+1.+ When the time appointed arrived, Philip put to sea from Demetrias
and came into the Melian Gulf, with five galleys and one beaked
war-ship (pristis), on the latter of which he himself was sailing.
There met him the Macedonian secretaries Apollodorus and Demosthenes,
Brachylles from Boeotia, and the Achaean Cycliadas, who had been driven
from the Peloponnese for the reasons I have already described. With
Flamininus came king Amynandrus, and Dionysodorus, legate of king
Attalus. The commissioners from cities and nations were Aristaenus and
Xenophon from the Achaeans; Acesimbrotus the navarch from the Rhodians;
Phaeneas their Strategus from the Aetolians, and several others of
their statesmen with him. Approaching the sea near Nicaea, Flamininus
and those with him took their stand upon the very edge of the beach,
while Philip, bringing his ship close to shore, remained afloat. Upon
Flamininus bidding him disembark, he stood up on board and refused to
leave his ship. Flamininus again asked him what he feared, he said
that he feared no one but the gods, but he distrusted most of those
who were there, especially the Aetolians. Upon the Roman expressing
his surprise, and remarking that the danger was the same to all and
the risk common, Philip retorted that “He was mistaken in saying that:
for that, if anything happened to Phaeneas, there were many who would
act as Strategi for the Aetolians; but if Philip were to perish at the
present juncture, there was no one to be king of the Macedonians.”
Though all thought this an unconciliatory way of opening the
discussion, Flamininus nevertheless bade him speak on the matters he
had come to consider. Philip however said that “The word was not with
himself but with Flamininus; and therefore begged that he would state
clearly what he was to do in order to have peace.” The Roman consul
replied that “What he had to say was simple and obvious: it was to
bid him evacuate Greece entirely; restore the prisoners and deserters
in his hands to their several states; hand over to the Romans those
parts of Illyricum of which he had become possessed since the peace of
Epirus; and, similarly, to restore to Ptolemy all the cities which he
had taken from him since the death of Ptolemy Philopator.
[Sidenote: Demands of Attalus,]
[Sidenote: of the Rhodians,]
[Sidenote: of the Achaeans,]
[Sidenote: and of the Aetolians.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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