To the insolence of this decree, their praetor, Damocritus, added a personal affront: for on Quinctius asking him for a copy of the decree, without any respect to the dignity of the person to whom he spoke, he told him, that "he had, at present, more pressing business to despatch; but he would shortly give him the decree, and an answer, in Italy, from his camp on the banks of the Tiber." Such was the degree of madness which possessed, at that time, both the nation of the Aetolians and their magistrates.
34.

Quinctius and the ambassadors returned to Corinth.

The Aetolians, that they might appear to intend taking every step through Antiochus, and none directly of themselves, and, sitting inactive, to be waiting for the arrival of the king, though they did not, after the departure of the Romans, hold a council of the whole nation, yet endeavoured, by their Apocleti, (a more confidential council, composed of persons selected from the rest,) to devise schemes for setting Greece in commotion.

It was well known to them all, that in the several states the principal people, particularly those of the best characters, were disposed to maintain the Roman alliance, and well pleased with the present state of affairs; but that the populace, and especially such as were not content with their position, wished for a general revolution.

The Aetolians, at one day's sitting, formed a scheme, the very conception of which argued not only boldness, but impudence,--that of making themselves masters of Demetrias, Chalcis, and Lacedaemon.