Almost before the opening of the spring both leaders were on the alert, and active in preparation; partly by stratagem and the insinuation of a menace, if not its reality, partly by persuasion, Flamininus had the address to bring over the Bœotians, as he had already brought over the Achæans, to the Roman alliance; and thenceforth, every thing in his rear being secure and friendly, he had nothing to do but to look forward and bend up all his energies and powers to the destruction of the enemy before him. To this end he was well provided; for when his command was continued to him, five thousand infantry, three hundred horse, and three thousand mariners of the Latin allies, were voted him as a reinforcement to his late victorious army. With these admirable troops, then, he broke up from Elatia, his last conquest, about the vernal equinox, and marching north-westerly by the great road through Thronium and Scarphea, on the gulf of Tituni, arrived at Thermopylæ, where by a preconcerted plan he met the Ætolians in council, and three days afterward, encamping at Xynias in Thessaly, received their contingent of six hundred foot and four hundred horse, under Phæneas their chief-magistrate. Moving forward at once with the celerity and decision which mark all his operations, his force was augmented by five hundred Cretans of Gortyna, under Cydas, and three hundred Illyrians of Apollonia, all light infantry skilled with the bow and sling; and a few days afterward he was joined by Amynander with twelve hundred Athamanians, completing the muster of the allies. Philip meanwhile was laboring under the sore disadvantage which is sure to afflict, and in the end overthrow, all nations which engage in long careers of conquest. Incessant wars, since the days of Alexander, had worn out the manhood of Macedonia. His own wars had consumed the flower of the adults, and those who remained were the sons of mere youths or of octogenarians, begotten while the men of Macedonia were fattening foreign fields with priceless gore. As in the last campaigns of Napoleon, Philip’s conscriptions of this year included all the youth of sixteen years, while they recalled to the standard all the discharged veterans who had yet power to trail a pike. So certainly in all ages will the like causes produce the like effects.