[3.] Having won the victory, the Romans began pillaging the enemy’s camp; and killed a number of the Celts, as they lay stupefied with drunkenness in their beds, like unresisting victims. Then they collected the rest of the booty, from which more than three hundred talents were paid into the treasury. Taking Carthaginians and Celts together, not less than ten thousand were killed, and about two thousand Romans. Some of the principal Carthaginians were taken prisoners, but the rest were put to the sword. When the report reached Rome, people at first could not believe it, from the intensity of their wish that it might be true; but when still more men arrived, not only stating the fact, but giving full details, then indeed the city was filled with overpowering joy; every temple-court was decked, and every shrine full of sacrificial cakes and victims: and, in a word, they were raised to such a pitch of hopefulness and confidence, that every one felt sure that Hannibal, formerly the object of their chief terror, could not after that stay even in Italy....
A speech of the legate from Rhodes[19] before an assembly of Aetolians at Heraclea in the autumn of B.C. 207 (see Livy, 28, 7), at the end of the summer campaign.
[4.] “Facts I imagine, Aetolians, have made it clear to you that neither King Ptolemy nor the community of Rhodes, Byzantium, Chios, or Mitylene, regard a composition with you as unimportant. For this is not the first or the second time that we have introduced the subject of peace to your assembly; but ever since you entered upon the war we have beset you with entreaties, and have never desisted from warning you on this subject; because we saw that its immediate result would be the destruction of yourselves and of Macedonia, and because we foresaw in the future danger to our own countries and to that of all other Greeks. For as, when a man has once set a fire alight, the result is no longer dependent upon his choice, but it spreads in whatever direction chance may direct, guided for the most part by the wind and the combustible nature of the material, and frequently attacks the first author of the conflagration himself: so too, war, when once it has been kindled by a nation, sometimes devours the first those who kindled it; and soon rushes along destroying everything that falls in its way, continually gathering fresh strength, and blown into greater heat by the folly of the people in its neighbourhood, as though by the wind. Wherefore, men of Aetolia, considering that we, as representatives of the whole body of the islanders and of the Greek inhabitants of Asia, are here to beseech you to put an end to war and to choose peace, because the matter affects us as well as you, show your wisdom by listening to us and yielding to our entreaties. For if you were carrying on a war which, though profitless (and most wars are that), was yet glorious from the motive which prompted it, and the reputation likely to accrue from it, you might be pardoned perhaps for a fixed determination to continue it; but if it is a war of the most signal infamy, which can bring you nothing but discredit and obloquy,—does not such an undertaking claim considerable hesitation on your part? We will speak our opinion frankly; and you, if you are wise, will give us a quiet hearing. For it is much better to hear a disagreeable truth now and thereby be preserved, than to listen to smooth things now, and soon afterwards to be ruined yourselves, and to ruin the rest of the Greeks with you.
[5.] “Put then before your eyes your own folly. You profess to be at war against Philip on behalf of the Greeks, that they may escape from servitude to him; but your war is really for the enslavement and ruin of Greece. That is the tale told by your treaty with Rome, which formerly existed only in written words, but is now seen in full operation. Heretofore, though mere written words, it was a disgrace to you: but now your execution of it has made that disgrace palpable to the eyes of all the world. Moreover, Philip merely lends his name and serves as a pretext for the war: he is not exposed to any attack: it is against his allies,—the majority of the Peloponnesian states, Boeotia, Euboea, Phocis, Locris, Thessaly, Epirus,—that you have made this treaty,Cp. 9. 39. bargaining that their bodies and their goods shall belong to the Romans, their cities and their territory to the Aetolians. And though personally, if you took a city, you would not stoop to violate the freeborn, or to burn the buildings, because you look upon such conduct as cruel and barbarous; yet you have made a treaty by which you have handed over all other Greeks to the barbarians, to be exposed to the most shameful violence and lawlessness. And all this was hitherto kept a secret. But now the fate of the people of Oreus, and of the miserable Aeginetans, has betrayed you to every one,—Fortune having, as though of set purpose, suddenly brought your infatuation before the scenes.
“So much for the origin of the war and its events up to now. But as to its result,—supposing everything to go to your wish,—what do you expect that to be? Will it not be the beginning of great miseries to all Greece?
[6.] “For I presume no one can fail to see that, if once the Romans get rid of the war in Italy,—and this is all but done, now that Hannibal has been confined to a narrow district in Bruttii,—they will direct their whole power upon Greece: professedly, indeed, in aid of the Boeotians against Philip, but really with the view of reducing it entirely under their own power. And if they design to treat it well when they have conquered it, theirs will be the honour and glory; and if badly, theirs too will be the plunder from the states they destroy, and the power over those which they allow to survive: while you will be calling upon the gods to witness your wrongs, when no god will be any longer willing, nor any man be able to help you. Now, perhaps, you ought to have foreseen all this from the first, for that would have been your best course. But since the future often escapes human foresight, now, at any rate, that you have seen by actual experience what has happened, it must be your duty to take better measures for the future. In any case we have omitted nothing which it becomes sincere friends to say or do. We have spoken our opinion about the future with absolute frankness; and you we urge and entreat not to stand in the way of the freedom and safety of yourselves or of the rest of Greece.”
This speaker having, as it seemed, made a considerable impression, he was followed by the ambassadors of Philip, who, without making a long speech, merely said that they were commissioned to do one of two things,—if the Aetolians chose peace, to accept it readily: if not, to call the gods and the ambassadors from Greece to witness that the Aetolians, and not Philip, ought to be held responsible for what happened thereafter, and so to depart....
[7.] Philip loudly lamented his ill-fortune in having so narrowly missed getting Attalus into his hands....Attalus eludes Philip. Livy, 28, 7, 8, B.C. 207.
On his way to the lake Trichonis Philip arrived at Thermus, where there was a temple of Apollo;Philip at Thermus. See 5, 6-18. and there he once more defaced all the sacred buildings which he had spared on his former occupation of the town. In both instances it was an ill-advised indulgence of temper: for it is a mark of utter unreasonableness to commit an act of impiety against heaven in order to gratify one’s wrath against man....