History of Rome

​Three envoys each were sent to Africa to the Carthaginians and to Numidia to request grain to be transported to Greece, for which the Roman people were to pay the price.

​And to such an extent was the state intent upon the preparation and care for that war, ​that the consul Publius Cornelius issued an edict that those who were senators, those who were permitted to speak their opinion in the senate, and those who were minor magistrates, none of them should depart further from the city of Rome than from where they could return on the same day, and that no more than five senators should be absent from the city of Rome at one time.

​While the praetor Gaius Livius was actively preparing the fleet, a dispute that arose with the maritime colonists detained him for a short time.

​For when they were being compelled into service in the fleet, they appealed to the tribunes of the plebs; by them they were referred back to the senate. The senate, in such a way that all to a man agreed, decreed that there was no exemption from naval service for those colonists.

​Ostia, Fregenae, Castrum Novum, Pyrgi, Antium, Tarracina, Minturnae, and Sinuessa were the places which contended with the praetor concerning the exemption.

​Then the consul Manius Acilius, in accordance with a decree of the senate, referred to the college of fetials the question whether war should indeed be declared on King Antiochus in person, or whether it was sufficient for it to be announced to some garrison of his;

​and whether they would order war to be declared on the Aetolians also separately, and whether their alliance and friendship must be renounced before war was declared.

​The fetials replied that they had already decreed before, when they were consulted about Philip, that it made no difference whether the announcement was made to him in person or to a garrison;

​that friendship was deemed to have been renounced when, though envoys demanded restitution so many times, they had judged it fair that neither restitution be made nor satisfaction given;

​the Aetolians had of their own accord declared war on them, since they had occupied Demetrias, a city of the allies, ​by force, had gone to attack Chalcis by land and sea, and had brought King Antiochus over into Europe to wage war on the Roman people.

​Now that all things were sufficiently prepared, the consul Manius Acilius issued an edict that the soldiers whom Lucius Quinctius had enlisted, and those whom he had demanded from the allies and the Latin name, who were required to go with him into the province, and the military tribunes of the first and third legions, should all assemble at Brundisium on the Ides of May.

​He himself departed from the city in general’s cloak on the fifth day before the Nones of May. During the same days, the praetors also set out for their provinces.