Flamininus spoke next. He said that Alexander was mistaken not only as to the policy of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, but as to his own particular design, and especially as to the interests of Greece.
For neither did the Romans ever after a single war at once exterminate their adversaries,
as was proved by their conduct towards Hannibal and the Carthaginians, at whose hands they had suffered injuries so grievous, but yet afterwards, when it was in their power to treat them exactly as they chose, they had not resolved on any extreme measures.
Nor, he said, had he himself ever entertained the idea that they should wage war on Philip without any hope of reconciliation; but if the king had consented to the conditions imposed on him before the battle, he would gladly have made peace with him.
"Therefore it indeed surprises me," he said, "that after taking part in the conferences for peace you are now all irreconcilable. Is it, as seems evident, because we won the battle?
But nothing can be more unfeeling. Brave men should be hard on their foes and wroth with them in battle, when conquered they should be courageous and high-minded, but when they conquer, gentle and humane. What you exhort me to do now is exactly the reverse.
Again it is in the interest of the Greeks that the Macedonian dominion should be humbled for long, but by no means that it should be destroyed."
For in that case, he said, they would very soon experience the lawless violence of the Thracians and Gauls, as they had on more than one occasion.
On the whole, he continued, he and the other Romans present judged it proper, if Philip agreed to do everything that the allies had previously demanded, to grant him peace after first consulting the Senate. As for the Aetolians, they were at liberty to take their own counsel.
When Phaeneas after this attempted to say that all that had happened was of no use, for Philip, if he could wriggle out of the present crisis, would at once begin to re-establish his power,
Flamininus interrupted him angrily and without rising from his seat, exclaiming, "Stop talking nonsense, Phaeneas; for I will so manage the peace that Philip will not, even if he wishes it, be able to wrong the Greeks."
Walbank Commentary