29.  But when the assembled multitude heard the same account, their minds were so highly exasperated, both by the harshness of the order and the indignity offered, that, even if they had been in a pacific temper before, the violent impulse of anger which they then felt would have been sufficient to rouse them to war.  Their rage was increased also by the difficulty of executing what was enjoined on them; for, “how was it possible for them, for instance, to deliver up king Amynander?” It happened, also, that a favourable prospect seemed to open to them; for Nicander, returning from king Antiochus at that juncture, filled the minds of the people with unfounded assurances, that immense preparations for war were going on both by land and sea.  This man, after finishing the business of his embassy, set out on his return to Aetolia; and on the twelfth day after he embarked, reached Phalara, on the Malian bay.  Having conveyed thence to Lamia the money that he had brought, he, with a few light troops, directed, in the evening, his course toward Hypata, by known paths, through the country which lay between the Roman and Macedonian camps.  Here he fell in with an advanced guard of the Macedonians, and was conducted to the king, whose dinner guests had not yet separated.  Philip, being told of his coming, received him as a guest, not an enemy; desired him to take a seat, and join the entertainment; and afterwards, when he dismissed the rest, detained him alone, and told him, that he had nothing to fear for himself.  He censured severely the conduct of the Aetolians, in bringing, first the Romans, and afterwards Antiochus, into Greece; designs which originated in a want of judgment, and always recoiled on their own heads.  But “he would forget,” he said, “all past transactions, which it was easier to blame than to amend; nor would he act in such a manner as to appear to insult their misfortunes.  On the other hand, it would become the Aetolians to lay aside, at length, their animosity towards him; and it would become Nicander himself, in his private capacity, to remember that day, on which he had been preserved by him.”  Having then appointed persons to escort him to a place of safety, Nicander arrived at Hypata, while his countrymen were consulting about the peace with Rome.

30.  Manius Acilius having sold, or given to the soldiers, the booty found near Heraclea, and having learned that the counsels adopted at Hypata were not of a pacific nature, but that the Aetolians had hastily assembled at Naupactum, with intention to make a stand there against the whole brunt of the war, sent forward Appius Claudius, with four thousand men, to seize the heights of the mountains, where the passes were difficult; and he himself, ascending Mount Oeta, offered sacrifices to Hercules, in the spot called Pyra,[1] because there the mortal part of the demi-god was burned.  He then set out with the main body of the army, and marched all the rest of the way with