Description of Greece

​The Romans again sent down a man from the senate to Greece; the man’s name was Gallus, and he had been sent to be a judge for the Lacedaemonians and Argives concerning disputed land. This Gallus spoke and did many arrogant things toward the Greek nation, and held the Lacedaemonians and Argives in complete derision.

​For to cities that had reached such a high degree of dignity and had in older times been led into a no small war and such unsparing deeds for the borders of their territory, and were later judged before a common judge, Philip the son of Amyntas, Gallus himself disdained to act as judge for them, and entrusted the decision to Callicrates, a man who was the evil genius of all Greece.

​There came to Gallus also those of the Aetolians who inhabited Pleuron, wishing to obtain release from their contribution to the Achaeans. And they were permitted by Gallus to send an embassy of their own privately to the Romans, and they were permitted by the Romans to secede from the council of the Achaeans. In addition, instructions were sent to Gallus by the senate to detach as many cities as he was able from the Achaean assembly.

​He indeed was doing what had been commanded; but the people of the Athenians, more by necessity than of their own free will, plundered Oropus, which was subject to them. For the Athenians had at that time reached the extreme of poverty, inasmuch as they had been pressed hard by war under the Macedonians, more than any other Greeks. The Oropians therefore fled for refuge to the Roman senate; and since they were deemed to have suffered unjust treatment, instructions were sent by the senate to the Sicyonians to impose upon the Athenians, on behalf of the Oropians, a fine corresponding to the value of the damage they had initiated.

​The Sicyonians, accordingly, imposed a fine of five hundred talents upon the Athenians, since they did not arrive in time for the trial. But the Roman senate, upon the petition of the Athenians, remitted the rest of the fine except for a hundred talents. But the Athenians did not even pay this sum; instead, by winning over the Oropians with promises and gifts, they brought them to an agreement that an Athenian garrison should enter Oropus, and that the Athenians should take hostages from the Oropians. And if the Oropians should again have a complaint against the Athenians, the Athenians were then to withdraw the garrison from them and also return the hostages.

​Not much time indeed had elapsed between, when some men of the garrison committed injustice against the Oropians. The Oropians therefore sent to Athens to demand the hostages back and to tell them to withdraw the garrison from them according to the agreement. But the Athenians said they would do neither, for the wrongdoing was that of the men on garrison duty and not of the Athenian people; however, they promised that those who had done the deeds should stand trial.

​The Oropians, fleeing for refuge to the Achaeans, begged them to help them. But the Achaeans thought it best not to help, out of friendship and respect for the Athenians. Thereupon the Oropians promised a gift of ten talents to Menalcidas, a Lacedaemonian by birth, who was then general of the Achaeans, if he would lead the Achaeans to assist them. And he promised to share half of the money with Callicrates, who had the greatest influence among the Achaeans on account of his friendship with the Romans.

​And when Callicrates had acceded to the opinion of Menalcidas, it was decreed to defend the Oropians against the Athenians. And someone reported this to the Athenians. And they, coming to Oropus as fast as each could, and having plundered again whatever had been left behind in their former plunderings, withdrew the garrison. Since the Achaeans had arrived too late to bring help, Menalcidas and Callicrates tried to persuade them to invade Attica. But as others, and not least those from Lacedaemon, opposed them, the army retreated.