Glabrio and the Aetolians: A Note on Deditio

Abstract

The late spring and early summer of 191 B.C. brought a series of military disasters to the Aetolian League in its war with Rome. Antiochus III was defeated by the Romans at Thermopylae and subsequently withdrew from Greece entirely; a month later the great Aetolian fortress of Heraclea, in the mountains west of Thermopylae, fell to the consul M'. Acilius Glabrio.1 The enthusiasm of the Aetolian populace for the war with Rome had fluctuated wildly, and had never been solid even with the (potentially) powerful support of Antiochus's presence (see Liv. [P] 36.15.4-5). But the initial response of the Aetolian Inner Council to the fall of Heraclea was to persevere: it sent an embassy to Antiochus (now in Asia) asking for money, reinforcements, and even a new Seleucid invasion of Greece (Liv. [P] 36.36).2 As the impact of serious defeat continued to reverberate, however, the Apocleti changed their minds, and decided to surrender into the good faith of the Romans; and so an embassy was sent to the consul Glabrio, the victor of Thermopylae and Heraclea. The subsequent diplomatic interaction between Glabrio and the Aetolians at Heraclea is famous, especially because the historian Polybius employed the incident to emphasize to his Greek readers that surrender into the good faith of the Romans (?1tvrpondj ?i; tniv 1i'ti , i.e., deditio in fidem) was exactly the same as complete and unconditional surrender (i.e., deditio in dicionem or potestatem). The unrestrained power of the victor over those who had surrendered to him in this fashion was symbolized by the consul Glabrio's threat to have the Aetolian envoys who had come to surrender to him chained and haltered when they protested the requirements he was imposing upon them.3 The scene involving Glabrio's threat to chain the Aetolian envoys is often recounted in modem works as an example of Roman brutality-and/or of