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 Antipater. 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 assemblies of
all the confederates (κοινὸν τῶν Αἰτώλων, _concilium Aetolorum_),
and this assembly had the right to discuss 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 assemblies 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 assembly were sometimes discussed previously by a committee,
selected from the great mass, and called Apocleti (ἀπόκλητοι). The
general assembly 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 assembly; he presided in it, introduced the subjects for
deliberation, and levied the troops. The officers next in rank to the
strategus were the hipparchus 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 massacre were
carried to Rome as prisoners.