For while they had hoped to find a helpless infant in Philip, owing to his tender years and inexperience, they really found him to be a grown-up man, both in his projects and in his performances, while they had shown themselves contemptible and childish both in their general policy and in their conduct of particular operations.
But on the news reaching them of the outbreak among the peltasts and the deaths of Apelles and Leontius, they flattered themselves that there was some serious trouble at the Court and began to procrastinate, proposing to defer the date that had been fixed for the conference at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhium&groupId=929&placeId=1662">Rhium</a>. Philip, gladly availing himself of this pretext, as he was confident of success in the war, and had made up his mind from the outset to shuffle off the negotiations, now begged the representatives of the allies who had arrived to meet him at Patrae not to occupy themselves with terms of peace but with the prosecution of the war, and himself sailed back to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Corinth&groupId=493&placeId=928">Corinth</a>.
Dismissing all his Macedonian troops and sending them through <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Thessaly&groupId=1028&placeId=1816">Thessaly</a> home to winter, he took ship at Cenchreae and coasting along <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Attica&groupId=383&placeId=721">Attica</a> passed through the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Euripus&groupId=586&placeId=1094">Euripus</a> to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Demetrias&groupId=536&placeId=1006">Demetrias</a>.
Here he put on his trial before a Macedonian court and executed Ptolemaeus, the last survivor of Leontius' band of conspirators.
The contemporary events were as follows. Hannibal had now entered <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a> and encamped near the river Po opposite the Roman forces,
Antiochus after subduing the greater part of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Coele-Syria&groupId=484&placeId=908">Coele-Syria</a> retired into winter-quarters, and Lycurgus the king of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a> escaped to Aetolia for fear of the ephors.
For the ephors, to whom he had been falsely accused of entertaining revolutionary designs, collected the young men and came to his house at night, but having received warning he escaped with his servants.
Walbank Commentary