While these proceedings were taking place in Thebes, the exiles in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Chalcis&groupId=457&placeId=853">Chalcis</a> appointed Pompides as their representative to accuse Ismenias, Neon, and Dicetas.
As the offence of all three was clearly proved, and the Romans lent their support to the exiles,
Hippias and his friends were in the last stage of distress, and their lives even were in danger from the violence of the populace, until the Romans took some slight thought for their safety, and put restraint on the hostility of the mob.
When the Thebans appeared, bearers of the decrees I mentioned announcing the honours conferred, the reaction in all matters was swift to spread, the cities lying all quite close to each other.
Marcius and his colleagues on receiving the Thebans thanked the city, and advised them to bring home the exiles, ordering all the representatives of the towns to repair at once to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> and separately announce the submission of each several city.
When all fell out as they desired — their object being to break up the Boeotian League and damage the popularity of the House of Macedon —
the legates, sending for Servius Cornelius Lentulus from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a>, left him at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Chalcis&groupId=457&placeId=853">Chalcis</a> and went on to the Peloponnesus, but after a few days Neon left for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a>.
Ismenias and Dicetas were now led off to prison and shortly afterwards took their own lives.
Thus the Boeotian people after remaining for many years faithful to their League and after many marvellous escapes from various perils, now by rashly and inconsiderately espousing the cause of Perseus, and giving way to insensate and childish excitement were broken up and dispersed among their several cities.
Aulus Atilius and Quintus Marcius on arriving at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a> sat in council with the magistrates of the Achaean League. They asked Archon, the strategus, to dispatch a thousand soldiers to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Chalcis&groupId=457&placeId=853">Chalcis</a> to guard the city until the crossing of the Romans,
and on his readily complying, these legates, after making the above arrangements in Greece during the winter, joined Publius Cornelius Lentulus and took ship for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>.
Walbank Commentary