The new Strategus, elected in the autumn of B.C. 147, was Critolaus. He was a bitter anti-Romanist like Diaeus: and these statesmen and their party fancied that the Romans, having already two wars on hand, at Carthage and in Spain, would make any sacrifice to keep peace with Achaia. They had not indeed openly declined the demands of Sextus, but, to use Polybius’s expressive phrase, “they accepted with the left hand what the Romans offered with the right.”[45] While pretending to be preparing to submit their case to the Senate, they were collecting an army from the cities of the league. Inspired with an inexplicable infatuation, which does not deserve the name of courage, Critolaus even advanced northwards towards Thermopylae, as if he could with his petty force bar the road to the Romans and free Greece. He was encouraged, it was said, by a party at Thebes which had suffered from Rome for its Macedonising policy. But, rash as the march was, it was managed with at least equal imprudence. Instead of occupying Thermopylae, they stopped short of it to besiege Trachinian Heracleia, an old Spartan colony,[46] which refused to join the league. While engaged in this, Critolaus heard that Metellus (who wished to anticipate his successor Mummius) was on the march from Macedonia. He beat a hasty retreat to Scarpheia in Locris,[47] which was on the road leading to Elateia and the south; here he was overtaken and defeated with considerable slaughter. Critolaus appears not to have fallen on the field; but he was never seen again. He was either lost in some marshes over which he attempted to escape, as Pausanias suggests, or poisoned himself, as Livy says. Diaeus, as his predecessor, became Strategus, and was elected for the following year also. Diaeus exerted himself to collect troops for the defence of Corinth, nominally as being at war with Sparta. He succeeded in getting as many as fourteen thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry, consisting partly of citizens and partly of slaves; and sent four thousand picked men under Alcamenes to hold Megara, while he himself occupied Corinth. When Metellus approached, however, this outpost at Megara hastily retreated into Corinth. Metellus took up his position in the Isthmus, and offered the Achaeans the fairest terms. Diaeus, however, induced them to reject all offers; and Metellus was kept some time encamped before Corinth. [Sidenote: B.C. 146. Arrival of Mummius.]