Unrest in Aetolia.--Neither the Boii nor the Spaniards, however, with whom Rome had been warring that year, were such bitter enemies as the Aetolians. After the Roman armies had evacuated Greece they expected that Antiochus would take possession of that part of Europe vacated, and that neither Philip nor Nabis would remain inactive. When they saw no movement anywhere they decided that to prevent their designs from being thwarted by delay they must do something to produce agitation and confusion, and accordingly a council was convened at Naupactus. Here Thoas, their chief magistrate, complained of their unjust treatment by the Romans and the position in which the Aetolians were Alaced. for after a victorv which was won through them. tnev. of an the atates ana cities in ureece. nau been snown the least consideration. He advised that envoys should be sent to each of the three kings to find out their intentions and to urge such arguments on each as would goad them into a war with Rome. Democritus was sent to Nabis, Nicander to Philip, and Dicaearchus, the brother of Thoas, to Antiochus. Democritus pointed out to the tyrant that by the loss of his maritime cities the very sinews of his power were cut;it was from them that he drew his soldiers, his ships and his crews. Little more than a prisoner within his own walls, he saw the Achaeans lording it over the Peloponnese;he would never have another opportunity of winning back his dominion if he let this one go by;there was no Roman army in Greece, and they would never think it worth their while to send their legions back again for the sake of Gytheum and the other Laconian cities on the coast. Such were the arguments used to influence the tyrant, so that when Antiochus landed in Greece the consciousness of having broken his amity with Rome through his ill-treatment of her allies might force him to join arms with the Syrian monarch. Nicander took much the same line in his interview with Philip. He spoke with all the greater force because the king had been brought down from a loftier position than the tyrant and had lost more of his power. He reminded the king of the former prestige of Macedonia and the world-wide victories of his nation. Nicander assured him that the policy recommended was a safe one both in its initiation and its execution. On the one hand he was not asking Philip to take any action before Antiochus was in Greece with his army, on the other there was every prospect of final success. With what possible force could the Romans hold their own against him when leagued with Antiochus and the Aetolians after he had, without the help of Antibchus, maintained such a protracted struggle against the Romans and against the Aetolians, who were at the time a more formidable enemy than the Romans?He also spoke about Hannibal as a foe to Rome from his birth, who had slain more of her generals and soldiers than still survived. Such were the arguments employed with Philip. Those advanced by Dicaearchus in his interview with Antiochus were different. The spoils of war, he said, won from Philip belonged to the Romans, but the victory over him to the Aetolians;they and they alone had granted the Romans an entrance into Greece and provided them with the strength which secured victory. He went on to enumerate the amount of infantry and cavalry which they were prepared to furnish to Antiochus, the localities which would be available for his land army and the harbours which could receive his fleet. Then, as Philip and Nabis were not present to check him, he falsely represented them as prepared for immediate hostilities and ready to seize the very first opportunity of recovering what they had lost in war. In this way the Aetolians tried to stir up war against Rome throughout the world.