HKB
[Sidenote: B.C. 190. Embassy from Sparta, and the answer of the Roman Senate.]
+1.+ At this time also it happened that the embassy, which the Lacedaemonians had sent to Rome, returned disappointed. The subject of their mission was the hostages and the villages. As to the villages the Senate answered that they would give instructions to envoys sent by themselves; and as to the hostages they desired to consider further. But as to the exiles of past times, they said that they wondered why they were not recalled, now that Sparta had been freed from her tyrants....
+2.+ At the same period the Senate dealt with the ambassadors from Philip. They had come to set forth the loyalty and zeal of the king, which he had shown to the Romans in the war against Antiochus. On hearing what the envoys had to say, the Senate released the king’s son Demetrius from his position as hostage at once, and promised that they would also remit part of the yearly indemnity, if he kept faith with Rome in future. The Senate likewise released the Lacedaemonian hostages, except Armenas, son of Nabis; who subsequently fell ill and died....
[Sidenote: Supplicatio for the victory off Phocaea.]
[Sidenote: Answer to the Aetolian Envoys sent, on the intercession of Flamininus, when Acilius was about to take Naupactus. Livy, 36, 34-35; 37, 1.]
+3.+ Directly the news of the victory at sea reached Rome, the Senate first decreed a public supplicatio for nine days,—which means a public and universal holiday, accompanied by the sacrifice of thank-offerings to the gods for the happy success,—and next gave audience to the envoys from Aetolia and Manius Acilius. When both parties had pleaded their cause at some length, the Senate decreed to offer the Aetolians the alternative of committing their cause unconditionally to the arbitration of the Senate, or of paying a thousand talents down and making an offensive and defensive alliance with Rome. But on the Aetolians desiring the Senate to state definitely on what points they were to submit to such arbitration, the Senate refused to define them. Accordingly the war with the Aetolians went on....
[Sidenote: Spring of B.C. 190. Coss. L. Cornelius Scipio, C. Laelius.]
[Sidenote: P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus in Greece as legatus to his brother Lucius. (March.)]
[Sidenote: Aetolian envoys visit the consuls.]