displayed a while ago; that those various kinds of armour, and multitudinous names of nations, never heard of before, Dahans, and Medes, and Caducians, and Elymaeans, are nothing more than Syrians, a race possessed of such grovelling souls, as to be much fitter for slaves than for soldiers.  I wish, Achaeans, that I could exhibit to your view the rapid excursions of this mighty monarch from Demetrias; first, to Lamia, to the council of the Aetolians; then to Chalcis.  You should behold, in the royal camp, about the number of two small legions, and these incomplete.  You should see the king, now, in a manner begging corn from the Aetolians, to be measured out to his soldiers; then, striving to borrow money at interest to pay them; again, standing at the gates of Chalcis, and presently, on being refused admittance, returning thence into Aetolia, without having effected any thing, except indeed the taking a peep at Aulis and the Euripus.  Both Antiochus had done wrong in trusting to the Aetolians, and the Aetolians in trusting to the king’s vain boastings.  For which reason, you ought the less to be deceived by them, and rather to confide in the tried and approved fidelity of the Romans.  For, with respect to your not interfering in the war, which they recommend as your best course, nothing, in fact, can be more contrary to your interest:  for then, without gaining thanks or esteem, you will become the prize of the conqueror.”

50.  He was thought to have replied to both by no means unsuitably; and there was no difficulty in bringing an audience, prepossessed in his favour, to give their approbation to his discourse.  In fact, there was no debate or doubt started, but all concurred in voting, that the nation of the Achaeans would regard, as their friends or foes, those who were judged to be such by the Roman people, and in ordering war to be declared against both Antiochus and the Aetolians.  They also, by the direction of Quinctius, sent immediate succours of five hundred men to Chalcis, and five hundred to the Piraeus; for affairs at Athens were in a state not far from a civil war, in consequence of the endeavours, used by some, to seduce the venal populace, by hopes of largesses, to take part with Antiochus.  But at length Quinctius was called thither by those who were of the Roman party; and Apollodorus, the principal adviser of a revolt, being publicly charged therewith by one Leon, was condemned and driven into exile.  Thus, from the Achaeans also, the embassy returned to the king with a discouraging answer.  The Boeotians made no definitive reply; they only said, that “when Antiochus should come into Boeotia, they would then deliberate on the measures proper to be pursued.”  When Antiochus heard, that both the Achaeans and king Eumenes had sent reinforcements to Chalcis, he resolved to act with the utmost expedition, that his troops might get the start of them, and, if possible, intercept the others as they came; and he sent thither Menippus