you who are present,
if I could collect from my own reflections the reason of your having
either declared or actually made war against me, I should have waited
in silence the issue of my destiny. But in the present state of
things, I could not repress my desire of knowing, before I am ruined,
the cause for which my ruin is resolved on. And in truth, if you
were such men as the Carthaginians are represented to be,--men who
considered the obligation of faith, pledged in alliances, as in no
degree sacred, I should not wonder if you were the less scrupulous
with respect to your conduct towards me. But, instead of that, when I
look at you, I perceive that you are Romans: men who allow treaties to
be the most solemn of religious acts, and faith, pledged therein,
the strongest of human ties. Then, when I look back at myself, I am
confident I am one who, as a