History of Rome

​While the war was going on between the Achaeans and the tyrant, the Roman envoys, anxious lest the Aetolians should turn the minds of some party toward Antiochus, went round the cities of the allies.

​They spent the minimum of effort in visiting the Achaeans, whom they considered to be sufficiently loyal to other matters as well, because they were hostile to Nabis.

​They went first to Athens, then to Chalcis, then into Thessaly, and after addressing the Thessalians in a crowded assembly, they turned their course to Demetrias.

​To that place an assembly of the Magnetes was summoned. A more carefully prepared speech had to be delivered there, because a part of the leading men had been alienated from the Romans and were entirely devoted to Antiochus and the Aetolians, for the reason that, ​when the news had been brought to Philip that his son, who was a hostage, was being restored and the tribute imposed on him was remitted, among other groundless rumors it had been reported that the Romans would also restore Demetrias to him.

​Lest this should happen, Eurylochus, the leader of the Magnetes, and certain men of his faction preferred that everything should be thrown into revolution by the arrival of the Aetolians and Antiochus.

​Against them it was necessary to argue in such a way that, while removing vain fear from them, the cutting off of hope might not alienate Philip, who was of more weight for all purposes than the Magnetes.

​Only those things were recalled, namely that, while the whole of Greece was indebted to the Romans for the benefit of freedom, that state was especially so:

​for there had been not only a garrison of the Macedonians, but a royal palace had been built there, so that a master had always to be kept present before their eyes;

​but that these things would be done in vain if the Aetolians should bring Antiochus into the palace of Philip, and a new and unknown king would have to be accepted instead of an old and experienced one.

​They call the supreme magistrate Magnetarches: that was then Eurylochus, and relying on that power, he declared that he and the Magnetes must not conceal the rumor which was widespread about the restoration of Demetrias to Philip;

​lest this should happen, everything must be attempted and dared by the Magnetes. And carried away rather indiscreetly in the heat of his speech, he blurted out that Demetrias was even then free only in appearance, ​but in reality everything was done at the nod of the Romans. Upon this speech there arose a murmur of the varying multitude, partly assent, partly indignation that he had dared to say such a thing; Quinctius indeed flared up with such anger that, stretching his hands to heaven, he invoked the gods as witnesses of the ungrateful and treacherous mind of the Magnetes.

​While all were terrified by this speech, Zeno, one of the leading men, of great authority both because of his elegantly conducted life and because he had always undoubtedly been of the Roman party, ​implored Quinctius and the other envoys with tears that they should not attribute the madness of one man to the state; that each man played the madman at his own risk; that the Magnetes owed not only freedom, but all things which are sacred and dear to men, to Titus Quinctius and the Roman people; that no one could pray for anything from the immortal gods ​which the Magnetes did not already possess from them, and that they would sooner rage against their own bodies in madness than violate the Roman friendship.