Whereupon Quinctius, not unacquainted with this tendency of their feelings, freely acknowledged, that "if the business could have been accomplished without the entire destruction of Lacedaemon, no mention of peace with the tyrant ought ever to have been listened to; but that, when it was not possible to crush him otherwise than by the utter ruin of this most important city, it was judged more eligible to leave the tyrant in a state of debility, stripped of almost every kind of power to do injury to any, than to suffer the city, which must have perished in the very process of its delivery being effectuated, to sink under remedies too violent for it to support." 49.

To the recital of matters past, he subjoined, that "his intention was to depart shortly for Italy, and to carry with him all his troops; that they should hear, within ten days, of the garrisons having evacuated Demetrias; and that Chalcis, the citadel of Corinth, should be before their own eyes evacuated to the Achaeans: that all the world might know whose habit it was to deceive, that of the Romans or the Aetolians, who had spread insinuations, that the cause of liberty had been unwisely intrusted to the Romans, and that they had only received as their masters the Romans in exchange for the Macedonians.

But they were men who never scrupled what they either said or did.

The rest of the nations he advised to form their estimate of friends from deeds, not from words; and to satisfy themselves whom they ought to trust, and against whom they ought to be on their guard; to use their liberty with moderation: for, when regulated by prudence, it was productive of happiness both to individuals and to states; but, when pushed to excess, it became not only obnoxious to others, but to the possessors of it themselves an unbridled and headstrong impulse.

He recommended, that those at the head of affairs, and all the several ranks of men in each particular state, should cultivate harmony between themselves; and that all should direct their views to the general interest of the whole.