34.33
Aristaenus followed. He advised and
even implored Nabis to take the course which was safest for himself and his
fortunes while he had the opportunity. He alluded by name to several who
after ruling as tyrants in the surrounding cities had been deposed on the
restoration of liberty and had passed a safe and even an honoured old age
amongst their fellow-citizens. Further discussion was put an end to by the
approach of night. The next day Nabis said that he would evacuate Argos
and withdraw his garrison whenever the Romans wished, and would also
surrender the prisoners and deserters. Should any further demands be made,
he requested that they might be put in writing in order that he might consult
his friends about them. Time was allowed him for the purpose, and Quinctius
on his side also called the friendly cities into council. The majority were in
favour of continuing the war and getting rid of the tyrant; for they felt
certain that the freedom of Greece would never be safe otherwise. They
declared that it would have been better not to commence war against him
than to abandon it after it had begun, for Nabis would be in a much stronger
position if he could assume that his usurpation was sanctioned by Rome, and
his example would incite many in other cities to plot against the liberties of
their fellow-citizens.
The general himself was more inclined to peace. He saw clearly that
if the enemy were driven within his walls there was nothing for it but a siege,
and a long one too, for it was not Gytheum they would have to attack -that
place had, however, been surrendered, not stormed -but Lacedaemon, a city
exceptionally strong in men and arms. His one hope had been, so he told the
council, that on the approach of his army a revolutionary outbreak might
occur, but though the citizens saw the standards carried up to the gates no
one stirred. He went on to inform them that Villius had returned from his
mission to Antiochus and reported that they could no longer depend upon
maintaining peace with him, as he had landed in Europe with a far larger
force, both military and naval, than on the former occasion. If he, Quinctius,
employed his army in investing Lacedaemon, what other troops, he asked,
would he have available for war against so strong and powerful a monarch?
This was what he gave out in public; his secret motive was the fear that
when the new consuls balloted for their provinces Greece might fall to one
of them, and the war which he had begun so victoriously might be brought to
a triumphant close by his successor.
