AETŌLĬCUM FOEDUS

( κοινὸν τῶν Αἰτώλων ), the Aetolian league, appears as a powerful political body soon after the death of Alexander the Great, viz. during the Lamian war against Anti pater. The characteristic difference between the Aetolian and Achaean leagues was that the former originally consisted of a confederacy of nations or tribes, while the latter was a confederacy of towns. The sovereign power of the confederacy was vested in the general a emblies of all the confederates ( κοινὸν τῶν Αἰτώλων , con cilium Aetolorum ), and this a embly had the right to discu all questions respecting peace and war, and to elect the great civil or military officers of the league. The ordinary place of meeting was Thermon, but on extraordinary occasions a emblies were also held in other towns belonging to the league, though they were not situated in the country of Aetolia Proper. The questions which were to be brought before the a embly were sometimes discu ed previously by a committee, selected from the great ma , and called Apocleti ( ἀπόκλητοι ). The general a embly usually met in the autumn, when the officers of the league were elected. The highest among them, as among those of the Achaean league, bore the title of Strategus ( στρατηγός ), whose office lasted only for one year. The strategus had the right to convoke the a embly; he presided in it, introduced the subjects for deliberation, and levied the troops. The officers next in rank to the strategus were the hipparch us and the public scribe. The political existence of the league was destroyed in B.C. 189 by the treaty with Rome, and the treachery of the Roman party among the Aetolians themselves caused in B.C. 167 five hundred and fifty of the leading patriots to be put to death, and those who survived the ma acre were carried to Rome as prisoners.