In the second place, like Marengo, its last and crowning success was due to an unordered, self-originating, charge of a subordinate officer, with a mere handful of men on the flank or rear of a victorious column.
But in this, unlike Marengo, it was the eagle eye, the prompt decision, and the lightning-like execution of the general in chief, not the shrewd observation of a second in command, that redeemed the half lost battle, and changed the pæans of an exulting conqueror into groans of anguish and despair.
With Cynoscephalæ, terminates the splendor of Flamininus’ military career, but not the splendor of his life.
Philip at once sued for peace, and the general, aware that a war had broken out between Antiochus, King of Syria, and Rome, and dreading Philip’s co-operation with him, if driven to despair, at once granted him terms.
He withdrew all his garrisons from Greece; delivered all his fleet, with the exception of ten galleys; paid an indemnification of a thousand talents, for the expenses of the war; gave up his son Demetrius as a hostage, for his faithful observance of the conditions; and, to his credit be it spoken, ever continued true in his allegiance to the Romans.
At first, apprehending trouble from Antiochus, the Senate determined to keep Roman garrisons in the three strongholds of Chalcis, Corinth, and Demetrius; but so loud were the complaints of the Greeks in general, of the Æolians in particular, and so consistent did they appear to Flamininus, that he used the great personal weight and influence he had gained with the people and the Senate, not to obtain personal honors, wealth or distinction, but to procure the complete liberation of Greece, and the withdrawal of every foreign soldier from her confines.
The proudest hour of his life, save one, was when he sat in his curule chair at the Isthmian games, a spectator of the show, and heard the Roman trumpet-blast command attention, and the Roman herald make proclamation—“The Senate, and the Imperator, Titus Quinctius, having subdued King Philip and the Macedonians, give to the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Eubæans, Achæans, Pthiotians, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians, liberty, immunity from garrisons, immunity from tribute, and the right of self-government, according to their own constitutions.”
At first men heard not, or hearing, believed not, for very joy, that such happiness could be; and they called upon the herald to repeat his proclamation.
Then such a shout arose as rang from sea to sea across the Isthmus. The like of it was never heard before or afterward in Greece. And what has often been said hyperbolically, to lend grandeur to descriptions of the human voice, was then actually seen to happen;[[18]] for crows winging their way over the amphitheatre fell into the arena, stunned by the concussion of the air.
As one man, the whole theatre stood up. There was no more talk of the combatants. Every one spoke of Flamininus, every one would touch the hand of the champion, the liberator of Greece.