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THE LIFE

OF

TITUSQUIN CTIUS FLAMINIUS.

SUMMARY.

His character, and first campaigns. He is chosen consul, and despatched against Philip, king of Macedon: sets off expeditiously, and arrives in Epirus. First skirmishes between Philip and the Romans. He is informed by some shepherds of a way between the mountains, and defeats Philip. Many Greek states won by his mildness of character, come over to the Romans. He secures their attachment, by proposing to Philip to declare them free, which the latter refuses. He gains the Thebans to his party; is continued in the command; and offers battle to Philip, which takes place on the following day. Flaminius obtains the victory. Alcæus' epigram, and Philip's reply. Flaminius grants Philip peace: his prudence upon this occasion. He procures from the senate independence for Greece, which is proclaimed at the Isthmian games. Joy of the Greeks. Reflections upon the fate of Greece. Flaminius' care to ensure the continuance of her freedom. He causes it to be proclaimed a second time at the Nemean games. His gifts to the temple of Delphi. His proclamation compared with the subsequent one of Nero. He makes peace with Nabis, tyrant of Sparta. The Achæans present to him all the Romans then prisoners in Greece. His triumph. He is sent again into Greece, to quell the troubles excited there by Antiochus. The service he does the Greeks, and the honours which they pay him in return. His repartees. He is elected censor. Origin of his quarrel with Cato. His brother expelled by Cato from the senate. Flaminius' embassy to Prusias, to de

mand the surrender of Annibal. That general destroys himself. Different opinions with regard to Flaminius' conduct on the occasion. Reflections in his favour.

THE person whom we place in parallel with Philopomen, is Titus Quinctius Flaminius.(a) Those who are desirous of being acquainted with his countenance and figure, need but look upon the statue in brass,(b) which is erected at Rome with a Greek inscription upon it opposite the Circus Maximus, near the large statue of Apollo that was brought from Carthage. As to his disposition, he was quick both to resent an injury, and to do a service. But his resentment was not in all respects like his affection, for he punished lightly and soon forgot the offence; whereas his services were lasting and complete. For the persons, whom he had obliged, he ever retained a kind regard, as if instead of receiving they had conferred a favour; and, considering them as his greatest treasure, he was always ready to protect and to promote them.(c) Naturally covetous of honour and fame, and not choosing to let others have any share in his great and good actions, he took more pleasure in those whom he could assist, than in those who could give him assistance;(d) looking upon the former as persons who afford

a It ought to be written 'Flamininus' (according to Polybius, Livy, &c.) and not 'Flaminius.' The Flaminii, indeed, were a very different family from the Flaminini. The latter were patricians, the former plebeians. Caius Flaminius, who fell at the lake of Thrasymenus, was of the plebeian family. Besides, some MSS. have it Flamininus;' which would be sufficient authority for the correction. But, as Plutarch has elsewhere called him Flaminius (and in this he has been followed by several modern writers), it may be sufficient, once for all, to have made this remark upon the subject.

6 Either Plutarch must have made a very excessive estimate of the duration of this statue; or a very humble one of that of his own labours. For what satisfaction do his present readers reap from his reference? Or what indeed did the chief part of his compatriots and contemporaries, especially, if (as it has been usually believed) these Lives were written in Greece ?*

c Odisse quem læseris, is a trait of human character sketched by the hand of a great master, and may be referred to the natural fear of retribution. To protect those whom you have obliged' is, per. haps, connected with the pride of patronage.

d Magis dandis, quam accipiendis beneficiis amicitias parabant, is the high character given by Sallust, Bell. Cat. vi. to the primitive

ed room for the exertion of virtue, and the latter as his rivals

in glory.

From his boyhood, he was trained up to the profession of arms. For Rome having then many important wars upon her hands, her youth had early opportunities by service to qualify themselves for command. Flaminius served like the rest, and was first a legionary tribune under the consul Marcellus, (e) in the war with Annibal. Marcellus fell into an ambuscade, and was slain; after which Flaminius was appointed governor of Tarentum, then newly taken, and of the surrounding country. In this commission he grew no less famous for his administration of justice, than for his military skill; for which reason he was appointed chief director of the two colonies, which were sent to the cities of Narnia and Cossa.

This inspired him with such lofty thoughts that, overlooking the previous steps by which young men ordinarily ascend (I mean the offices of tribune,(f) prætor, and ædile) he aimed directly at the consulship. Supported by those colonists, he presented himself as a candidate. But the tribunes Fulvius and Manlius opposed him, insisting that it was an unheard of thing for a man so young, who was not yet initiated in the first rites and mysteries of government, to intrude in contempt of the laws into the highest office in the state. The senate referred the affair to the suffrages of the people; and the people elected him consul with Sextus Ælius, though he was then under thirty years of age. The lots being cast for the provinces, the war with Philip and the Macedonians fell to Flaminius: and this happened very fortunately for the Roman people; as that department required a general, who did not wish to do every thing by force and violence, but rather by gentleness and persuasion. For Macedon furnished Philip with a sufficient number of men for his wars, but Greece was his principal dependence for a war of any length. She it was that supplied him with money and provisions, with strong holds and places of retreat, and (in a word) with all the materials of war. So

Romans. He derived the expression probably from one, to whom he owes many similar obligations. Ου γαρ πάσχοντες εν, άλλα δρωντες, κτωμένα της Gus (Thucyd. ii. 40.)*

e He was appointed a tribune at the age of twenty, B. C. 207. He was consequently born B. C. 227. A. U. C. 547. Livy informs us, that he was thirty-three years of age when he proclaimed the liberty of Greece, xxxii. 33.

f Tribune, as a patrician, he could not be. But perhaps Plutarch here speaks in general of the

steps in young ambition's ladder ?**

that, unless she were disengaged from Philip, the war with him could not be decided by a single battle. Besides, the Greeks as yet had but little acquaintance with the Romans; it was now first to be established by the intercourse of business: and therefore they would not so soon have embraced a foreign authority, instead of that to which they had been accustomed, if the Roman general had not been a man of great good nature, who was more ready to avail himself of treaty than of the sword, who had a persuasive manner where he applied, was affable when applied to, and had an invariable regard to justice. But this will better appear from his actions themselves.

Titus finding that Sulpicius and Publius, (g) his predecessors in command, had not entered Macedon till late in the season, and then had not prosecuted the war with vigour, but spent their time in skirmishing to gain some particular post or pass, or to intercept some provisions, determined not to act in the same manner. They had wasted the year of their consulate in the enjoyment of their new honours, and in the administration of domestic affairs, and toward its close they repaired to their province; by which artifice they got their command continued another year, the first as consul, the second as proconsul. But Titus, ambitious to distinguish his consulship by some important expedition, left the honours and prerogatives which he had in Rome; and having requested the senate to permit his brother Lucius to command the naval forces, and selected three thousand men, as yet in full vigour and spirits, and in the glory of the field, from those troops, who under Scipio had subdued Asdrubal in Spain and Annibal in Africa, he crossed the sea and arrived safe in Epirus. There he found Publius encamped over against Philip (who had been a long time defending the fords of the river Apsus, (h) and the adjoining straits) and unable to affect any thing, on account of the natural strength of the place.

Titus having taken the command of the army, and sent Pub. lius home, began with examining the character of the country. Its natural fortifications are equal to those of Tempe, but it is not like Tempe in the beauty of the woods and groves, and

g Publius Sulpicius Galba had been consul two years before, and Publius Villius Tappulus (whom Liv. xxxii. 1. calls Publius Villius) the intermediate year.

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h Livy (xxxii. 10.) says Aous,' a river near the former, and for which, from proximity of place and resemblance of name, it might easily be mistaken. See Strabo vii. Philip's object was to prevent the Romans from penetrating into Macedon.*

the verdure of valleys and delicious meads. To the right and left there is a chain of lofty mountains, between which there is a deep and long channel. Down this runs the river Apsus, like the Peneus both in its appearance and rapidity. It covers the foot of the hills on each side, so that there is left only a narrow craggy path cut out close by the stream, which is not easy to be passed by an army at any time, and when guarded is not passable at all.

There were some, therefore, who advised Flaminius to take a compass through Dassaretis along the Lycus, (i) which was an easy passage. But he was afraid that if he removed too far from the sea into a barren and ill cultivated country, while Philip avoided a battle, he might eventually want provisions, and be constrained, like the general before him, to retreat to the sea without having effected and thing. This determined him to make his way up the mountains sword in hand, and to force a passage. But Philip's army, being possessed of the heights, showered down their darts and arrows upon the Romans from every quarter. Several sharp contests ensued, in which many were killed and wounded on both sides, but none that appeared decisive.

In the meantime, some shepoerds of those mountains came to the consul with the discovery of a winding way, neglected by the enemy, by which they promised to bring his army to the top at the farthest in three days. And as an evidence and confirmation of the truth of what they stated, they brought with them Charops the son of Machatas, prince of the Epirots, who was a friend to the Romans, and privately assisted them from fear of Philip. As Flaminius could confide in him, he sent away a tribune with four thousand foot and three hundred horse. The shepherds in bonds led the way. In the daytime they lay still in the hollows of the woods, and in the night they marched forward; for the moon was then at the full. Flaminius, having detached this party, let his main body rest the three days, and had only some slight skirmishes with the enemy to engage their attention. But the day that he expected those that had taken the circuit to appear upon the heights, he drew out his forces early, both the heavy and light-armed, and dividing them into three parts, himself led the van; marching his men along the narrowest path, by the side of the river. The Macedonians galled him with their darts, but he maintained the combat notwithstanding the disadvantage of

¿ A city, it would appear from Liv. xxxii. 33, and 9. Palmerius however would read Lyncus,' a Macedonian city, which gave its name to the province Lyncestis. See Thucyd. iv. 83, 124, 129.

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