<head>Philip's Increasing Deterioration</head><note anchored="yes" type="summary" place="inline" resp="ess" id="note47">A fragment of a speech of some Macedonian orator as to the Aetolians making an alliance with <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>.</note>"The case is just like that of the disposition of the<note anchored="yes" place="marg" id="note48">Alliance between Aetolians and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> against Philip, negotiated by Scopas and Dorimachus, B. C. 211. See<bibl n="Liv. 26.24" default="NO" valid="yes">Livy, 26, 24</bibl>.</note>various kinds of troops on the field of battle. The light-armed and most active men bear the brunt of the danger, are the first to be engaged and the first to perish, while the phalanx and the heavy-armed generally carry off the glorySo in this case, the Aetolians, and such of the Peloponnesians as are in alliance with them, are put in the post of danger; while the Romans, like the phalanx, remain in reserve. And if the former meet with disaster and perish, the Romans will retire unharmed from the struggle; while if they are victorious, which Heaven forbid ! the Romans will get not only them but the rest of the Greeks also into their power. . . ."<note anchored="yes" place="unspecified" id="note49">On the margin of one MS. the following is written, which may be a sentence from the same speech, or a comment of the Epitomator: "A confederacy with democratic institutions always stands in need of external support, owing to the fickleness of the multitude."</note><pb n="25" />
Walbank Commentary