d 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
part of his army to his capital, in which Philopoemen shut him up. As
such a commencement was no sufficient inducement for Antiochus to come
to Europe, the Aetolians resolved to possess themselves of Sparta,
Chalcis, and Demetrias, and by gaining these important towns to
prevail upon the king to embark. In the first place they thought to
become masters of Sparta, by arranging that the Aetolian Alexamenus
should march with 1000 men into the town under pretext of bringing a
contingent in terms of the alliance, and should embrace the
opportunity of making away with Nabis and of occupying the town. This
was done, and Nabis was killed at a review of the troops; but, when
the Aetolians dispersed to plunder the town, the Lacedaemonians found
time to rally and slew them to the last man. The city was then
induced by Philopoemen to join the Achaean league. After this
laudable project of the Aetolians had thus not only deservedly failed,
but had had precisely the opposite effect of uniting almost the whole
Peloponnesus in the hands of the other party, it fared little better
with them at Chalcis, for the Roman party there called in the citizens
of Eretria and Carystus in Euboea, who were favourable to Rome, to
render seasonable aid against the Aetolians and the Chalcidian exiles.
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