Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/180

Rh 166 FLAMININUS. donia to join the Romans in the impending war. The intrigues of the Aetolians, on the other hand, alienated several important places from the cause of Rome. The arrival of Antiochus in Greece in- creased their number. Flamininus attended the congress at Aegium, at which Syrian and Aetolian deputies likew^ise appeared. The Aetolians, as usual, indulged in bitter invectives against the Romans, and in personal attacks on Flamininus, and they demanded that the Achaeans should re- main neutral ; but Flamininus, now joined by Phi- lopoemen, opposed this advice, and the Achaeans themselves, who had too much to win or to lose, could not have looked with indifference at what was going on. Most of the allies remained faithful to Rome ; and, at the request of Fla- mininus, troops were immediately sent to Peiraeeus and Chalcis to suppress the Syrian party in those places. In the mean time, the war with Antiochus ended in Europe, in the battle of Thermopylae, B.C. 191. Flamininus still remained in Greece, in the capacity of ambassador plenipotentiary, and exercising a sort of protectorate over Greece. After the departure of Antiochus, the consul, Acilius Glabrio, wanted to chastise Chalcis for the homage it had paid to the foreign invader, but Flamininus interfered : he soothed the anger of the consul, and saved the place. The war against the Aetolians now commenced ; aud there again Fla- mininus used his influence in protecting the weaker party, although it is more than doubtful whether, on that occasion, he acted from a pure feeling of humanity or from ostentation. While the consul was besieging Naupactus, Flamininus came from Peloponnesus into the Roman camp ; and as soon as the Aetolians saw him, ihej implored his pro- tection. He shed tears of compassion, and induced the consul to raise the siege. Anxious not to share his protectorate in Greece with any one else, he directed the consul's attention to the increasing power of Macedonia. About this time insurrec- tions broke out in several parts of Peloponnesus ; and Flamininus agreed with the strategus of the Achaeans to march against Sparta : he himself ac- companied the Achaeans into Laconia. But Phi- lopoemen succeeded in restoring peace without any severe measures. The Messenians refused to join the Achaean league ; and when the strategus ad- vanced with an army against Messene, Fla- mininus, who was then staying at Chalcis, has- tened into Messenia, whither he was invited by the people. He again acted as mediator ; he made the Messenians join the Achaeans, but left them the means of defying their decrees. At the same time, he obliged the Achaeans to give up to Rome the island of Zacynthus, which they had purchased, saying, that it was best for the Achaean state to be compact, and limited to Peloponnesus. This opinion was true enough, but the Romans took care to sow the seeds of discord in Peloponnesus, or at least to keep them alive where they existed. In B. c. 190 Flamininus returned to Rome, and was appointed censor for the year following with M. Claudius Marcellus. In b. c. 183 he was sent as ambassador to Prusias of Bithynia, who, afraid of what he had done to offend' the Romans, offered to deliver up Hannibal, who had taken refuge with him. But Hannibal pre- vented the treachery by taking poison. The fact of Flamininus allowing himself to be made an FLAMINIUS. accomplice in this attempt upon Hannibal is a stain on his character, and was severely censured by many of his contemporaries. He seems to have died either during or shortly before b. c. 174, for in that year his son celebrated funeral games in his honour. (Plutarch, Flamininus ; Liv. xxxi. 4, 49, xxxii. 7, &c., xxxiii., xxxiv. 22, &c., xxxv. 23, &c., xxxvi. 31, &c., xxxvii. 58, xxxviii. 28, xxxix. 51, 56 ; Polyb. xvii. 1, &c., xviii. 1, &c., xxii. 15, xxiii. 2, xxiv. 3, &c.; Diod. Ejcerpt de Legal, iii. p. 619 ; Eutrop. iv. 1, &c.; Flor. ii. 7 ; Paus. vii. 8 ; Appian, Mac. iv. 2, vi. vii. Syr. 2, 11 ; Cic. Phil. V. 17, De Senect. 1, 12, inVerr. iv. 58, i. 21, jDro Muren. 14, in Pison. 25, de Leg, Agr. i. 2 ; Schorn, GescJi. Griechenlands, p. 237, &c.; Thirlwall, Hist, of Greece., vol. viii. ; Nie- buhr. Led. on Rom. Hist. vol. i. p. 232, &c., ed. L. Schmitz ; Brandstater, Die Gesch. des Aetol. Landes, p. 413, &c.) 5. C. QuiNTius Flamininus, praetor peregri- nus in b. c. 177. (Liv. xli. 12.) 6. T. QuiNTius Flamininus, a son of No. 4, exhibited, in b. c. 174, splendid gladiatorial games, and feasted the people for four days, in honour of his father, who had died shortly before. In b. c. 167, he was one of the three ambassadors who led back the Thracian hostages, which Cotys, the Thracian king, had offered to ransom. In the same year he was elected augur, in the place of C. Clau- dius, who had died. (Liv. xli. 43, xlv. 42, 44.) 7. T. QuiNTius Flamininus was consul in b. c. 150, with M Acilius Balbus. Cicero places his dialogue " Cato," or " De Senectute," in this year, when Cato was 84 years old. In the con- sulship of T. Flamininus a temple of Pietas was erected, on the spot of a prison in which a daugh- ter had given a remarkable example of piety towards her mother. The same site was subse- quently occupied by the theatre of Marcellus. (Cic. de Senect. 5, ad Ait. xii. 5 ; Plin. H.N. vii. 36.) 8. T. QuiNTius Flamininus was consul in b. c. 123, with Q. Metellus Balearicus. Cicero, who had seen and heard him in his early youth, says that he spoke Latin with elegance, but that he was an illiterate man. In his consulship Car- thage became a Roman colony ; though Livy and Plutarch place this restoration of Carthage in the year following, that is, in the second tribuneship of C. Gracchus. (Cic. £?-ut. 28, 74, p7-o Dam. 53 ; Eutrop. iv. 20 ; Ores. v. 12.) [L. S.] FLAMI'NIUS. 1. C. Flaminius, according to the Capitoline fasti, the son of one C. Flaminius, who is otherwise unknown, was tribune of the people in b. c. 232 ; and, notwithstanding the most violent opposition of the senate and the optimates, he carried an agrarian law, ordaining that the Ager Gallicus Picenus^ which had recently been con- quered, should be distributed viritim among all the plebeians. According to Cicero (de Senect. 4) the tribuneship of Flaminius and his agrarian law belong to the consulship of Sp. Carvilius and Q. Fabius Maximus, i. e. B. c. 228, or four years later than the time stated by Polybius. (ii. 21.) But Cicero's statement is improbable, for we know that in B. c. 227 C. Flaminius was praetor ; and the aristocratic party, which he had irreconcilably offended by his agrai'ian law, would surely never have suffered him to be elected praetor the very year after his tribuneship. Cicero therefore is either mistaken, or we must have recourse to the