of the Roman was disregarded.  Thoas, and others of the same faction, were then heard with general approbation; and they prevailed so far, that, without adjourning the meeting, or waiting for the absence of the Romans, a decree was passed that Antiochus should be invited to vindicate the liberty of Greece, and decide the dispute between the Aetolians and the Romans.  To the insolence of this decree, their praetor, Damocritus, added a personal affront:  for on Quinctius asking him for a copy of the decree, without any respect to the dignity of the person to whom he spoke, he told him, that “he had, at present, more pressing business to despatch; but he would shortly give him the decree, and an answer, in Italy, from his camp on the banks of the Tiber.”  Such was the degree of madness which possessed, at that time, both the nation of the Aetolians and their magistrates.

34.  Quinctius and the ambassadors returned to Corinth.  The Aetolians, that they might appear to intend taking every step through Antiochus, and none directly of themselves, and, sitting inactive, to be waiting for the arrival of the king, though they did not, after the departure of the Romans, hold a council of the whole nation, yet endeavoured, by their Apocleti, (a more confidential council, composed of persons selected from the rest,) to devise schemes for setting Greece in commotion.  It was well known to them all, that in the several states the principal people, particularly those of the best characters, were disposed to maintain the Roman alliance, and well pleased with the present state of affairs; but that the populace, and especially such as were not content with their position, wished for a general revolution.  The Aetolians, at one day’s sitting, formed a scheme, the very conception of which argued not only boldness, but impudence,—­that of making themselves masters of Demetrias, Chalcis, and Lacedaemon.  One of their principal men was sent to each of these places; Thoas to Chalcis, Alexamenus to Lacedaemon, Diodes to Demetrias.  This last was assisted by the exile Eurylochus, whose flight, and the cause of it, have been mentioned above, because there was no other prospect of his restoration to his country.  Eurylochus, by letter, instructed his friends and relations, and those of his own faction, to order his wife and children to assume a mourning dress:  and, holding the badges of supplicants, to go into a full assembly, and to beseech each individual, and the whole body, not to suffer a man, who was innocent and uncondemned, to grow old in exile.  The simple-minded were moved by compassion; the ill-disposed and seditious, by the hope of seeing all things thrown into confusion, in consequence of the tumults which the Aetolians would excite; and every one voted for his being recalled.  These preparatory measures being effected, Diocles, at that time general of the horse, with all the cavalry, set out under pretext of escorting to his home the exile, who was his guest.  Having, during that