olaus, that they wished the Romans to be their
friends but not their masters, was received with inexpressible delight;
and, when the members of the diet wished to interpose, the mob
protected the man after its own heart, and applauded the sarcasms
as to the high treason of the rich and the need of a military
dictatorship as well as the mysterious hints regarding an impending
insurrection of countless peoples and kings against Rome. The spirit
animating the movement is shown by the two resolutions, that all clubs
should be permanent and all actions for debt should be suspended till
the restoration of peace.

The Achaeans thus had war; and they had even actual allies, namely
the Thebans and Boeotians and also the Chalcidians. At the beginning
of 608 the Achaeans advanced into Thessaly to reduce to obedience
Heraclea near to Oeta, which, in accordance with the decree of
the senate, had detached itself from the Achaean league. The consul
Lucius Mummius, whom the senate had resolved to send to Greece,
had not yet arrived; accordingly Metellus undertook to protect
Heraclea with the Macedonian legions. When the advance of the Romans
was announced to the Achaeo-Theban army, there was no more talk of
fighting; they deliberated only how they might best succeed in reaching
once more the secure Peloponnesus; in all haste the army made off,
and did not even attempt to hold the position at Thermopylae.
But Metellus quickened the pursuit, and overtook and defeated
the Greek army near Scarpheia in Locris. The loss in prisoners and
dead was considerable; Critolaus was never heard of after the battle.
The remains of the defeated army wandered about Greece in single troops,
and everywhere sought admission in vain; the division of Patrae
was destroyed in Phocis, the Arcadian select corps at Chaeronea;
all northern Greece was evacuated, and only a small portion of
the Achaean army and of the citizens of Thebes, who fled in a body,
reached the Peloponnesus. Metellus sought by the utmost moderation
to induce the Greeks to abandon their senseless resistance, and gave
orders, for example, that all the Thebans with a single exception,
should be allowed their liberty; his well-meant endeavours were
thwarted not by the energy of the people, but by the desperation of
the leaders apprehensive for their own safety. Diaeus, who after
the fall of Critolaus had resumed the chief command, summoned all men
capable of bearing arms to the isthmus, an