Such was the distribution of the provinces. Before the consuls left the City they were required, in accordance with a decree of the pontiffs, to proclaim a Sacred Spring. [2] This was in fulfilment of a vow made by the praetor A. Cornelius Mammula at the desire of the senate and by order of the people twenty-one years previously in the consulship of Cn. Servilius and C. Flaminius. [3] C. Claudius Pulcher, the son of Appius, was at the same time appointed augur in place of Q. Fabius Maximus, who had died the year before. [4] Whilst general surprise was felt that nothing was being done about the war which had broken out in Spain, a despatch arrived from Q. Minucius announcing that he had successfully engaged the Spanish generals Budar and Baesadines, and that the enemy had lost 12,000 men, Budar being made prisoner and the rest routed and put to flight. When the despatch was read less apprehension was felt about the two Spains, where a very serious war had been anticipated. [5] The general anxiety now centered on Antiochus, especially after the return of the ten commissioners. After giving their report on the negotiations with Philip and the terms on which peace had been made with him, they made it evident that a war on at least as great a scale with Antiochus was imminent. [6] He had, so they informed the senate, landed in Europe with an enormous fleet and a splendid army, and if his attention had not been diverted by a groundless hope based upon a still more groundless rumour, to the invasion of Egypt, Greece would very soon have been in the blaze of war. [7] Even the Aetolians, a nation naturally restless and now intensely embittered against the Romans, would no longer remain quiet. [8] And there was another most formidable mischief with its roots in the very vitals of Greece-Nabis, who was for the time being tyrant of Lacedaemon, but who if he were allowed would soon become tyrant of the whole of Greece, a man who in greed and brutality rivalled the most notorious tyrants in history. [9] If, after the Roman armies had been carried back to Italy, he were allowed to hold Argos as a stronghold threatening the whole of the Peloponnese, the deliverance of Greece from Philip would have been effected in vain; in any case instead of a distant monarch as their lord they would have a tyrant at their doors.
