ece would have quickly been
involved in the flames of war. Nor would even the Aetolians remain
quiet, a race as well restless by nature as full of anger against the
Romans. That, besides, there was another evil, of a most dangerous
nature, lurking in the bowels of Greece: Nabis, tyrant at present
of Lacedaemon, but who would soon if suffered, become tyrant of
all Greece, equalling in avarice and cruelty all the tyrants most
remarkable in history. For, if he were allowed to keep possession of
Argos, which served as a citadel commanding the Peloponnesus, when the
Roman armies should be brought home to Italy, Greece would have been
in vain delivered out of bondage to Philip; because, instead of that
king, who, supposing no other difference, resided at a distance, she
would have for a master, a tyrant, close to her side."

45. On this intelligence being received from men of such respectable
authority, and who had, besides, examined into all the matters which
were reported, the senate, although they deemed the business relating
to Antiochus the more important, yet, as the king had, for some
reason or other, gone home into Syria, they thought that the affair
respecting the tyrant ought to be more promptly attended to. After
debating, for a long time, whether they should judge the grounds which
they had at present sufficient whereon a declaration of war should be
decreed, or whether they should empower Titus Quinctius to act, in the
case respecting Nabis the Lacedaemonian, in such manner as he should
judge conducive to the public interest; they left it in his hands. For
they thought the business of such a nature, that whether expedited or
delayed, it could not very materially affect the general interest
of the Roman people. It was deemed more important to endeavour to
discover what line of conduct Hannibal and the Carthaginians would
pursue, in case of a war breaking out with Antiochus. Persons of the
faction which opposed Hannibal wrote continually to their several
friends, among the principal men in Rome, that "messages and letters
were sent by Hannibal to Antiochus, and that envoys came secretly from
the king to him. That, as some wild beasts can never be tamed, so
the disposition of this man was irreclaimable and implacable. That
he sometimes complained, that the state was debilitated by ease and
indolence, and lulled by sloth into a lethargy, from which nothing
could rouse it but the sound of arms." These accounts were de