Those who wish to know what Titus Quintius Flamininus, whom we have selected as a parallel to Philopoemen, was like, may see his brazen statue in Rome, which stands beside the great statue of Apollo from Carthage, opposite to the Circus, with a Greek inscription upon it.  His temper is said to have been warm, both in love and in anger, though he was ever moderate and placable in inflicting punishment, while he was never weary in conferring favours, and was always eager to help those upon whom he had bestowed some benefit, preserving and protecting them as though they were the most precious of his possessions.  Being ambitious and eager to distinguish himself, he wished to take the leading part in everything, and consequently preferred those who hoped to receive to those who were able to confer favours, because the former were his assistants and the latter his rivals in the struggle for honour.

He received a military training, being born at a time when Rome was engaged in most important wars, and when young men learned how to act as officers not by theory but by actual service in the field.  He first served as military tribune under the consul Marcellus in the war with Hannibal.  Marcellus perished in an ambuscade, but Titus was made governor of Tarentum after its recapture, and of the surrounding territory.  In this government, he won as great a reputation for justice as for courage, so that when the Romans sent colonists to the two cities of Narnia and Cossa, he was appointed to lead them and act as founder of the colonies.

II.  This so elated him that he at once aspired to the consulship, passing over all the usual steps of AEdile, Tribune, or Praetor, by which young men generally rose to that office.  When the day of election arrived, he appeared with a strong following of devoted partisans from those two towns.  When the tribunes of the people, Fulvius and Manius, came forward and protested against a young man taking the highest office in the state by storm, contrary to the laws, and being as it were uninitiated in the very elements of the constitution, the Senate referred the matter to the votes of the people, who elected him consul together with Sextus AElius, although he was not yet thirty years old.  In casting lots for provinces the war with Philip of Macedon fell to his share, greatly to the advantage of the Romans, because in that war they needed a general who would deal with the enemy not entirely by main force, but also win them over by persuasion and diplomacy.  The kingdom of Macedonia was amply sufficient for Philip, if he only fought once with the Romans; but to maintain the cost of a long war, to supply his troops, and afford him necessary resources, the co-operation of Greece was essential to him.  Unless therefore Greece could be detached from his alliance, the war could not be decided by a single battle.  Greece at this time had been brought but little into contact with the Romans, who then for the first time interfered