be continued in the command; a point which he had charged his friends and relations to labour for with all their might.  But he thought that a conference would answer this purpose; that it would put it in his power to give matters a turn towards war, in case he remained in the province, or towards peace, if he were to be removed.  They chose for the meeting a part of the sea-shore, in the Malian gulf, near Nicaea.  Thither Philip came from Demetrias, with five barks and one ship of war:  he was accompanied by some principal Macedonians, and an Achaean exile, name Cycliades, a man of considerable note.  With the Roman general, were king Amynander, Dionysidorus, ambassador from king Attalus, Agesimbrotus, commander of the Rhodian fleet, Phaeneas, praetor of the Aetolians, and two Achaeans, Aristaenus and Xenophon.  Attended by these, the Roman general advanced to the brink of the shore, when the king had come forward to the prow of his vessel, as it lay at anchor; and said, “If you will come on the shore, we shall mutually speak and hear with more convenience.”  This the king refused; and on Quinctius asking him, “Whom do you fear?” With the haughty spirit of royalty, he replied, “Fear I have none, but of the immortal gods; but I have no confidence in the faith of those whom I see about you, and least of all in the Aetolians.”  “That danger,” said the Roman, “is equal to all in common who confer with an enemy, if no confidence subsists.”  “But, Titus Quinctius,” replied the king, “if treachery be intended, the prizes of perfidy are not equal, namely, Philip and Phaeneas.  For it will not be so difficult for the Aetolians to find another praetor, as for the Macedonians to find another king in my place.”—­Silence then ensued.

33.  The Roman expected that he who solicited the conference should open it; and the king thought that he who was to prescribe, not he who received, terms of peace, ought to begin the conference.  At length the Roman said, that “his discourse should be very simple; for he would only mention those articles, without which there could be no conditions of peace.  These were, that the king should withdraw his garrisons from all the cities of Greece.  That he should deliver up to the allies of the Roman people the prisoners and deserters; should restore to the Romans those places in Illyricum of which he had possessed himself by force, since the peace concluded in Epirus; and to Ptolemy, king of Egypt, the cities which he had seized since the death of Ptolemy Philopater.”  These were the terms which he required, on behalf of himself and the Roman people:  but it was proper that the demands of the allies, also, should be heard.  The ambassador of king Attalus demanded “restitution of the ships and prisoners taken in the sea-fight at Cius; and that Nicephorium, and the temple of Venus, which Philip had pillaged and defaced, should be restored as though they had not been injured.”  The Rhodians laid claim to Peraea, a tract on the continent,