38.10
The
consul left Ambracia for the interior of Aetolia and fixed his camp at
Amphilochian Argos, twenty-two miles distant from Ambracia. Here the
Aetolian delegates at last arrived, the consul meantime wondering what had
delayed them. On their informing him that the Aetolian Council accepted the
conditions of peace, he told them to go to Rome to appear before the senate;
the Rhodians and Athenians were also allowed to go to plead for them; and
the consul also allowed his brother, C. Valerius, to accompany them. After
their departure be crossed over to Cephallania. In Rome the delegates found
the ears and minds of the leading men preoccupied by the accusations which
Philip had brought against them. Through his representatives, in his
despatches he had asserted that Dolopia, Amphilochia and Athamania had
been wrested from him, and his garrisons and even his son Perseus had been
expelled from Amphilochia. The senate consequently refused to listen to
them. The Rhodians and Athenians, however, obtained a hearing. The
Athenian spokesman, Leon the son of Hicesias, is said to have moved them
by his eloquence. Making use of a common simile he compared the people of
Aetolia to a calm sea which has become agitated by the winds. "As long as
they were faithful to Rome," he said, "their peace-loving temperament kept
them quiet, but when Thoas and Dicaearchus sent a blast from Asia and
Menestas and Damocritas from Europe, then that storm arose which dashed
them against Antiochus as against a rock."
