Consequently, the Senate, adapting their measures to this supposition, decided to secure their position in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Illyria&groupId=647&placeId=1186">Illyria</a>, as they foresaw that the war would be serious and long and the scene of it far away from home. It so happened that at that time in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Illyria&groupId=647&placeId=1186">Illyria</a> Demetrius of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Pharos&groupId=879&placeId=1586">Pharos</a>, oblivious of the benefits that the Romans had conferred on him, contemptuous of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> because of the peril to which she was exposed first from the Gauls and now from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a>, and placing all his hopes in the Royal House of Macedon owing to his having fought by the side of Antigonus in the battles against Cleomenes, was sacking and destroying the Illyrian cities subject to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, and, sailing beyond Lissus, contrary to the terms of the treaty, with fifty boats, had pillaged many of the Cyclades. The Romans, in view of those proceedings and of the flourishing fortunes of the Macedonian kingdom, were anxious to secure their position in the lands lying east of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a>, feeling confident that they would have time to correct the errors of the Illyrians and rebuke and chastise Demetrius for his ingratitude and temerity. But in this calculation they were deceived; for Hannibal forestalled them by taking <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Saguntum&groupId=938&placeId=1673">Saguntum</a>, and, as a consequence, the war was not waged in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Spain&groupId=983&placeId=1735">Spain</a> but at the very gates of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> and through the whole of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a>. However, the Romans now moved by these considerations dispatched a force under Lucius Aemilius just before summer in the first year of the 140th Olympiad to operate in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Illyria&groupId=647&placeId=1186">Illyria</a>.
Walbank Commentary