Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 43
Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

17. In that year, at the request of envoys from Aquileia that the number of colonists be increased, fifteen hundred households were enrolled in accordance with a decree of the senate, and a board of three, Titus Annius Luscus, Publius Decius Subulo, and Marcus Cornelius Cethegus, were sent to lead the settlement.¹

[2] In the same year² Gaius Popilius and Gnaeus Octavius, the envoys who had been sent into Greece, first caused to be read at Thebes and then to be carried about to all the cities of the Peloponnese the decree of the senate that no one should contribute anything to Roman officers for the war except what the senate should have voted. [3] This resolution had [p. 63]produced confidence for the future, too, that they³ had been relieved of both burdens and outlays, by which, as one and another ordered various things, they were being drained dry. [4] Before an Achaean council held for them at Aegium the Roman envoys both spoke and were heard with cordiality,⁴ and leaving this most loyal people with extraordinary hope for their future position, they crossed to Aetolia. [5] There no revolt indeed had as yet broken out, but every move was suspected and replete with the mutual recriminations of the Aetolians; [6] having, because of these, called for the giving of hostages, but without bringing the trouble to an end,⁵ the envoys set out thence for Acarnania. [7] At Thyrreum the Acarnanians held a council for the envoys. There too a contest between factions was under way; some of the chief men demanded that garrisons be brought into their cities to guard against the madness of those who were dragging the tribe toward the Macedonians; [8] some objected to this, on the ground that the disgrace which was customary for those captured in war and hostile should not be inflicted on peaceful and allied cities. [9] This plea in opposition seemed sound.⁶ The envoys returned to Hostilius the proconsul at Larisa —for they had been sent by him. [10] Octavius he kept with him, Popilius he sent with about a thousand soldiers into winter quarters at Ambracia.