University of Virginia Library

33.27

During this interval Cneius Cornelius Blasio, who had administered Hither Spain before Tuditanus, was authorised by the senate to enter the City in ovation. Before him were borne 1515 pounds of gold and 20,000 of silver, and also 34,500 silver denarii. L. Stertinius, who made no effort to obtain a triumph, brought away from Further Spain 50,000 pounds of silver for the public treasury, and with the proceeds from the sale of the spoil he erected two gateways in the Forum Boarium in front of the temples of Fortuna and Mater Matuta, and one in the Circus Maximus. On these three structures he placed gilded statues. The above were the principal events during the winter. T. Quinctius was in winter quarters at Elatia. Amidst the numerous requests which he received from the friendly States was one from the Boeotians begging that, those of their countrymen who had been fighting for Philip might be restored to them. Quinctius readily granted their request, not because he thought that they deserved it, but because he was anxious, in view of Antiochus' suspicious movements, to win the support and sympathy of the Grecian States. After they had been restored it became at once apparent how little gratitude he had evoked among the Boeotians, for they sent delegates to thank Philip for the return of their countrymen, as though it were he who had made the concession and not Quinctius and the Romans. And at the next election they chose a person called Brachylles as the Boeotarch, for no other reason than because he had commanded the Boeotian contingent which had served under Philip, thus passing over men like Zeuxippus and Pisistratus and others who had brought about the alliance with Rome. Annoyed as these men were at the time, they were still more apprehensive as to the future, for if these things could go on while a Roman army was lying almost at their gates, what would happen to them, they asked, when the Romans had left for Italy and Philip was close at hand to help his friends and take his revenge upon his opponents?