8.
Such, nearly, was the counsel given by Hannibal, which the hearers rather commended at the time, than actually executed. For not one article of it was carried into effect, except the sending Polyxenidas to bring over the fleet and army from Asia. Ambassadors were sent to Larissa, to the diet of the Thessalians.
[2]
The Aetolians and Amynander appointed a day for the assembling of their troops at Pherae, and the king with his forces came thither immediately.
[3]
While he waited there for Amynander and the Aetolians, he sent Philip, the Megalopolitan, with two thousand men, to collect the bones of the Macedonians round Cynoscephalae, where the final battle had been fought with king Philip;
[4]
being advised to this, either in order to gain favour with the Macedonians and draw their displeasure on the king for having left his soldiers unburied, or having of himself, through the spirit of vain-glory incident to kings, conceived such a design, —splendid indeed in appearance, but really insignificant. There is a mount there formed of the bones which had been scattered about, and were then collected into one heap.
[5]
Although this step procured him no thanks from the Macedonians, yet it excited the heaviest displeasure of Philip;
[6]
in consequence of which, he who had hitherto intended to regulate his counsels by the fortune of events, now sent instantly a message to the propraetor, Marcus Baebius, that “Antiochus had made an irruption into Thessaly; that, if he thought proper, he should move out of his winter quarters, and that he himself would advance to meet him, that they might consider together what was proper to be done.”
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