Philopoemen (17.1-17.2)

When the Romans went to war with Antiochus in Greece,[*] Philopoemen was without command, and seeing that Antiochus himself was sitting idly down in Chalcis and spending his time in a courtship and marriage which were not suited to his years,[*] while his Syrian troops, in great disorder and without leaders, were wandering about among the cities and living luxuriously, he was distressed because he was not general of the Achaeans at that time, and kept saying that he begrudged the Romans their victory. For if I had been general, he said, I would have cut off all these fellows in their taverns.

But soon the Romans, after conquering Antiochus, applied themselves more closely to the affairs of Greece. They encompassed the Achaean league with their power, since the popular leaders gradually inclined to their support; their strength, under the guidance of the heavenly powers, grew great in all directions; and the consummation was near to which the fortunes of Greece must come in their allotted revolution. Here Philopoemen, like a good helmsman contending against a high sea, was in some points compelled to give in and yield to the times; but in most he continued his opposition, arid tried to draw to the support of freedom the men who were powerful in speech or action.