6. However, the wall was broken down in many places, when word was brought, that his successor, having landed his army at Apollonia, was coming through Epirus and Thessaly. The consul came with thirteen thousand foot and five hundred horse. He had already arrived at the Malian bay; and after that, to his messengers sent forward to Hypata, to order a surrender of the city, this response was given, that they would do nothing except by the common consent of the Ætolians: that the siege of Hypata might not detain him while Amphissa was not yet recovered, having sent forward his brother Africanus, he leads his forces to Amphissa. A little before their arrival, the towns-people having abandoned the city, for it was now, for the most part, stripped of its walls; all, armed and unarmed, retired into the citadel, which they deemed an impregnable fortress. The consul pitched his camp at the distance of about six miles from the town; and thither came ambassadors from the Athenians, addressing, first, Publius Scipio, who preceded the main body as before mentioned, and afterwards the consul, with earnest supplications in favour of the Ætolians. They received a milder answer from Africanus, who, wishing for an honourable pretext for relinquishing the Ætolian war, was directing his views towards Asia and king Antiochus, and had recommended to the Athenians to persuade, not only the Romans, but the Ætolians likewise, to prefer peace to war. By the advice of the Athenians a numerous embassy of the Ætolians came speedily from Hypata, and the discourse of Africanus, whom they addressed first, augmented their hopes of peace; for he mentioned, that “many nations and states, first in Spain, and afterwards in Africa, had thrown themselves on his protection; and that, in all of them, he had left greater monuments of clemency and kindness than of military prowess.” The business seemed to be concluded, when the consul, on being applied to, repeated the very same answer with which they had been driven off by the senate. When the Ætolians were thunder-struck at this, as if they had never heard it before, (for they now perceived that no progress was made either from the Athenian embassy or the favourable reply of Africanus,) they said that they wished to consult their countrymen on the affair.