At the beginning of 173 BC, the Romans sent commissioners to Aetolia and Macedonia, but they were not given the opportunity to meet Perseus. The Romans felt that it was clear that he was making preparations for war and that it would not be long before he would take up arms. In the Aetolian cities there were increasingly violent internal conflicts and the leaders of the pro-Roman and pro-Perseus factions refused to keep this in check. A Roman envoy attended the session of the Aetolian council at Delphi. He asked both quarreling factions to abstain from war. This was agreed through an exchange of hostages, who were sent to Corinth. The envoy then went to the Peloponnese and called a meeting of the Achaean council. He praised the Achaeans for retaining an old decree forbidding the Macedonian kings to approach their territories, and clarified that Rome considered Perseus an enemy. There was also violent conflict in Thessaly and Perrhaebia (the land of the Perrhaebi, a tribe in northern Thessaly). This was exacerbated by a problem with indebtedness. Rome sent an envoy to try to defuse the situation. He managed to do so by addressing the serious problem of indebtedness "swollen by illegal interest" in both areas.