king part with the Aetolians
against the Achaeans. This was indeed a hopeful beginning; and the
title of commander-in-chief with absolute power, which the Aetolians
decreed to the great-king, seemed insult added to injury. There had
been, just as usual, deception on both sides. Instead of the
countless hordes of Asia, the king brought up a force scarcely half as
strong as an ordinary consular army; and instead of the open arms with
which all the Hellenes were to welcome their deliverer from the Roman
yoke, one or two bands of klephts and some dissolute civic communities
offered to the king brotherhood in arms.

Antiochus in Greece

For the moment, indeed, Antiochus had anticipated the Romans in Greece
proper. Chalcis was garrisoned by the Greek allies of the Romans, and
refused the first summons but the fortress surrendered when Antiochus
advanced with all his force; and a Roman division, which arrived too
late to occupy it, was annihilated by Antiochus at Deliurn. Euboea
was thus lost to the Romans. Antiochus still made even in winter
an attempt, in concert with the Aetolians and Athamanes, to gain
Thessaly; Thermopylae was occupied, Pherae and other towns were taken,
but Appius Claudius came up with 2000 men from Apollonia, relieved
Larisa, and took up his position there. Antiochus, tired of the
winter campaign, preferred to return to his pleasant quarters at
Chalcis, where the time was spent merrily, and the king even, in spite
of his fifty years and his warlike schemes, wedded a fair Chalcidian.
So the winter of 562-3 passed, without Antiochus doing much more than
sending letters hither and thither through Greece: he waged the war
--a Roman officer remarked--by means of pen and ink.

Landing of the Romans

In the beginning of spring 563 the Roman staff arrived at Apollonia.
The commander-in-chief was Manius Acilius Glabrio, a man of humble
origin, but an able general feared both by his soldiers and by the
enemy; the admiral was Gaius Livius; and among the military tribunes
were Marcus Porcius Cato, the conqueror of Spain, and Lucius Valerius
Flaccus, who after the old Roman wont did not disdain, although they
had been consuls, to re-enter the army as simple war-tribunes. They
brought with them reinforcements in ships and men, including Numidian
cavalry and Libyan elephants sent by Massinissa, and the permission
of the senate to accept auxiliary troops to the number of 5000 from
the extra-Italian allies,