hastily to make them a party in the dispute, exposed, as they were, opposite to Italy, and in the front of Greece, where they must necessarily undergo the first assaults of the Romans.  If he himself, with his land and sea forces, could take charge of Epirus, the inhabitants would eagerly receive him in all their ports and cities.  But if circumstances allowed him not to do that, then they earnestly entreated him not to subject them, naked and defenceless, to the arms of the Romans.”  Their intention in sending him this message evidently was, that if he declined going into Epirus, which they rather supposed would be the case, they were not implicated with relation to the Roman armies, while they sufficiently recommended themselves to the king by their willingness to receive him on his coming; and that, on the other hand, if he should come, even then they would have hopes of being pardoned by the Romans, for having yielded to the strength of a prince who was present among them, without waiting for succour from them, who were so far distant.  To this so evasive embassy, as he did not readily think of a proper answer, he replied, that he would send ambassadors to them to confer upon such matters as were of common concernment both to him and them.

6.  Antiochus went himself into Boeotia, holding out ostensibly those causes of resentment against the Romans which I have already mentioned,—­the death of Brachyllas, and the attack made by Quinctius on Coronea, on account of the massacre of the Roman soldiers; while the real ones were, that the former excellent policy of that nation, with respect both to public and private concerns, had, for several generations, been on the decline; and that great numbers were in such circumstances, that they could not long subsist without some change in affairs.  Through multitudes of the principal Boeotians, who every where flocked out to meet him, he arrived at Thebes.  There, notwithstanding that he had (both at Delium, by the attack made on the Roman troops, and also at Chalcis) already commenced hostilities, by enterprises of neither a trifling nor of a dubious nature, yet, in a general council of the nation, he delivered a speech of the same import with that which he delivered in the first conference at Chalcis, and that used by his ambassadors in the council of the Achaeans; that “what he required of them was, to form a league of friendship with him, not to declare war against the Romans.”  But not a man among them was ignorant of his meaning.  However, a decree, disguised under a slight covering of words, was passed in his favour against the Romans.  After securing this nation also on his side, he returned to Chalcis; and, having despatched letters, summoning the chief Aetolians to meet him at Demetrias, that he might deliberate with them on the general plan of operations, he came thither with his ships on the day appointed for the council.  Amynander, likewise, was called from Athamania to the consultation; and