He encamped on the frontier of Aetolia and the following day appeared before Stratus. [2] Forming his camp near the Inachus, he waited in the expectation that the Aetolians would come in crowds from all the gates and make terms with him. He found the gates shut, and on the very night of his arrival a Roman detachment under C. Popilius had been admitted within the city. [3] As long as Archidamus was in the city he had sufficient influence to compel the aristocratical party to invite the king, but after he had left to meet him, they showed less activity and gave the opposite party an opportunity of calling in Popilius from Ambracia with 1000 infantry. Dinarchus, too, the commandant of the Aetolian cavalry, came in just at the right moment with 600 infantry and 100 cavalry. [4] It was clear that he had gone to Stratus with the intention of supporting Perseus and then changing his mind with the change of circumstances joined the Romans whom he had come to oppose. [5] Surrounded by such fickle people, Popilius neglected no proper precaution. [6] He at once took into his own hands the keys of the gates and the defence of the walls; he removed Dinarchus and his Aetolians and also the fighting force of Stratus into the citadel ostensibly to defend it. [7] Perseus attempted to hold conversations from the hills which looked down on the upper part of the city, but when he found that their [8??] determination was unshaken, and that they even prevented his nearer approach by hurling missiles at him, he withdrew to a spot five miles from the city on the side of the River Petitarus where he fixed his camp. Here he held a council of war. [9] Archidamus and the Epirot refugees were for his staying there, but the Macedonian leaders gave it as their opinion that he ought not to fight against the inclemency of the season, with no reserve of supplies, for the besiegers would suffer from the effects of scarcity sooner than the besieged. [10] What alarmed Perseus most was that the enemy's winter quarters were not far away, and he shifted his camp to Aperantia. [11] Archidamus had great weight and influence with that nation and Perseus's presence among them was universally welcomed. Archidamus himself was appointed their governor and furnished with a force of 800 men.
