XII.  These were the thoughts which occupied men’s minds:  and the events which took place were all in conformity with the proclamation.  Titus had at the same time sent Lentulus to Asia Minor to free the Bargylians, and Stertinius to Thrace to remove the garrisons of Philip from the towns and islands in that quarter, while Publius Villius set sail to treat with Antiochus about the freedom of the Greeks in his dominions.  Titus himself proceeded to Chalkis, and thence he took ship for Magnesia, where he removed the foreign garrisons from the cities and re-established a democratic constitution in them.  After this he was elected President of the Nemean games at Argos, where he made admirable arrangements for the conduct of the festival, and made a herald repeat his proclamation to the Greeks assembled there.  He now made a progress through the cities of Greece, in which he established tranquillity and good laws, encouraged them to regard each other with good will, put an end to faction, and brought back exiles, taking no less pride in acting as counsellor and mediator to the Greeks than he did in having conquered the Macedonians, so that liberty seemed to be the least of the benefits which he had bestowed on the Greeks.

It is said that when at Athens Lykurgus the orator had rescued Xenokratos the philosopher from the tax-gatherers who were taking him to prison for non-payment of the tax upon resident aliens, and had them punished for their insolent conduct towards him, Xenokrates, afterwards meeting the sons of Lykurgus, said, “My children, I am making your father an honourable return for his kindness, he has the praises of the whole people for what he did for me.”  Flamininus and the Romans, however, not only obtained the praise of the Greeks in return for the benefits which they had conferred upon them, but also gained the trust and confidence of all mankind by their noble acts.  Not only cities, but even kings who had been wronged by other kings came to them for redress, so that in a short space of time, with the assistance, no doubt, of the divine favour, all the world became subject to them.  Flamininus especially prided himself on having liberated the Greeks, and when he dedicated at Delphi silver shields and his own Roman buckler, he wrote upon them the following verses:—­

    “To you, the Twins, delighting in the chase,
    Great Zeus’s sons, of Sparta’s royal race,
    This offering gives the Roman Titus, he
    Who set the children of fair Hellas free.”

He also dedicated a golden wreath to Apollo, with the inscription—­

    “To thee, Latona’s child, this chaplet fair
       Doth Titus, leader of Rome’s army, send;
     The crown will well beseem thy glorious hair;
       Do thou the donor from all ill defend.”

Indeed it was in the city of Corinth that this favour has twice been bestowed upon the Greeks, for it was in Corinth that Titus made the proclamation of which we have spoken, and Nero again, in our own time, in nearly the same manner, during the Isthmian games, declared the Greeks free and independent, except that Titus proclaimed it by means of a herald, while Nero mounted upon a platform in the market place and made the announcement himself.  However, this took place long afterwards.