This bred at first hard words, quarrels, and misunderstandings betwixt them. But, afterwards, they galled Titus more by ascribing the victory to themselves, and prepossessing the Greeks with reports to that effect; insomuch that poets, and people in general in the songs that were sung or written in honour of the action, still ranked the Aetolians foremost. One of the pieces most current was the following epigram:-"Naked and tombless see, O passer-by, The thirty thousand men of Thessaly, Slain by the Aetolians and the Latin band, That came with Titus from Italia's land;Alas for mighty Macedon! that day, Swift as a roe, King Philip fled away."This was composed by Alcaeus in mockery of Philip, exaggerating the number of the slain. However, being everywhere repeated, and by almost everybody, Titus was more nettled at it than Philip. The latter merely retorted upon Alcaeus with some elegiac verses of his own:-"Naked and leafless see, O passer-by, The cross that shall Alcaeus crucify."But such little matters extremely fretted Titus, who was ambitious of a reputation among the Greeks; and he therefore acted in all after-occurrences by himself, paying but very slight regard to the Aetolians. This offended them in their turn; and when Titus listened to terms of accommodation, and admitted an embassy upon the proffers of the Macedonian king, the Aetolians made it their business to publish through all the cities of Greece, that this was the conclusion of all; that he was selling Philip a peace at a time when it was in his hand to destroy the very roots of the war, and to overthrow the power which had first inflicted servitude upon Greece. But whilst with these and the like rumours the Aetolians laboured to shake the Roman confederates, Philip, ****** overtures of submission of himself and his kingdom to the discretion of Titus and the Romans, put an end to those jealousies, as Titus, by accepting them, did to the war. For he reinstated Philip in his kingdom of Macedon, but made it a condition that he should quit Greece, and that he should pay one thousand talents; he took from him also all his shipping, save ten vessels and sent away Demetrius, one of his sons, hostage to Rome;improving his opportunity to the best advantage, and taking wise precautions for the future. For Hannibal the African, a professed enemy to the Roman name, an exile from his own country, and not long since arrived at King Antiochus's court, was already stimulating that prince, not to be wanting to the good fortune that had been hitherto so propitious to his affairs; the magnitude of his successes having gained him the surname of the Great. He had begun to level his aim at universal monarchy, but above all he was eager to measure himself with the Romans. Had not, therefore, Titus, upon a principle of prudence and foresight, lent an ear to peace, and had Antiochus found the Romans still at war in Greece with Philip, and had these two, the most powerful and warlike princes of that age, confederated for their common interests against the Roman state, Rome might once more have run no less a risk, and been reduced to no less extremities, than she had experienced under Hannibal. But now, Titus opportunely introducing this peace between the wars, despatching the present danger before the new one had arrived, at once disappointed Antiochus of his first hopes and Philip of his last.
