The proudest hour of his life, save one, was when he sat in his curule chair at the Isthmian games, a spectator of the show, and heard the Roman trumpet-blast command attention, and the Roman herald make proclamation—“The Senate, and the Imperator, Titus Quinctius, having subdued King Philip and the Macedonians, give to the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Eubæans, Achæans, Pthiotians, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians, liberty, immunity from garrisons, immunity from tribute, and the right of self-government, according to their own constitutions.” At first men heard not, or hearing, believed not, for very joy, that such happiness could be; and they called upon the herald to repeat his proclamation. Then such a shout arose as rang from sea to sea across the Isthmus. The like of it was never heard before or afterward in Greece. And what has often been said hyperbolically, to lend grandeur to descriptions of the human voice, was then actually seen to happen;[18] for crows winging their way over the amphitheatre fell into the arena, stunned by the concussion of the air. As one man, the whole theatre stood up. There was no more talk of the combatants. Every one spoke of Flamininus, every one would touch the hand of the champion, the liberator of Greece. I said the proudest day of his life, save one. For he had one prouder. Two years longer he tarried among the Greeks, as commissioner to see the treaties carried out; and for a short time he fell into odium with the people he had liberated, for that, when he was warring against Nabis, the cruel tyrant and usurper of Lacedæmon, and might have dethroned him, he made peace, and suffered him to retain his blood-bought dominion. Some were so base as to attribute this to jealousy of Philipœmen. His own statement, and our knowledge of his character bears out that statement, asserts that he could not destroy Nabis, without destroying Sparta, and that in preference to destroying Sparta, he suffered Nabis to go free. But when he left the shores of Hellas, after interceding twenty times, and mediating successfully between the Greeks and his successors, the Ætolians much desired to make him some great gift, that should prove their great love and veneration. But the known integrity of the man deterred them; for it was notorious that he would receive naught that savored of a bribe. At last they bethought them. There were in Greece twelve hundred Roman citizens, who had been captives to Hannibal, and by him sold as slaves. Their sad case had of late been sadly aggravated, as slaves themselves and bondmen, they all saw their countrymen, many their kinsmen, some their brethren or their sons, free, conquerors, and hailed as saviors of the land, to which they were enslaved.