Kitap 7
14.4
When the time came for Diaeus to relinquish his office, Critolaus was elected general by the Achaeans. This Critolaus was seized with a keen but utterly unthinking passion to make war against the Romans. The envoys from the Romans had by this time already arrived to adjudicate on the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and Critolaus had a conference with them at Tegea in Arcadia, being most unwilling to summon the Achaeans to meet them in a general assembly. However, in the hearing of the Romans he sent messengers with instructions to summon the deputies to the assembly, but privately he sent orders to the deputies of the various cities to absent themselves from the meeting.
14.5
When the deputies did not attend, Critolaus showed very clearly how he was hoodwinking the Romans. He urged them to wait for another meeting of the Achaeans, to take place five months later, declaring that he would not confer with them without the general assembly of the Achaeans. When the envoys realized that they were being deceived, they departed for Rome but Critolaus summoned a meeting of the Achaeans at Corinth, and persuaded them both to take up arms against Sparta and also to declare war openly on Rome.
14.6
For a king or state to undertake a war and be unlucky is due to the jealousy of some divinity rather than to the fault of the combatants; but audacity combined with weakness should be called madness rather than ill-luck. But it was such a combination that overthrew Critolaus and the Achaeans. The Achaeans were also encouraged by Pytheas, who at that time was Boeotarch at Thebes, and the Thebans promised to give enthusiastic support in the war.
14.7
The Thebans had been sentenced, at the first ruling given by Metellus, to pay a fine for invading the territory of Phocis with an armed force; at the second to compensate the Euboeans for laying waste Euboea; at the third to compensate the people of Amphissa for ravaging their territory when the corn was ripe for harvest.
