Flamininus

At the end of the 3rd century there was a circle of enthusiastic phil-hellenes among the Roman aristocracy, led by Titus Quinctius Flamininus, who in Rome’s name proclaimed the autonomy of the Greeks at the Isthmian games of 196.

Archbishop Trench contrasts his enthusiasm about the gift of liberty to Greece by Flamininus with the reflection of Wordsworth that it is a thing                 which is not to be given By all the blended powers of Earth and Heaven.

The friendly relations which Roman generals, such as T. Quintius Flamininus, established with the famous Greek cities, in which they appeared as liberators rather than conquerors, were the result of intellectual enthusiasm as much as of a definite policy.

When he appeared, a younger generation had grown up, who not only inherited the enthusiasm for Greek art and letters of the older generation,—of men of the stamp of the elder Scipio, Aemilius Paulus, T. Quintius Flamininus,—but who had been carefully educated from their boyhood in Greek accomplishments.

He then turned his attention to the Aetolians, who had persuaded Antiochus to declare war against Rome, and was only prevented from crushing them by the intercession of T. Quinctius Flamininus.