16l. 2s. 11d.]

51. Before the convention broke up, they saw the garrison march down
from the citadel of Corinth, proceed forward to the gate, and depart.
The general followed them, accompanied by the whole assembly, who,
with loud acclamations, blessed him as their preserver and deliverer.
At length, taking leave of these, and dismissing them, he returned to
Elatia by the same road through which he came. He thence sent Appius
Claudius, lieutenant-general, with all the troops, ordering him to
march through Thessaly and Epirus, and to wait for him at Oricum,
whence he intended to embark the army for Italy. He also wrote to his
brother, Lucius Quinctius, lieutenant-general, and commander of the
fleet, to collect thither transport ships from all the coasts of
Greece. He himself proceeded to Chalcis; and, after sending away
the garrisons, not only from that city, but likewise from Oreum and
Eretria, he held there a congress of the Euboean states, whom he
reminded of the condition in which he had found their affairs, and of
that in which he was leaving them; and then dismissed the assembly. He
then proceeded to Demetrias, and removed the garrison. Accompanied by
all the citizens, as at Corinth and Chalcis, he pursued his route into
Thessaly, where the states were not only to be set at liberty, but
also to be reduced from a state of utter anarchy and confusion into
some tolerable order; for they had been thrown into confusion,
not only through the faults of the times, and the violence and
licentiousness of royalty, but also through the restless disposition
of the nation, who, from the earliest times, even to our days,
have never conducted any election, or assembly, or council, without
dissensions and tumult. He chose both senators and judges, with
regard, principally, to their property, and made that party the most
powerful in the state to whom it was most important that all things
should be tranquil and secure.

52. When he had completed these regulations in Thessaly, he went on,
through Epirus, to Oricum, whence he intended to take his passage.
From Oricum all the troops were transported to Brundusium. From this
place to the city, they passed the whole length of Italy, in a manner,
like a triumph; the captured effects which they brought with them
forming a train as large as that of the troops themselves. When they
arrived at Rome, the senate assembled outside the city, to receive
from Quinctius a recital of his services;