They had fled to Chalcis; and thence they proceeded to Larissa, to the Romans, and threw on Ismenias alone the blame of the alliance concluded with Perseus, asserting that the contest originated in a party dispute; yet ambassadors from both sides waited on the Romans, as did the exiles, accusers of Ismenias, and Ismenias himself. 44. When they were all arrived at Chalcis, the chiefs of the other states, each by a particular decree of their own, renounced the alliance of Perseus, and joined themselves to the Romans, a circumstance which gave very great pleasure to the latter. Ismenias recommended, that the Bœotian nation should be placed under the orders of Rome; on which so violent a dispute arose, that, if he had not fled for shelter to the tribunal of the ambassadors, he would not have been far from losing his life by the hands of the exiles and their abettors. Thebes itself, the capital of Bœotia, was in a violent ferment, one party struggling hard to bring the state over to the king, the other to the Romans; and multitudes had come together, from Coronæ and Haliartus, to support the decree in favour of Perseus. But by the firmness of the chiefs, (who desired them to judge, from the defeats of Philip and Antiochus, how great must be the power and fortune of the Roman empire,) the same multitude was overcome, and not only resolved that the alliance with the king should be cancelled, but also, to gratify the ambassadors, sent the promoters of that alliance to Chalcis; and ordered, that the state should be recommended to the protection of the Romans. Marcius and Atilius heard the Thebans with joy, and advised both them and each state separately to send ambassadors to Rome to renew the treaty. They required, above all things, that the exiles should be restored; and condemned by their own decree the advisers of the treaty with the king. Having thus disunited the members of the Bœotian council, which was their grand object, they proceeded to Peloponnesus, after summoning Servius Cornelius to Chalcis. An assembly was summoned to meet them at Argos, where they demanded nothing more from the Achæans, than the furnishing of one thousand soldiers, which were sent as a garrison to defend Chalcis until a Roman army should come into Greece.