READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM 2025

HISTORY OF ROME.THE WAR FOR SUPREMACY IN THE EAST

CHAPTER III.

THE THIRD MACEDONIAN WAR, 171-168 B.C.

The war with Antiochus of Syria was decided in the two campaigns of 191 and 190 BC. The final peace was concluded in the year 188, after the Asiatic affairs had been kept in suspense and uncertainty for more than a whole year on the plea of settling details. The Syrian kingdom was so weakened by the unhappy issue of the war that whole provinces separated themselves from it, and maintained their independence as free states. The payment of the war indemnity caused embarrassment even in a country reputed to possess enormous wealth. Antiochus used desperate means to procure money, and when he attempted to plunder a temple of Baal, in the land of the Elymaeans, he was slain by the fanatical natives.

The further history of the Syrian kingdom concerns us only in so far as it bears on the history of Rome. We are still less concerned in the personal adventures of Antiochus, and can therefore pass them over with a word. But our full and genuine sympathy is excited by the fate of another man, a man who, for many years, had so commanded the foreground of the historical stage that we beheld everywhere his mighty form. Even after Hannibal had left Italy, and when he was banished from his country, we could not entirely lose sight of him. We saw how faithfully he endeavoured to discharge the duty of his life, even with almost exhausted strength, and when no longer borne up by the enthusiasm of his countrymen. We saw that the Romans had not forgotten him, and demanded his extradition of Antiochus as a condition of peace. He avoided the fate which then awaited him by escaping to Crete, where, however, the treasures which he carried with him proved as dangerous to him as the enmity of the Romans. He deceived the cupidity of the Cretans, and escaped to Asia Minor, where he at length found a refuge with Prusias, king of Bithynia. This king happened just then to be involved in a war with his neighbour, Eumenes of Pergamum, and being hard pressed, was anxious to avail himself of the genius of the great general. Once more, but in a very limited field, Hannibal fought against the hereditary enemy of his native town. This time he was not even in the service of a great power like Syria; and his enemies were but the satellites of the Romans. He succeeded in gaining some advantages for Prusias; but the progress of the war in which Philip of Macedonia, as an old enemy of Eumenes, had also taken a part, was arrested through the interference of the Romans. And now the great Carthaginian approached the end of his career. Titus Quinctius Flamininus, the victor of Cynoscephalae, the ‘liberator’ of Greece, the leading man in Greek polities at Rome, appeared as ambassador in Asia Minor, to settle the quarrel of Eumenes and Prusias. Openly, or under cover of diplomatic forms, whether of his own free will or commissioned by the senate, he demanded from Prusias the surrender of Hannibal. The dubious light which surrounds this affair seems to indicate that Rome was ashamed to continue the war against a single man, and thereby to express an undignified fear of the old exile. Whatever may have been the detail of these disgraceful transactions, so much is undoubtedly true, that Prusias by betraying Hannibal obeyed the orders of the Roman ambassador, and that the latter, if not strictly commissioned, carried out, at least, the most eager wishes of his countrymen. He had the satisfaction of being able to report to the senate that Hannibal had killed himself by poison, in order to escape extradition; and this news at length (183 BC) delivered the ruling nation from the terrifying phantom which had pursued and haunted it for twenty years, ever since the day of Zama.

The anxiety with which Rome looked upon Hannibal, even after the great victory of Magnesia, was to some extent justified by the unsettled and unsatisfactory state of things which followed the last treaties, and which gave no security for the duration of peace. The Romans, it is true, were principally to blame, as they never ceased to offend not only their former enemies but also their most faithful allies, and to torment them with chicaneries, prompted by mere jealousy and ill-will. If even the Achaeans, as we have seen, had occasion to complain of unjust treatment, the policy which the senate observed towards the king of Macedonia bore the stamp of premeditated, systematic enmity, calculated to drive to despair a rival who was but partially humbled, and to ruin him completely. This policy, which we shall find practised against the Carthaginians with still greater indignity and heartlessness, could not fail to produce the desired effect, and led in a few years to the overthrow of the kingdom of Macedonia.

We have seen with what zeal and energy Philip co­operated in the war against the Aetolians and Antiochus. His motives for taking such an active share might have been a matter of indifference to the Romans  his services in the cause of Rome were not less valuable because he was principally bent upon his own profit, and upon increasing his own power. But this was precisely what Rome disapproved of on principle, and she could consent to it only with a perfidious reserve under the pressure of war. Philip had been encouraged by Acilius Glabrio to act against the Aetolians, by the prospect of being able to annex to his kingdom the Aetolian towns taken in Thessaly and elsewhere. When, after the war, he was going to make good his claims, complaints against him, directly encouraged by the Romans, were sent in from all sides to Rome, and he saw himself forced to defend himself like a culprit before the senate against a whole crowd of accusers. A Roman commission was sent to Thessaly in the year 186 BC, to examine into this dispute. They held a court of enquiry in Tempe, and having examined the various claims, formally delivered their sentence to this effect: that Philip had no right to those towns which had, against their will, come into the power of the Aetolians, from whom he had taken them. They declared that he must withdraw his garrisons from the places unjustly occupied, and be satisfied with the ancient boundaries of Macedonia. At a second meeting in Thessalonica this harsh decree was extended to the towns on the Thracian coast, which had been taken from Antiochus, especially to Aenos and Maronea, and this unjust decision was rendered still more unpalatable by an order making over these towns to king Eumenes of Pergamum, who was thus installed as a next­door neighbour, to watch and control king Philip in the Roman interest. Philip was stung with anger when he learnt the unfavourable decision, and unable to contain his feelings he unwisely gave vent to them by saying, “The evening of all days has not yet come”. The Romans could see that the king was goaded into rage, and they were anxious that his blood should remain hot. They insisted that Philip should obey the command of the senate, and withdraw his garrisons from the Thracian and Thessalian towns. He had now to decide whether he would quietly submit or defy the senate, and run the risk of an open breach. He chose the former course; but being unable to vent his passion on the Romans, he cooled it, in a manner as cowardly as it was treacherous and cruel, by revenging himself on one of these towns, which had not occasioned the quarrel and was innocent of his humiliation. He caused a troop of Thracian mercenaries to enter the town of Maronea, and to massacre the inhabitants. He then declared to the Romans that the butchery had taken place in consequence of an internal quarrel of the inhabitants, and that he was perfectly innocent. When Cassander, his officer, who had carried out this bloody order, was, on that account, summoned to Rome for examination, he caused him to be poisoned on the way. A man who was capable of such deeds can hardly excite our compassion, when we see him ill-treated in his turn.

Yet with the Romans it was not the feeling of injured justice, but their cool, consistent policy, which induced them to pursue a system of annoyance and torture. Philip, feeling uneasy, and being unprepared to risk a breach, sent his son Demetrius, who was a favourite at Rome, to justify his proceedings before the senate. At the same time deputations, and even private persons without any public commission, flocked from all parts to the same high tribunal, with the most petty complaints, which were all listened to by the senate with great patience for three days running. Not only were questions of disputed boundaries discussed, but Philip was also accused of having carried off cattle, and even men, of having refused justice, and of having decided unfairly in private disputes. Whoever felt himself injured by him calculated on finding in Rome an ear open to his complaints. But the deepest impression was apparently made by the ambassadors of king Eumenes, for they reported not only that Philip had given assistance  to Prusias of Bithynia in his recent war with Pergamum, but also that he had not yet withdrawn his garrisons from the Thracian towns. The decision of the senate was, as might have been expected from the beginning, extremely harsh and provoking. Philip’s son Demetrius was, it is true, treated with ostentatious kindness, and was given to understand that for his sake the strict demands of justice would not be enforced. Nevertheless, no material modification was made in the final decision, and an embassy was sent to Macedonia, and commissioned to declare that the patience of the senate would be exhausted unless its orders were immediately executed.

Philip submitted to what could not be helped, though with inward resentment, and with the firm resolution to prepare for the day of revenge. He was now more and more bent upon strengthening the Macedonian monarchy and forming a powerful army. He had already raised the taxes and import duties in order to improve his finances; had worked his gold mines profitably, and had endeavoured to increase the population by laws regarding the rearing of children, and by drawing colonists from Thrace. Into this country he now made several expeditions, by which he gained the double object of training his army and of securing the frontier from the barbarians. In such proceedings he had not to apprehend any interference on the part of the Romans. For the protection of Greece from her northern neighbours was the special duty of the king of Macedonia; and the Romans themselves, on a former occasion, when the Aetolians demanded the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy, had insisted that its preservation was necessary for the security of Greece. Nevertheless, when Philip’s extraordinary activity came to be noticed in Rome, it roused suspicion. It was asserted that he wished to excite the Thracian barbarians to an invasion of Italy, to repeat in the eastern Alps the famous exploit of Hannibal. It is hard to decide whether these suspicions arose from the imperfect knowledge which the Romans had of Thrace and Illyria, and thus from unintentional exaggeration, or from malevolent fiction. Perhaps even Philip had no correct idea of the difficulties which made such a plan impracticable. He is reported to have undertaken an expedition to Mount Haemus, which was supposed to lie so near to the Adriatic, and at the same time to the Euxine and the Danube, that one could see these three waters at the same time from the summit. As the Romans, just about this time (181 BC), were founding the colony of Aquileia in the north-east of Italy, it is, indeed, possible that they regarded an invasion on this side as by no means improbable; for they remembered that Hannibal had been withheld neither by the Pyrenees nor by the Alps, nor by the many warlike tribes that lived between and on these mountains. But Philip was no Hannibal. The expedition to Italy was, at the utmost, one of his idle schemes, and, as on a former occasion, he shrank back when the first difficulties presented themselves. He accomplished little in Thrace, and returned home without having gained his object. The only profit which he had from his expedition was, that he was enabled to transplant a Thracian tribe from the interior to the coast, and in exchange to settle in the interior all those Greeks of the coast who had excited his suspicion. According to his wont he carried out this cruel measure unscrupulously. With curses, imprecations, and tears, the exiled inhabitants quitted the homes that had become dear to them, to wander into the wilds of Thrace. Philip remained unmoved, and made use of the opportunity to get rid of the innocent children whose fathers he had previously murdered.

The curses which untold victims heaped upon the head of the heartless tyrant seemed directed not to a deaf fate, but to an avenging deity. He was destined to feel this in his own house and family. Perseus, his eldest son, born in unequal marriage, suspected the younger son, Demetrius, of claiming, on account of his birth, a nearer right to the throne, and of intending to assert this right with the help of the Romans. It is difficult to decide how far this suspicion was well founded; at any rate the Romans encouraged it by ostentatiously favouring Demetrius, and by pretending that for his sake they treated Macedonia more leniently. Besides the official favours which the senate conferred on Demetrius during his stay in Rome, several nobles received him into their special intimacy. It was principally Flamininus who, if we may trust Polybius, encouraged Demetrius in his opposition, and who thus chiefly caused his tragic death.

As soon as it became known that the Romans openly preferred Demetrius, a Roman party was formed, or at least strengthened, in Macedonia, and the opposition between the two princes of the royal house spread over the whole country. The national party inclined more and more to Perseus, who had been inspired by his father with hatred of the Romans just as Hannibal had been by Hamilcar Barkas. In the eyes of Philip, he seemed alone qualified to maintain the independence of Macedonia, and, if it should become necessary, to defend it by a war with Rome. The result of these conflicts was that Philip also began to suspect Demetrius, and that in the end he sacrificed his son to his politics. A forged letter, supposed to have been written by Flamininus to Philip, and referring to the alleged plans of Demetrius, is said to have brought about the crisis. The prince was poisoned at a banquet by order of his own father, and, to avoid public attention, and especially to take from the deed the appearance of hostility to Rome, it was done half secretly in a retired spot (182 BC). Thus Roman policy played a fatal part, not only in the relations of State to State, and in the disputes of political factions, but even in the family circle, and sought out its victims with a stern resolve at the hospitable hearth where a befriended stranger was sacrificed, and in the paternal home where it ensnared an inexperienced youth.  It is no proof of the boasted generosity of the Romans in their political dealings that such a leading man as Flamininus, the ‘friend of the Greeks’, should have been the agent whose footsteps we can trace by the body of the aged Hannibal, and by that of the youthful Demetrius. At any rate, a dark shadow is cast upon the Roman politicians, although the responsibility for the disgraceful deed must be borne by the perpetrators themselves. It is chiefly King Philip of Macedonia who was guilty of the crime, and at the same time he is the man who contributed more than any one of his contemporaries to the downfall of Macedonia. Not his incapacity, but his evil passions were the cause that the last chance of the regeneration of Greece came to nothing. Now all his schemes collapsed: all the innumerable murders and crimes which he had committed, without remorse, had only borne this bitter fruit—that he saw himself openly confronted by external war and internal division, and that in his despair he was tempted to dip his hands in the blood of his own son. With a broken heart and a darkened spirit he sank into his grave three years later, leaving to his son Perseus a task hopeless even for a man of far greater powers.

Yet Perseus was a prince endowed with no mean qualifications for his difficult position. He was tall, strong, and dignified in his personal appearance, and free from those coarse vices which had caused the ruin of his father. He restrained his passions and was moderate in the enjoyment of life and in the exercise of his royal power. Having grown up to manhood in a period of gloom and danger, he had gone through a school of bitter experience, and had been fully impressed with the military and political supremacy of the Romans. He could, hardly hope to free himself completely from the unequal alliance which bound him to Rome, still less to regain for Macedonia its old ascendency. Nevertheless he did not intend to act the part of a humble dependent, and to fawn upon the Roman senate like a Masinissa or a Eumenes. He felt that only by her own independent strength could Macedonia resist the encroachments of Rome; and he was, therefore, like his father, intent on increasing her national wealth and on renewing the ties which bound her to the kindred States of Greece. He proclaimed an amnesty for all political offences committed during his father’s reign, remitted the debts of those who had fled on account of insolvency, and endeavoured to obtain favour with the Greeks, especially with the Achaeans, who, under the influence of the Roman party, had broken off all intercourse with Macedonia. By his marriage with Laodice, daughter of King Seleucus IV, the son and successor of Antiochus, and by the union of his sister with Prusias, king of Bithynia, he tried to gain friends, if not allies, with whose help he might, to a certain extent, keep in check his most troublesome neighbour, Eumenes of Pergamum. Nor did he shrink from boldness in action. He reduced the insurgent Dolopians by force of arms in a very short time, and then, before returning home through Thessaly, he went at the head of an imposing army to Delphi on the pretext of consulting the oracle, but in truth to show the Greeks that Macedonia was still an independent and a powerful State1 With the help of his friend Kotys, king of the Odrysians, he conquered the Thracian chief Abrupolis, who, relying on the patronage of the Romans, had ventured to extend his invasions and devastations as far as Amphipolis. According to their usual policy, the Romans had kept up a friendship with this so-called ally in the immediate vicinity of the rival State, in order to have, at any time, a pretext for settling disputes among the neighbours. They watched with a jealous eye every step of the young king, in order, if occasion offered, to overwhelm him with complaints which might furnish the cause for a “just and pious” war. Thus they took umbrage, and regarded it as an intentional act of hostility towards Italy, when the Bastarnians, a people on the northern bank of the Danube, attacked the Thracian Dardunians on the borders of Macedonia. They charged Perseus with having been in league with the Bastarnians, and having intended, like his father, to persuade them  to invade Italy when the Dardanians should be conquered.

Such pretended fears were clearly and confessedly imaginary. Yet the Romans were justified in treating the matter as serious, since, in the public opinion of Greece, a complete revolution had gradually taken place, and Perseus was becoming more popular from day to day; while, on the other hand, Eumenes, the friend of Rome and the Romans themselves, were regarded more and more as the enemies of the country. The frivolous Greeks had been completely sobered down since, twenty years before, after the defeat of Philip, they had hailed the Roman ‘liberators’ with unbounded enthusiasm. They cast wistful looks towards that same Macedonia from which they had then been liberated, and they hoped to regain, with the help of Perseus, their national independence, which had now, indeed, become an empty name. According to their custom, they showed their impatience by a childish and useless defiance of Rome and the friends of Rome. Eumenes especially incurred their displeasure. At the time of the prevailing enthusiasm for Rome and her allies innumerable monuments and altars had been erected to him, and festivals instituted in his honour. It was on these that the universal hatred now vented itself. Everywhere the former resolutions were repealed, the monuments destroyed, the festivals abolished. In vain had Eumenes attempted, in a somewhat clumsy manner, to form a party for himself among the Achaeans. His offer to hand over to them a large sum of money in order to pay from the interest the chief magistrates of the league had been scornfully rejected, although the Roman party at that time preponderated in the Peloponnesus, and had succeeded in preventing a friendly understanding with Perseus. For the Greek States had become so disordered and helpless, and wavered so much between the , proud feeling of nationality and contemptible fear, that they showed the pride of outraged honour and insulted the allies of Rome, they remained nevertheless in piteous subjection to Rome herself, while the canker­worm of political dissolution was eating into their vitals.

The condition of various parts of Greece at this time was perfectly frightful. The accumulation of private debts gave rise to constant civil wars, for it had long been the custom to expect a remedy for social disorders from political revolutions, and especially from a spoliation of the wealthier classes, just as in our own days those who call themselves the working classes endeavour, by the war against capital, to bring about general well-being. The primeval habit of the Greeks of living by robbery rather than by labour had cropped up again through the ruins of national wealth. The Aetolians, it is said, had always shown a disposition for this kind of life; but as long as they could levy contributions on their neighbours, they could pass for belligerents, and enjoyed a certain amount of respectability; now, however, they were restrained within their own boundaries, and, as they could not make up their minds to get their living by agriculture, they had no choice but to attack and prey upon each other. Even among the frequent horrors of party strife in Greece, the bloody massacre of Hypata is noticeable for its hideousness. Eighty exiles from this town had been induced to return by the promise of pardon and reconciliation. They were solemnly received and conducted into the town; but they had no sooner entered the gates than they were treacherously attacked and murdered. Such a deed as this was, of course, followed by a counter-blow from the opposite party, and thus the nation drifted helplessly to destruction; for similar disorders prevailed everywhere throughout the unhappy country.

Under these circumstances it was no less an historical necessity than a boon for the Greek nation that Rome considered the time come to put an end to the untenable state of partial independence in which it was then placed. Several events occurred which showed that Rome was preparing to act very soon. King Eumenes of Pergamum had undertaken to bring formal charges against Perseus, and to call upon the Romans to interfere. In the year 172 BC he made his appearance in Rome, bringing with him a detailed list of all the violations of peace of which he accused Perseus. In this list all the public acts of Perseus, without exception, were enumerated, and interpreted as preparations for a war with Rome. All that Perseus had done or left undone in order to increase the national wealth and power of his country, to chastise the insurgent Dolopians, to repel the invasions of the Thracians from his own borders or from friendly cities like Byzantium, all his endeavours to make himself popular in Greece, even his moral conduct, his moderation and self-control, were represented as schemes against the suzerainty of Rome. There was, indeed, no real breach of peace or violation of contract that Eumenes could prove against Perseus. The transgressions which he named in no way affected the Romans, who were already aware of them, and who, far from censuring Perseus, had even approved them by remaining on friendly terms with Perseus, and by renewing the treaties. It appears, therefore, that in their negotiations, which were carried on with strict secrecy, Eumenes and the senate occupied themselves, not so much with seeking a motive or a pretext for a war with Perseus, as with planning the measures which in case of a war they should respectively adopt. At any rate, the war was now decided upon, and nothing but the consideration that the time was inopportune kept the senate from declaring it at once. Harpalus, the Macedonian ambassador, who had in vain asked for permission to defend his master in the presence of Eumenes, was perfectly convinced of this, and summoned courage to say that, if Rome was resolved upon war, it was useless for him to refute unfounded accusations, and that in this case his master would boldly wield the sword forced into his hand, trusting to the god of war and to the uncertain issue of battles. Some few members of the senate, feeling the undignified position of Rome, accused Eumenes of conjuring up a great war from fear and jealousy; but they remained in the minority, and the answer which was given to Harpalus compelled him to tell his master that the rupture with Rome was inevitable. The ambassadors of Rhodes, who were at that time in Rome to complain of Eumenes, and were therefore looked upon as friends of Perseus, received an ungracious reply. Apart from this the Rhodians were in ill favour with the Romans, because they had with great ostentation lent their fleet to escort the bride of Perseus from Syria to Macedonia. The period of friendship was over for them, as well as for Achaia and Macedonia. They had soon to feel that Rome would not suffer even so harmless a state as Rhodes to exist beside her in complete independence, or even in commercial prosperity.

Eumenes gained his object in Rome. The war with Macedonia was decided upon. Loaded with honours and marks of favour, he quitted Rome to return to his own kingdom. On his way through the Corinthian gulf he landed in Cirrha, in order to go from that port to Delphi, to offer a sacrifice at the shrine of Apollo. On the road to this place an attempt, so it was said, was made to murder him. At a spot where an old wall lined the road, four assassins, who, being hired by Perseus, were watching for the King of Pergamum, threw stones at him, and hit him so dangerously that he fell down and was nearly killed. While the king’s companions were busied in attending to him, the miscreants escaped. Eumenes, badly wounded, was conveyed back to Cirrha, and thence to Aegina, where he remained until he recovered.

How much truth there may be in this strange tale. it is difficult for us to determine, as we have only one­sided reports from Roman sources. But, even without any evidence from the party of the accused, we cannot help suspecting that the whole affair was a prearranged farce, planned for the purpose of finding some plausible complaint of an odious character against Perseus. It is by no means likely that, if Perseus had really wished to get rid of his enemy, he would have caused him to be attacked by four men with stones, even supposing that he were so silly as to think that the death of Eumenes would make the slightest difference in the state of his affairs. With fair assurance we may put down the charge of intended murder as an invention, resembling the charges of the wolf against the lamb. Of the same nature is the far more impudent charge against Perseus, which was founded upon the information of Rammius, a native of Brundusium. This man reported that Perseus had offered him bribes to poison the Roman ambassadors on their passage through Brundusium. It is not easy to determine whether the Roman senate really thought Perseus capable of such silliness, or whether they only pretended to do so. To the unprejudiced inquirer accusations of this kind are a proof that real and well-founded grievances were wanting, and that the Roman government, having decided upon war, was obliged to have recourse to the most frivolous pretexts.

War being determined upon after the visit of Eumenes to Rome, it remained to fix the time for commencing hostilities, and to take the preliminary steps. But it was not thought necessary to be in any hurry in the matter. The Romans had no need to apprehend a sudden attack on the part of the King of Macedonia, even if they credited him with the bold resolution of undertaking an aggressive war. It was inconvenient to begin the war in the year 172 BC, because this year was almost completely taken up with a dispute between the senate and the consuls, which, to a certain extent, paralysed the foreign policy of the republic.

Marcus Popillius Laenas, one of the consuls of 173 BC, had attacked the Statellates, a friendly tribe of Ligurians, without orders, cause, or justification; he had slain several thousands of them, had destroyed their town, and sold the remainder of the tribe into slavery. This wanton act, which was as cruel as it was injudicious, was strongly disapproved by the senate. A resolution was passed that the consul Popillius should redeem from slavery the Ligurians whom he had sold, that he should restore their property and their arms, and not leave the province till this order should be executed. In this resolution the senate had exceeded its powers, for the administrative authority which it practically exercised was in strict law unconstitutional. The senate was only entitled to advise and not to command, and it exercised the functions of government only in so far as the magistrates voluntarily submitted to its authority, or were inclined to moderation by the prospect of having to answer for their acts after their year of office. The senate had no means of enforcing the submission of a consul except by the appointment of a dictator, and this could not be done unless the other consul was ready to lend his aid. If this means tailed, the senate might call upon a tribune of the people, who by virtue of his inviolability could resist the execution of any magisterial order. But it was very doubtful whether the tribune’s inviolability, or any tribunicial order, was entitled to respect beyond the limits of the city, as the military imperium of the consul was unrestrained in the field. M. Popillius knew the extent of his power, and not only refused to carry into execution the decision of the senate, but actually went to Rome in person, assembled the senate in the temple of Bellona outside the town, and censured the senators in an angry and violent tone, because, instead of honouring a victorious general by solemn thanksgivings, they had in a certain manner accused and dishonoured him before the enemies of the republic. He imposed a fine on the praetor Aulus Atilius, who had moved the resolution of the senate, and demanded that the resolution should be rescinded, and that thanks should be offered to the gods for his exploits. But in spite of the defiant attitude of the consul, the senate was immovable, and as neither yielded, the quarrel remained unsettled. The consuls for the following year (172 BC) were Publius Aelius Ligur and Caius Popillius Laenas, the brother of Marcus. Owing to this relationship, the dispute of the preceding year was carried on with almost equal violence in that which followed. C. Popillius gave the senate to understand that he would oppose any resolution condemnatory of his brother’s proceedings similar to that which had been passed in the previous year. The senate refused to yield, and when the question arose whether the command in the impending war with Perseus should be given to one of the consuls, a resolution was passed that both consuls should be sent to Liguria, and that nothing should be decided about Macedonia until the resolution of the preceding year should be executed.

From this postponement of the Macedonian war, which resulted exclusively from internal conflicts, we see that the war did not in the least depend upon the designs and preparations of Perseus, and that it is unjust to cast the responsibility of it on him. The Roman senate, in the feeling of utter security from an attack on the part of Perseus, could even venture to prevent the consuls raising new legions, or bringing the old legions to their full complement. The consuls in their turn refused to co-operate in any measure of internal administration. The Roman republic, on the eve of a great war, was suddenly paralysed. Its condition may be compared to that of a constitutional state of our own time, in which the supplies for a war already determined upon are suddenly refused by the representatives of the people. To make matters worse, the senate was now informed by the obstinate M. Popillius that upon his return to his province he had defeated the Statellates a second time, killing sixteen thousand of them, and that thereupon the other Ligurian tribes had taken up arms. Two of the tribunes of the people now placed themselves at the disposal of the senate. They threatened to impose a fine upon the consuls unless they forthwith started for Liguria, to take the command from M. Popillius, who could not be punished until he should be divested of the imperium. They moreover brought a motion before the people for the nomination of a special judge by the senate, to punish the ex-consul if, before a fixed date, he should not have restored the enslaved Statellates to liberty. This measure at last succeeded. The consuls started for their province. M. Popillius gave up his command, but did not venture to make his appearance in Rome until, by a new motion of the tribunes, a term was fixed after the expiration of which the trial should take place in his absence. Now at last he submitted; but, probably through the influence of his family and his friends, his trial was suspended till the praetor C. Licinius, who was to conduct it, had quitted office. The accusation was finally dropped; but the enslaved Ligurians were set free again, and land was assigned to them on the north side of the Padus. Measures were moreover taken to pacify the warlike mountaineers, and to prevent the outbreak of new hostilities.

In the year 172 BC the incident just stated did not allow of a vigorous foreign, policy. If the political instinct and moderation of the Romans had not generally prevailed over the obstinacy and perversity of individual statesmen, the republic would long have been distracted by such internal conflicts between the senate and the ill-organised executive. But we may see in the history of Rome, as elsewhere, that the spirit of a nation can accomplish great things, in spite of an imperfect constitution, whereas the best-drawn form of government not animated by such a spirit is only a source of misery.

The clemency, or rather the justice, which caused the senate to condemn the insane cruelty of M. Popillius in Liguria was, no doubt, prompted, at least in part, by the political calculation that, with the prospect of a serious war in the east of the Adriatic, it would be desirable to preserve peace in the Italian peninsula. The same considerations determined the Roman policy when (172 BC) the Carthaginians sent ambassadors to complain of the encroachments of Masinissa. It did not appear advisable just at this time, when every ally acquired additional value, and every new quarrel was to be avoided, to exasperate the Carthaginians, who, though weakened and deeply humbled, were still a power not to be despised. Masinissa was therefore advised to restrain his greed, and keep within the boundaries marked out to him. Rome was not only counting upon neutrality, but upon the active aid of both Carthage and Numidia, in the impending war.

The beginning of the war was now fixed for the year 171 BC. Some preparations had been made for it in the course of the year 172. A fleet of fifty vessels had been collected at Brundusium, and an army of about eighteen thousand men kept in readiness at that place. At the same time Roman diplomacy had been at work. It was of the greatest importance to isolate Perseus as much as possible, and this task was rendered difficult by the great popularity which he enjoyed in Greece. But when the gravity of their situation became apparent to the Greeks, they lost courage and submitted to the hateful necessity. The same submission was shown also by the larger Asiatic states. At least they kept aloof from all connexion with Perseus, who could boast only of one true and valuable ally, the Thracian chief Kotys, whilst Gentius, the king of Illyria, could not make up his mind to encounter the hostility of Rome till after the war had begun. The situation of Macedonia was far less favourable now than it was at the beginning of the second war. At that time a considerable part of Greece was subject to king Philip directly or indirectly. The chief fortresses of the country were in his hands, and he had friends and allies in Boeotia, Locris, and even in the Peloponnesus. The Romans, on the other side, had at that time hardly any allies in Greece, except the Aetolians and Athamanians. The Achaean league was neutral. Above all, Macedonia had not yet been conquered, and the spell of the Macedonian phalanx was yet unbroken. Since then the Roman legions had overthrown this phalanx in Europe and Asia, had confined the king of Syria within the Taurus chain, had shut up Macedonia within its old boundaries, had crushed the brave Aetolians, and had reduced the whole of Greece to actual dependence in everything but form and name. How could Perseus hope to stop the triumphal progress of the Roman armies? Surely he must have been not deluded but mad, if he had voluntarily engaged in a conflict with a power so formidable.

The consular elections of the year 171 BC were fixed for an earlier period than usual, that no time might be lost for the projected campaign. The consuls of the year, Publius Licinius Crassus and Caius Cassius Longinus, entered upon their office with more than the customary solemnities and celebrations of sacrifices and lectisternia. The haruspices announced happy omens and prophesied victory, triumph, and the extension of the Roman dominion. To the ‘highest and best Jupiter’ games to last ten days had already been promised, if the republic should remain unshaken for ten years. Now at length the time had come for the senate to ask the people for the formal vote sanctioning the undertaking of the war. This vote was given by the centuries without the slightest delay or hesitation, and nobody seems to have anticipated the possibility of a refusal. The senate controlled the foreign policy so completely that, so long as the nobility were agreed among themselves, no such opposition on the part of the people as that which had shown itself at the beginning of the second Macedonian wav was possible. The almost uninterrupted wars in Spain, Corsica, Liguria, and Gallia naturally had the effect of causing war to be looked upon with much indifference. It was impossible for the people to judge whether it was prudent or necessary to commence hostilities with one or another of the tribes dwelling on the Iberus or in the valleys of the Apennines. They had to leave the decision to the senate, and the senate frequently had to leave it to the generals. It was due only to the great importance which the Macedonian kingdom still occupied in the imagination of the Romans, that the present war was solemnly introduced with religious ceremonies and the strict observance of constitutional forms. For this reason also a formal cause had to be assigned for the war. As such, it was alleged that Perseus had made war upon the allies of Rome, and was preparing for a war with Rome herself.

As soon as this resolution was passed, preparations were vigorously made. Veteran volunteers were selected in preference to new conscripts. Military service in the East, the home of Graeco-Asiatic civilisation, was much preferred to fighting with the poor and rude inhabitants of Northern Italy, Spain, and Corsica, where the Roman soldiers had to expect privations, difficulties, and dangers without end, but could hope for little booty. The same preference for Oriental warfare was shared in a still higher degree by the generals. Each of the consuls aspired to the command, and their dispute was settled only by the decision of the senate that they should draw lots. Thus the command was obtained by Publius Licinius Crassus, an avaricious, domineering man, unfit for so important a post. Five years before (in 176), when he was praetor, he had been ordered out to Spain, which for very good reasons was an unpopular province at that time. He had on that occasion pleaded that he could not leave Rome on account of some religious duties which absolutely required his services, and on taking a solemn oath in the public assembly—that he had stated the truth, he was excused. On no account would he now give up the chance of commanding in Macedonia. For, like every Roman, he reckoned upon an easy and rapid victory as the inevitable result, and he hoped to win valuable spoils. So thorough indeed were the preparations that failure seemed to be impossible. Of the eighteen thousand men who had been despatched to Macedonia, some had already landed in Apollonia, others yet lingered in Brundusium. Apart from these forces, two newly levied legions of veterans and a corresponding number of allies were destined for the campaign, besides two thousand Ligurians, and a reinforcement of Cretan archers and Numidian cavalry and elephants, altogether an army of more than fifty thousand men. In addition to these must be reckoned the crews of the fleet, and the expected auxiliaries of the Greek and Asiatic allies, especially the Achaeans and Pergamenians.

Such a force as this must have appeared to Perseus quite overwhelming. In spite of all his efforts he had succeeded in collecting more than thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse; and a great part of this force consisted of mercenaries who were not to be depended upon. He could hope for no help from Greece, for the sympathy felt for him in many places by the national and democratic party was counteracted by the pressure brought upon his friends by Rome, or neutralised by the machinations of local magistrates, who favoured the Roman interests. He, therefore, still clung to the hope that by yielding and by humbling himself he might preserve peace. He actually sent one more embassy to Rome, when war had already been formally resolved upon by the people, and when the Roman force was partly in process of formation, and partly on the march to Macedonia. He offered to comply with the demands of the senate, and to redress all the grievances of which any Roman allies might complain, provided only the Romans would withdraw their troops. Instead of a reply the Romans commanded the ambassadors to leave Italy within eleven days, and to announce to their master that the consul Licinius would soon be in Macedonia at the head of an army. If Perseus was ready to give satisfaction, he should apply to him.

In spite of this arrogant language, which seemed inspired by the consciousness of superior power, the Romans were by no means so far advanced in their preparations as at once to begin the war on a large scale. Only a few thousand men were actually in Greece; the great bulk of the army was not yet fully organized or hardly on its march to Brundusium. A few agents had arrived in Greece for the purpose of securing the co-operation of the Greek states in the impending struggle. Their object was everywhere to strengthen the Roman partisans, to place them in power, and to obtain auxiliaries from them. This was no difficult task. The Achaean league had long been under the direction of the Roman party, at the head of which was Callicrates. They immediately placed at the disposal of the Romans one thousand men, with which force, before the Roman troops could arrive, Chalcis was occupied and secured. The Epirots, although secretly inclined to favour Macedonia, submitted to the Romans, and sent four hundred men as an auxiliary force. In Aetolia, Lyciscus, a zealous adherent of Rome, was appointed commander of the troops of the league. Acarnania and Thessaly also joined Rome. Whilst Roman diplomacy, in anticipation of the Roman arms, was thus isolating Perseus, this prince was induced, by a masterstroke of cunning, to remain inactive, although he was fully armed and prepared to commence hostilities, and the Romans had not yet appeared on the scene of action. Seeing the storm approach, in fear and trembling, and still hoping, in his unaccountable delusion, to be able to arrest it, Perseus had written to the Roman ambassadors before their departure from Corcyra, and had asked them to state to him their reasons for occupying Greek towns with Roman troops. This letter had remained unanswered. When, a short time after, Quintus Marcius Philippus, one of the Roman ambassadors, came to northern Thessaly, Perseus sent to him to inquire whether he would not consent to negotiations. Nothing could have been more welcome to Marcius, as he desired to gain time on some pretext or other. Availing himself, therefore, of the friendly relations between his family and the royal house of Macedonia, he came forward in the guise of a kind and ready mediator, listened to the excuses of Perseus with feigned interest, and advised him to make another attempt in Rome for the peaceable settlement of the dispute, although he knew quite well that there was not the least chance of success. Perseus was caught in the snare; he agreed to conclude a truce, and he sent one more embassy to Rome. In Rome, it is true, the perfidious cunning of which Marcius boasted, as if he had achieved a great success, met with some disapproval in the senate on the part of men who considered it contrary to Roman dignity and honour, but the majority approved the proceeding, and, according an audience to the Macedonian ambassadors only for the sake of form, ordered them to leave Italy immediately. The same order was extended to all Macedonians residing in Italy, and all therefore were expelled from the territory of the republic with their families within thirty days.

During this time the Romans continued the movement of their troops, while their envoys in Greece, in the islands, and in Asia, actively promoted the scheme of a combined attack upon Perseus, though the latter, honourably observing the conditions of the truce, had not availed himself of his present superiority to obtain any military advantage. The Boeotians, irresolute and wavering between the two parties, were urged to an unconditional union with Rome, and all but the two insignificant places of Haliartus and Coronea were induced to join. The chiefs of the opposite faction were expelled; Achaean troops were raised to garrison Chalcis; Larissa was occupied, and the important republic of Rhodes, which was strongly suspected of inclining to Perseus, was prevailed upon to arm a fleet of forty ships to be placed at the disposal of Rome.

The Romans did not think it necessary to issue a formal declaration of war, such as had been hitherto usual. It seemed much simpler to assume that Rome was attacked, and compelled to defend herself. The consul, Licinius Crassus, left Rome with the usual pomp, after a solemn sacrifice, to join the army in Brundusium, whence he crossed with it to Apollonia in order to commence the campaign.

After what has been related, it seems hardly necessary to add that the war with Perseus was, in the full sense the word, an iniquitous war of aggression. All that the Romans alleged of the warlike intentions and preparations of Perseus is either distorted truth or deliberate falsehood.

The more carefully we trace in detail the dishonourable course of Roman policy, the more we are filled with indignation and disgust. It is true we discover nothing of novelty in their present proceedings. We only recognise in more distinct outlines the motives which had actuated the policy of Rome from the very beginning. Throughout the confused and vague traditions which rather conceal than exhibit the wars with the Latins, Etruscans, and Samnites, we can trace the same greed and the same grasping ambition, joined with the same contempt of justice and equity. It is absurd to talk of ancient Roman moderation and honesty. The men of the old time, as far as we can judge, differed from their successors only as being ruder and more violent. It is of great importance in the history of Rome to recognise the unity of the Roman character, which has remained unchanged from the oldest periods downwards, and, such as it appears in the legends of prehistoric ages, passed over from the republic to the empire, and from imperial Rome to the despotism of the popes over the minds of men. It is not wonderful that the Roman character should have remained unchanged for centuries; for the character of a nation is almost as durable and unalterable as the climate and the nature of the country which a nation inhabits; but in the fact that the single town of Rome stamped upon the entire population of Italy her own hard type, that even after the admixture of Latins, Sabellians, Etruscans, and Greeks, that which was specifically Roman alone retained predominance over the rest, we have a proof of vigour and tenacity which helps much to show us how Rome achieved the sovereignty over the whole world.

While the race of Roman statesmen and warriors in the second century before our era retained the doctrines, traditions, and qualities of the men who fought in the Samnite wars, and now, in the consciousness of exuberant vigour, advanced from conquest to conquest with reckless vehemence and greed, the kingdom of Philip and Alexander, on the other hand, had lost the spirit which had raised it from a state of semi-barbarism, and made the Macedonian chief lord of all Greece and of a great portion of Asia. The ancient race of Macedonian heroes was extinct. The decrepid nation could not boast a single man comparable even to the inferior captains of Alexander’s armies. The Macedonian phalanx was no longer what it had been. It had lost the belief in its own invincibility since it had ingloriously broken down on the fields of Cynoscephalae and Magnesia. Perseus himself, though a brave and experienced soldier, had in him no vestige of a warlike spirit, neither boldness of invention nor self-confidence. From the very beginning he gave himself up for lost, and did not venture, even after some unexpected success, to follow up the road to victory. With a faint heart he drew the sword, not daring, to throw away the scabbard. Even in the last moment, when the Romans were already approaching, the question was debated in his council of war, whether unconditional submission or a desperate resistance was to be preferred, and only when no other course was left open to him did Perseus determine to make that choice which was demanded no less by his honour than by necessity.

The army which, after untiring efforts, he had at last collected was such as no Macedonian king had ever led into the field since the great Alexander had set out for the conquest of Asia. It numbered forty-three thousand men, among whom were twenty-one thousand heavy­armed soldiers, forming the phalanx, and four thousand excellent horsemen; the rest were light-armed troops, some of them Thracians, the others mercenaries from all the Greek states, especially Crete, the home of warlike adventurers. His supply of arms, provisions, and money was amply sufficient for several years. He had been collecting and amassing these appliances in the hope of never being compelled to make use of them. When the pressure came, he could not make up his mind to take boldly the offensive, but awaited the attack. Perhaps he was frightened by the recollection of his father’s defeat at Cynoscephalae, or he thought he would have a better chance if he drew the enemy into his own country. If he had invaded Greece as soon as his preparations were made, he would have gained a considerable start over his opponents. He could have obtained possession of many fortified towns, and probably have secured some which were still wavering between the two belligerents. But he allowed the consul, Roman Licinius Crassus, to march unmolested through the difficult mountain region of Epirus and Athamania to Gom-phi, in western Thessaly, and thence to Larissa, which, as we have seen, had been occupied by the Romans during the armistice. At the same time, the Roman fleet of forty ships and ten thousand naval troops, commanded by Marcus Lucretius, appeared at Chalcis, and was joined there by five thousand Pergamenians under Eumenes, fifteen hundred Achaeans, besides Aetolians, Thessalians, and other Greek allies. If we suppose, therefore, that the consul, Licinius, had left a part of his troops on his line of march, the Roman force was still much greater than that which Perseus could oppose to it.

The road from Thessaly to Macedonia passes through the narrow gorge of Tempe, where the river Peneus has made for itself a deep bed between the overhanging rocks of Olympus and the woody slopes of Mount Ossa. The chain of the Cambunian mountains, extending westward from Olympus, forms a natural boundary between the two countries, which can only be crossed by difficult mountain roads. Thus it happened that the pass of Tempe was, from time immemorial, the only practicable road from north to south, just as further southwards was the pass of Thermopylae. Perseus, being on the defensive, was obliged to hold this pass. He therefore marched into Thessaly, across the mountains to the west of Olympus, and took by surprise several small places, among which was Gonnos, at the southern extremity of the vale of Tempe. He now fortified the pass by a triple wall and ditch, and took up his position in the neighbourhood at Sycurium, on the slope of Mount Ossa, to await the Roman army.

The consul, having been joined in Thessaly by Eumenes and the auxiliary troops from Greece, lay encamped near Larissa, to the east of the river Peneus. His inactivity encouraged the enemy. The Macedonians plundered the surrounding country with impunity, and approached nearer and nearer to the Roman camp. At length Perseus ventured to take the offensive. It was his intention to draw the Romans out of their camp, and to defeat them in the plain with his superior cavalry. After some unimportant skirmishes, the Macedonian horsemen and light-armed troops came so near to the Roman camp, that the consul could no longer avoid marching out to meet them. The battle was fought at the foot of the hill Callicinus, east of the Peneus, between Larissa and Lycurion, immediately outside the Roman camp. The Roman cavalry forming the right wing was attacked with great vehemence by the Thracians, and beaten back with great loss. In like manner the left wing was repulsed, consisting of the cavalry of the Greek allies. Only the four hundred Thessalian horsemen, who had been kept in reserve on the extreme left, stood their ground, and covered the retreat of the defeated army. Fortunately, the fortified camp was near to receive the fugitives; and this is probably the reason why the Macedonian phalanx, which now appeared on the scene of action, did not take part in the battle. It was little suited, on account of its unwieldiness, to storm a Roman camp. Perseus therefore forbade the continuance of the contest. He was satisfied with having inflicted on the Romans a loss of from two to three thousand men killed or taken prisoners, and with having, by this first success, produced a favourable impression upon his own army, and more especially upon the Greek states. He even ventured to hope that the Romans would already despair of success, and be ready to end the war. So little did he know the Romans, or so thoroughly had his love of peace blinded him, that immediately after the victory he proposed to the consul to settle the dispute by the renewal of the old treaties. He declared himself ready to confirm the alliance which his father Philip had concluded with Rome, and he was even prepared to pay a war indemnity, such as had been imposed upon Philip, if only the Romans would conclude peace. But the consul, who had acknowledged his defeat by crossing in the same night to the left bank of the Peneus, replied with truly Roman firmness, that he would listen to proposals of peace only if Perseus submitted unconditionally. He gave the same reply when the pusillanimous victor offered to pay a larger tribute. Thus ended these premature negotiations, and the war was accordingly resumed.

Licinius soon afterwards received a reinforcement of two thousand Numidians and twenty-two elephants, under Misagenes, a son of Masinissa. Both armies marched about in unhappy Thessaly, apparently without a fixed plan, engaged principally in collecting the ripe corn for their own support. At Phalanna they met once more, and here again fortune was unpropitious to the Romans. They lost six hundred prisoners and one thousand waggons laden with corn. A body of eight hundred men, who had retired upon a hill, were in great danger of being cut to pieces, but were at length rescued from their precarious position by the advance of the legions.

Perseus, continuing his defensive operations, soon afterwards crossed the mountains into Macedonia before the summer was past, apparently apprehending no further attack on the part of the Romans. The consul Licinius made another attempt to take the fortified town of Gonnos, and thus to open the pass of Tempe. Failing in this, he continued his plundering expeditions in several parts of Thessaly without achieving either glory or military success, and finally took up his winter quarters in Thessaly and Boeotia.

Whilst the main armies were confronting each other in Thessaly, and were in vain attempting to bring matters to a decisive issue, the war was raging most fearfully in Boeotia. The towns of Haliartus and Coronea had, as we have seen, remained true to their alliance with Macedonia, when the other Boeotian towns had, after more or less reluctance, submitted to the demands of Rome. It was now resolved to punish Haliartus for its presumption. Before the arrival of the Roman fleet at Chalcis, the Roman legate Publius Lentulus besieged Haliartus with a troop of Boeotians favourable to Rome. We can easily imagine how eager the contending factions were to attack and mutilate one another under the protectorate of their foreign allies, and that the zeal of the victors was stimulated by the prospect of material gain. But the Romans were not inclined to concede to their allies the profit which resulted from the plundering of a conquered town. When, therefore, Marcus Lucretius had arrived at Chalcis, he ordered the over-hasty Lentulus to retire from Haliartus; in other words, to leave the spoil untouched. He then marched to the town with ten thousand men from the fleet, and two thousand Pergamenians, and was met there by his brother Caius Lucretius, who, in the capacity of praetor, commanded the fleet. A number of ships sent by faithful allies from Carthage, Heraclea, Chalcedon, Samos, and Rhodes, were graciously dismissed because ‘their services were not required.’ The vultures, gathered around the carcase, were scared away in order that the eagles alone might gorge upon it. Haliartus was now surrounded by the Roman forces, and was taken, after a brave resistance. The entire population was either slain or sold into slavery, the town plundered and razed to the ground.

The treatment of Haliartus was harsh, yet, according to the laws of war then prevailing, it could not be condemned; for Haliartus had been taken by storm. But a similar justification did not apply in the case of Thebes, Coronea, and Chalcis. Thebes was handed over to the vengeance of the Roman party, who sold their enemies into slavery. Coronea, after surrendering, shared the same fate. Chalcis, however, an allied and friendly town, was treated unmercifully, as if it had committed some unpardonable offence. It was not only plundered by the savage naval troops who were quartered in the houses of the citizens, but the very temples were despoiled of their treasures of art, free citizens were ill-treated and sold as slaves, women and children were disgraced. Everywhere the lowest passions were allowed to riot, and the vilest appetites were gratified without stint. With some of his plundered pictures the praetor Caius Lucretius, on his return home, adorned a temple of Aesculapius at Antium, and with the proceeds obtained by selling the rest he built an aqueduct at the same place, regardless of the complaints of some honourable tribunes, who accused him before the Roman people of cruelty and rapacity. Such were the means by which the Roman nobles acquired princely wealth. Was it to be wondered at that the aristocracy sought for one war after another, and that republican simplicity became more and more a dream? Only forty years after the time which we have reached the Gracchi sought in vain to stem the current of corruption which swept on irresistibly.

In order to clear himself from the charge of incompetence, the consul Licinius was mean enough to attribute the loss of the combat of Callicinus to his Greek allies, and especially to the Aetolian cavalry. Though of all human vices cowardice was the one from which, the Aetolians were farthest removed, the Romans did not hesitate to charge them with it. They felt, no doubt, some satisfaction in punishing them now for boasting so long and so persistently of having contributed most to the victory of Cynoscephalae. At the same time, the reproach of cowardice and treachery served as a convenient instrument for removing from Aetolia all who were still opposed to Rome. Several eminent men, who were troublesome to the Roman partisan Lyciscus, were sent to Rome to clear themselves from the charge of having caused the bad conduct of the Aetolian cavalry. This proceeding was as violent and arbitrary as it was impolitic, for the Macedonian victory had brought about a sudden change in the minds of the Greeks. The spirit of patriotism, which had been kept down only by the fear of Roman invincibility, burst forth everywhere. The outrages, extortions, and robberies committed by the Roman officials and soldiers, heaped fuel upon these flames. In Epirus an open insurrection broke out, excited chiefly by the wretched Charops, who had been brought up in Rome, and now sought by means of Roman protection to obtain influence and power. By calumniating the leaders of the national party he succeeded in driving them into open revolt. Almost all the tribes of Epirus now rebelled, with the single exception of the Thesprotians. The country between Italy and Macedonia, which was of the greatest importance to the Romans for the conduct of their operations, they were now compelled to regard as hostile, and Ambracia had to be occupied by a garrison of two thousand men.

Such were the results obtained in the first year of the war by the contemptible strategy of incompetent commanders, and by the cupidity and cruelty of all the Roman officers and soldiers. Many Romans, indeed, enriched themselves; but the reputation of the republic was  deeply shaken; and had the Greeks had a national leader such as fortune had so often given them in time of need, had Perseus possessed the warlike virtues even of his father or his great-uncle Antigonus, it is probable that the independence of Greece might have been prolonged, for the benefit even of the Romans, whom the vices of prosperity were already hurrying towards national ruin.

The year 170 BC brought new, but not better, commanders for the Roman army and fleet. The consul Aulus Hostilius Mancinus, proved as incapable as his predecessor, and Lucius Hortensius, who succeeded to the command of the fleet, was perhaps a few shades more greedy and more violent than Lucretius, but not in the least more able as a soldier. The latter, before returning with his plunder to his villa near Antium, had allowed himself to be surprised at Oreos by the hostile fleet, and had lost four quinqueremes and a whole transport fleet with provisions. To supply the troops with food was a very difficult task, as the exhausted land was unable to furnish what was wanted. It was therefore necessary in the wars with Philip, Antiochus, and the Aetolians, and now in the war with Perseus, to send out large quantities of corn from Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. If such a convoy was delayed or destroyed the operations in the field could easily be paralysed, and it is therefore not unlikely that the inactivity of the army up to this time was owing to some stoppage in the supply of provisions. On the other hand, the soldiers were compelled, by the scantiness of supplies, to get what they wanted wherever they could find it, and thus many an act of cruelty may be explained or excused. Hortensius, probably for the purpose of replenishing his stores, which were reduced by the fault of his predecessor, sailed along the coast to levy contributions from the different maritime cities, and among others from Abdera in Thrace, from which he demanded one hundred thousand denarii and fifty thousand modii of wheat. The Abderites, instead of sending forthwith what had been demanded, asked for a short delay, during which they sent to the consul, and even to Rome, to ask for some reduction. Before an answer came back, Hortensius caused the town to be occupied, the chief men to be executed, and the remainder to be sold as slaves. Perhaps by such a process he succeeded in obtaining the necessary supplies from other towns, which would rather be plundered than utterly destroyed. But some towns, like Emathia, Amphipolis, Maronea, and Aenus, were courageous enough, and strong enough, to shut their gates, and to resist the outrageous rapacity of the Romans.

About the operations of the consul Hostilius Mancinus during the year 170 hardly anything is known. It appears that he made two fruitless attempts to penetrate into Macedonia, but that, repulsed by Perseus, he spent the remainder of the year in Thessaly without venturing on any further enterprise, occupied only with establishing in the army a certain degree of order and discipline. Perseus had nothing more to apprehend on this side, and was for some time engaged in Thrace and Illyria. The Romans also seemed to have been induced by the revolt of the Epirots to devote their attention chiefly to Illyria. Gentius, king of Scodra, the successor of Pleuratus, who had long been on good terms with Rome, was the friend and ally of the Roman people. This friendship had its drawbacks. It prevented Gentius from enjoying full freedom of action, and restrained him in his practice of piracy, without which the Illyrians fancied that they could not exist. Hence arose complaints and disputes, and there seemed to be good foundation for the news which the Issaeans (the Greek colonists on the island of Issa) carried to Rome in the year 172, that Gentius was in secret correspondence with Perseus. Yet Gentius did not dare to oppose Rome openly, and could for the time still be counted as a Roman ally. When, therefore, in the beginning of the war, Lucius Decimius had been sent to him to ask for his aid against Macedonia, he placed at the disposal of the Romans a fleet of fifty-four Illyrian galleys.

A Roman army of about twenty thousand men, commanded by Cneus Licinius, was destined for Illyria, and a part of it marched through Dassaretia towards the Macedonian frontier. From thence they expected to be able to penetrate into Macedonia with less difficulty than by way of the strongly defended Thessalian passes. The same road had been attempted in the war with Philip; but the difficulties of supplying the armies with provisions were so great that the consul Sulpicius Galba found himself compelled to retire to the coast. An enterprising general might, nevertheless, think that the mistakes of the first expedition could be avoided. Accordingly, the consul Caius Cassius, the colleague of Licinius, formed an adventurous plan, founded upon the calculation that Macedonia could be invaded from the north-west. Disappointed in his hope of receiving the command in Macedonia, and having obtained by lot Cisalpine Gaul for his province, he, in total ignorance of the natural features of the country and of the distances, had formed the idea of gaining his object by marching round the Adriatic, and reaching Macedonia through Illyria. The fact that the designation ‘Illyria’ extended, very indefinitely, to the northern extremity of the Adriatic, may have caused him to fancy that when in the land of the Gauls, or in Istria, he would not be very far from the possessions of the Illyrian king Gentius. He had set out on this expedition without the authority or even the knowledge of the senate. It was by mere chance that the senate received the news of this wild undertaking, and in the greatest haste they sent messengers to Cassius to order him to return immediately.

If it was the intention of the Romans to invade Macedonia by way of Illyria in the year 170, their efforts must either have been very feeble, or else they must have been hindered by the insurrection of the Epirots, or by the doubtful attitude of Gentius of Scodra. Anyhow, what they did undertake had no good result. Appius Claudius Cento, a legate who commanded an army of four thousand Romans and eight thousand Illyrians, attempted to take by surprise Uscana, a mountain fortress on the Macedonian frontier, but was repulsed, and lost on his retreat the greater part of his troops. This news caused great dissatisfaction in Rome, and induced the senate to send a special commission to Greece to investigate the matter. By this means they ascertained what, it appears, the generals purposely kept secret, namely, that matters were not proceeding favourably at all, that Perseus had successfully maintained his position during the summer, and had even reduced several towns, that the Roman allies had lost courage, and, above all, that the army of the consul was diminished by the absence of a large number of soldiers on leave without any justifiable cause.

It was probably about this time that the senate was assailed by embassies from the ill-used Greek towns, among which that of Chalcis especially produced a great impression. They saw that matters could no longer be carried, on in this way, and that the insatiable greed, cruelty, and tyranny of the Roman magistrates not only disgraced the honour of the republic, but also endangered the success of the campaign. If the senate could not, by a formal resolution, bestow military ability on the leaders of the army, they could, at any rate, restrain the abuse of official power; or, at least, they could express their displeasure if they were not entitled to act as a superior administrative authority, and to issue direct orders. It was therefore resolved that in future no commander should levy contributions, or require any services to be rendered to him by the allies of the Roman people, without special authorisation from the senate. The Greeks, who had been ill-treated, were promised redress, the commanders were requested to act with moderation. For the losses which had been suffered compensation was made, or at least promised. One of the guilty, the ex-praetor Caius Lucretius, was accused by two tribunes, and condemned by the popular assembly to pay a considerable fine.

Thus, when the second year of the war had passed, the Romans had rather lost than gained ground. Not one Roman soldier had as yet entered Macedonia; but many had fallen, or had been taken prisoners. Some of the Greek allies were exasperated by ill-treatment, others had become estranged and discouraged, a few were in open rebellion. But the plainest proof of the unfavourable state of affairs was that the cautious, and even timid, Perseus advanced from the defensive to the offensive. Even during the summer of 170 he had held the wretched consul Hostilius Mancinus in such contempt that he left him stationed in Thessaly, and marched northwards to attack the Thracians and Dardanians, who had probably been instigated by the Romans to invade Macedonia whilst the Macedonian army was engaged in the south of the kingdom. In conjunction with his brave ally, Kotys, king of the Odrysians, Perseus defeated the Thracians, and then turned westward, where, in the meantime, the Epirots had declared against Rome, while Gentius of Scodra still remained neutral, in expectation of events. It appears that in the winter of 170-169 the Romans had taken possession of the town of Uscana in Illyria, from which Appius Claudius had been at first repulsed with great loss in the course of the year. Perseus now forced the town to surrender, and took the Roman garrison of four thousand men prisoners; but he refrained, perhaps out of pity, perhaps out of policy, from selling them into slavery, as the laws of warfare permitted. Then he marched about Illyria, regardless of the severity of the weather, conquering towns, and carrying away with him the Roman garrisons.

After such successes, Perseus commenced negotiations with Gentius, who now mustered courage to declare himself the enemy of Rome. Then he marched southwards into Aetolia, where he expected that a faction in Stratus, now the most important town of the Aetolians, was prepared to make common cause with him. With a part of his army he undertook a most difficult march over snow-covered mountains and swollen rivers, to within a short distance of Stratus, hoping that the town would be betrayed into his hands. But he discovered that a detachment of Romans, warned by the opposite party, had come in haste from Ambracia, and had anticipated him in occupying the town. This spirited expedition therefore failed. Artolia was too well garrisoned by the enemy for Perseus to remain there; he was forced to return into his own kingdom, after an expedition on the whole successful and creditable to him.

The Roman commanders, Appius Claudius and Lucius Coelius, tried in vain, after his departure, to regain the lost towns. They marched to and fro, without a definite plan, in the wild mountain regions; but the only result was that they lost a great number of men in killed and prisoners. After the complete failure of his military operations, Appius Claudius dismissed his Greek auxiliaries to their respective homes, sent his Italian soldiers into winter quarters in the neighbourhood of Dyrrhachium, and returned himself to Rome, in order, as Livy reports, to perform some sacrifice. Thus ended the Roman campaign of the year 170 in Illyria, not only without the slightest military advantage, but even with confessed losses, incurred in a manner at once deplorable and dishonourable to the Roman arms.

The chief command in the East for the year 169, the third year of the war, was allotted to the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus, the same who, two years previously as ambassador, had outwitted Perseus, and persuaded him to remain inactive. If he had on that occasion proved a keen and crafty diplomatist, he had, on the other hand, played hitherto but a sorry part as a general. During his first consulship, in the year 186, he had allowed himself to be surprised by the Ligurians in a narrow valley, and to be so completely beaten, that his army fled disgracefully, leaving behind several thousands dead, and many standards. This defeat did not prevent his re-election to the consulship for the year 169, and when he, with Cneus Servilius Caepio, had obtained the votes of the centuries for the year 169, he also received by lot the command in Macedonia, although after the unsatisfactory result of two campaigns, the progress of the war was beginning to be regarded with a certain amount of impatience if not anxiety.

The unexpected audacity of Perseus during the winter had given rise to the opinion that he would now continue the offensive, and penetrate into Thessaly. The Romans, therefore, made extensive preparations, and, besides sending supplementary troops to Macedonia, formed four legions of reserve. Even in the previous year the consul Hostilius Mancinus had endeavoured to limit the practice of giving leave of absence too liberally to the troops in the field. The Greek allies, especially the Achaeans, offered to exert themselves to the utmost, and to muster an auxiliary force of five thousand men, while king Eumenes, and even Prusias of Bithynia, who had, until now, looked on inactively, sent ships for the reinforcement of the Roman fleet. Marcius was in a position to make a vigorous attack, and perhaps he hoped thus to anticipate the designs of Perseus. He conceived the bold design of crossing the mountains by an extremely difficult pass parallel with that of Tempe, and of penetrating into Macedonia along the coast with the co-operation of the Roman fleet. The fact that this plan succeeded in the main, in spite of the evident incapacity both of Marcius Philippus and of Marcius Figulus, the commander of the fleet, who was absent at the decisive moment, is one of the many proofs that courage is, after all, the first and foremost virtue of a soldier.

Perseus, with his main force, was now at the south-eastern extremity of Macedonia, between the pass of Tempe and the fortress of Dion, which lay ten miles further north, in a part where the mountains again run down eastward to the sea, and thus form another line of defence. The pass of Tempe was strongly occupied in four successive places, from Gonnos in the south as far as the narrowest part of the valley. Besides this Perseus had taken the precaution of placing in two localities, where the mountains could be crossed, strong detachments under Hippias and Asclepiodotus. It was upon the possible negligence of these troops that Marcius founded his plan. After a difficult march an advanced guard of light-armed troops reached the heights, where Hippias and his men, feeling perfectly secure, were easily surprised. The main force followed, and had, it appears, to contend more with the difficult nature of the ground than with the enemy. The elephants, especially, caused great trouble. Circumstances had so changed, that the Romans, who had formerly encountered these animals in the armies of their enemies, were now the only nation that employed them in war. It almost seems as if a kind of superstition attached itself to them; for, according to all reports, they must more often have been the cause of inconvenience, and even of accidents, than of military success; and yet the Romans, after their victories over the Carthaginians, Macedonians, and Syrians, always tried to prevent their enemies from using elephants of war, and had themselves learnt to use them. After unspeakable exertions, which Polybius describes as an eye-witness, Marcius reached the plain, which is bounded on the east by the sea, and on the west by the semicircular range of Olympus. He had avoided, by a flank march, the pass of Tempe; but it seemed as if he had got into a trap set on purpose, from which it was impossible to escape. A retreat by the same route by which he had come was out of the question, on account of the physical obstacles, and, if attempted, it might have been prevented by a handful of men. In the vale of Tempe the fourfold Macedonian posts were still stationed, while, in the pass of Dion, in front of him, was the Macedonian main force; to the east was the sea, but not a trace of the Roman fleet, which was to bring supplies and to co-operate, was visible. If Perseus had but possessed the military instinct of a mere barbarian, shown seventeen years before by the Ligurians in their war with Marcius, the Roman army would have been lost. But Perseus was so disconcerted by the audacity of Marcius, that he at once gave up everything for lost. He issued orders that the troops left behind should evacuate the pass of Tempe, and he even retreated from the strong position near Dion, removing, with the greatest haste, the most valuable treasures in the town, and taking even the inhabitants away with him. His fear was so great that he ordered his crown treasures at Pella to be thrown into the sea, and the naval establishments at Thessalonica to be set on fire.

Such abject cowardice cannot be reconciled with the previous conduct of Perseus, which, if not heroic, had at any rate not been contemptible, and we are inclined to believe that the facts were not precisely what our informants tell us. Perhaps Perseus doubted the fidelity of the troops who were charged with the defence of the passes. We know that there were traitors among the servants of the king, for Livy relates that one Onesimus, formerly one of his friends and councillors, went over to the Romans, and was rewarded by them for his services. Hippias, however, who ought to have defended the pass by which the Romans passed, seems to have been guilty only of negligence and not of treason. On the other hand, we are almost inclined to doubt that the garrison in the pass of Tempe really retreated in compliance with the orders of Perseus; for in this case they would surely have destroyed the magazines of provisions, and not have allowed them to fall into the hands of the Romans ; and the garrison of Heracleum, a small town, north of the pass, would have received the same orders to withdraw, whereas we are informed that it offered a stout resistance. Moreover, the retreat of the Macedonian troops northwards, through the narrow plain occupied by the Romans, would have been extremely difficult. We venture, therefore, to surmise that the despair of Perseus was not mere pusillanimity, but the result, at least in part, of treason, and that he did not voluntarily give up his position in the pass of Tempe. But we cannot decide this point with any certainty, as all our reports are derived from Roman sources, and as unfortunately even Polybius, the most trustworthy witness, regarded Perseus with evident disfavour and partiality.

The consul Marcius Philippus was at first far from congratulating himself on his successful march across the mountains. He saw with terror the danger of his situation, and only the retreat of the Macedonian troops assured him that his bold plan had succeeded. He now took up the position at Dium which had been abandoned by Perseus, and thence he penetrated further to the northward unmolested. But he was compelled to retreat by lack of provisions. He anxiously watched the sea, where he expected the Roman fleet to arrive. At length it came in sight and anchored; but the commander, Marcius Figulus, had left behind on the coast of Magnesia the ships laden with stores. The Romans would now have perished from hunger, even without any attack on the part of the enemy, had not the tidings happily arrived that the pass of Tempe was occupied by Spurius Lucretius. On receiving this news Marcius again marched back in that direction, in order to feed his soldiers with the provisions there captured in the Macedonian magazines.

Meanwhile Perseus had recovered from his fright. His premature order to burn the naval establishments at Thessalonica had not been executed by his more prudent servant; the crown treasures which had been thrown into the sea he now caused to be fished up by divers. In order to regain what lie had lost by his mistake in giving up his position at Dium, he followed the retreating consul and took up the same ground once more. He naturally found the place plundered and much damaged; but he restored the fortifications, and proceeded further south to the banks of the Elpeus. This river, though almost dry in the summer, had a wide, irregular bed, with high banks, and might be used as a natural line of defence. Perseus erected a fortified camp, on the northern bank of the river, and remained in it the rest of the summer; whilst Marcius contented himself with reducing the small fortress of Heracleum, north of the pass of Tempe, the only one which still held out, and sent a detachment to Thessaly, which made vain attempts to take the little town of Meliboea. Marcius seemed to have given up the plan of storming the Macedonian position at Dium, or of marching round it. The result of the third year of the war remained limited, therefore, to the taking of the pass of Tempe, which, it is true, as the gate of Macedonia, was of the greatest importance.

The Roman fleet accomplished far less than the army. On the whole, it is again clearly perceptible that naval operations were not carried on with the same spirit and on the same scale as in the first war with Carthage, and that even since the Syrian war they had become more and more feeble. At the time of his rupture with Rome, Perseus had no fleet at all. The Romans, therefore, had to apprehend no interference in their movements, and the fleet might easily and effectually have supported the endeavours of the army to penetrate into Macedonia. The mountain ranges protected Macedonia only from an enemy advancing by land, and it was of no avail to defend mountain passes, if armies could be conveyed beyond them on board a fleet. But instead of acting in common with the army, the commanders of the fleet seem to have confined themselves to the far more lucrative task of plundering, and they refused the reinforcements which were offered them by their Greek allies, because for this purpose they did not need them. We have already spoken of the infamous and systematic plundering of Lucretius and Hortensius. At length, in the third year of the war, it was decided that army and fleet should co-operate according to a fixed plan. But the praetor Marcius Figulus, who was to have supported his kinsman, the consul Marcius Philippus, in his invasion of Macedonia, was foolish enough to leave behind, on the coast of Magnesia, the ships laden with provisions, and appeared north of the pass of Tempe with his armed vessels alone. This blunder forced the consul to retire, and to give up the strong position already occupied at Dium. It would even have placed the Roman army in the greatest danger of perishing from hunger, had not the surrender of the fortresses and stores in the pass of Tempe suddenly changed the aspect of affairs, and relieved the consul for the present.

The praetor now undertook an expedition to the coast of Macedonia for the purpose of plundering ; but was repulsed at Thessalonica, Aenea, and Antigonea, and, being reinforced by Eumenes with twenty ships, and by Prusias with five Bithynian vessels, he laid regular siege to Cassandrea, a town built by Cassander on the site of ancient Potidea. This attack, undertaken with considerable vigour, failed, nevertheless, when Perseus succeeded in throwing into the town a reinforcement from Thessalonica. The siege had to be raised with great loss. After an equally fruitless attack upon Torone, Marcius and Eumenes sailed back to the Pagassean gulf, where the Macedonians still had possession of the strong town of Demetrias. The Romans hoped to carry the place by assault; but they found the garrison prepared, and when Perseus succeeded in sending a reinforcement of two thousand men into the town, they were obliged to retire from the place without having accomplished their object.

The allies now parted. Eumenes returned to Asia, and the praetor sent his ships to winter at Sciathus and Euboea. Thus the fleet had in this year accomplished not more than in the two previous campaigns. Not one of its plans had succeeded; everywhere it had been repulsed with loss; and the expedition could only have one result, namely, that of raising the courage and self-confidence of Perseus, and, on the other hand, of arousing among the allies of Rome a doubt of her invincibility, and a general discontent with the rapacious barbarians.

After three years of unsuccessful warfare the authority of Rome had indeed greatly suffered, and here and there, among the eastern states, the desire was awakened to make use of the opportunity for gaining a more independent position with respect to Rome. If Macedonia unaided was strong enough to carry on the war for three years, not only without loss but even with credit and varied success, it was surely possible that by a tolerably vigorous policy on the part of the eastern states the advance of the Roman power might be checked at last, and that a kind of balance of power might be established between the Greek and the Italian world. On the strength of this calculation Perseus founded his plan; but, in spite of alibis successes and favourable prospects, he indulged no hopes of destroying or even of conquering the Roman power, an object in which even Hannibal had failed. He would have been satisfied if he could have put an end to the war, and placed his relations to Rome on a footing more favourable and dignified. He therefore commenced negotiations with the kings of Pergamum, Syria, and Bithynia, and with the Rhodians—negotiations which were to be kept strictly secret, for fear of the Roman power, until they should have been completed. Unhappily, by the preceding events, he had been so much estranged from Eumenes, that an agreement for the interests of both parties could hardly be made. Above all, there was wanting on the one side all confidence in the honesty of the other. Moreover, with Eumenes, not satisfied with a reconciliation with Perseus, in which he was so much interested, tried to make it the occasion for a profitable bargain. He demanded from Perseus five hundred talents for simple neutrality, and fifteen thousand for his mediation in the conclusion of peace. Perseus rejected the first offer, explaining that it was dishonourable to him, and far more so to Eumenes. For the mediation of peace, however, he was willing to pay the sum required, and proposed placing it in the great national sanctuary at Samothrace, until the results should be secured to him; meanwhile, both kings were to send hostages to Cnossus, in Crete, as a security for the execution of the treaty. Eumenes was not satisfied with this suggestion, because Samothrace lay within the dominions of Perseus, whom he believed capable of deceiving him, and of pocketing the price after having gained his object. So paltry was the distrust, and so mean the spirit of over­reaching which marked the negotiations of two princes who ought to have made every effort and every sacrifice in order to oppose haughty Romo with combined forces. The apportionment of the degree of blame due to each is a matter with which we need not concern ourselves; but one thing is evident, that it is unjust to make Perseus alone responsible for the failure of the plan, and especially to name his avarice as the cause of it. It is quite natural that Perseus should require security from Eumenes for carrying out his part of the engagement; nor could he be expected to run the risk of losing unnecessarily the money which he so much needed for carrying on the war.

The negotiations between Perseus and Eumenes are said to have been begun during the maritime expedition of the summer (169 BC), in which Eumenes took part with twenty ships, and which ended so in gloriously. They were continued in the following winter after the return of Eumenes to Asia, secretly, of course, and under cover of discussions for the exchange of prisoners. The Romans, it appears, conceived suspicions, but they had no evidence in hand, and it is probable that they purposely avoided forcing the king of Pergamum openly to join the enemy, especially as it was not unknown to them that some other states were inclined to desert them.

The most powerful of these states was Syria. King Seleucus (187-176) had conscientiously kept the peace concluded with Rome by his father, Antiochus; but his disputes with Egypt, occasioned by the possession of Coele-Syria, might easily give rise to a new rupture with Rome, which had always assumed the character of patron of Egypt. Perseus, hoping to profit by this coolness between Syria and Rome, sent a message to Antiochia, to call the attention of Antiochus Epiphanes, the successor of Seleucus, to the common interests which ought to unite the eastern states in resisting the aggressive policy of Rome. But Antiochus was either too indolent to rouse himself to so decided a course of action, or else he hoped more easily to carry out his Egyptian policy, to which he attached greater importance, while the Romans were engaged in a war with Perseus, just as his father, Antiochus the Great, had done during the second Macedonian war. In short, he remained neutral, an act of weakness for which he was made to suffer only too soon.

The proposals of Perseus were more readily received by the small republic of Rhodes. The Rhodians, at the end of the Syrian war, had not met with that attention and those rewards to which they considered themselves entitled. Their interests had, in many respects, been sacrificed to those of the king of Pergamum. The aristocratic party in Rhodes, which was favourable to Rome, was thus discredited, and their opponents, the democrats, who upheld the national cause, gained ground. A feeling hostile to Rome sprang up, and was fostered by all that was left of the old Hellenic spirit of independence. Perseus became more and more popular in Rhodes. Upon his marriage with Laodice, the daughter of king Seleucus Philopator of Syria, they had escorted his bride to Macedonia with the whole of their fleet, and had by that act caused great displeasure in Rome. Now, after the war with Macedonia had broken out, their commerce had suffered frequent interruptions. They justly feared that it would suffer more and more under the vexatious and illiberal mercantile policy of Rome. Yet they had been careful not to take a part hostile to Rome, or even to give cause of suspicion, and at the beginning of the war they had placed a well-appointed fleet of forty ships at her disposal. Nevertheless, the Romans did not trust the Rhodians. Eumenes, their neighbour and rival, had his spies among them, and took care that every unguarded word which might drop from a public orator in the market-place should at once be reported to the senate. Perhaps this was the reason why the Rhodian fleet was not called upon by the Romans to co­operate. It may have been mistrusted, perhaps also it was not absolutely wanted. The Rhodians, made uncomfortable by the apparent alienation of the Romans, resolved to send ambassadors in the spring of the year to assure the senate of their fidelity. The embassy was graciously received, as far as appearances went, and obtained, among other marks of favour, the permission to export corn from Sicily. At the same time Rhodian ambassadors were sent to Greece to the consul Marcius Philippus. The latter, who was fond of crooked ways, took aside one of the ambassadors, and succeeded in convincing him that Rome would welcome a mediation on the part of Rhodes for the purpose of restoring peace. Polybius does not venture to decide whether Marcius, discouraged by the slow progress of the war, was really inclined for an amicable arrangement, or whether he was endeavouring, with perfidious cunning, to entice the Rhodians to a step which he knew would cause the greatest exasperation in Rome. Yet Polybius is disposed to accept the latter alternative; and as he knew Marcius personally, and was at that time present with him in the camp, he surely was able to judge correctly.

Thus the Rhodians were misled, and the Roman consul himself contributed not a little to make the anti-Roman policy prevail in Rhodes; for his desire to put an end to the war by the mediation of the Rhodians was naturally looked upon as a proof of timidity and weakness. In the conflict of factions which at Rhodes, as in every other Greek democracy, determined the policy of the state more by sentiment than by judgment, those men now predominated who had always been zealous for the cause of Hellenic independence, and in their enthusiasm they took no heed of the signs of the times. There were men all over Greece, whose thoughts were full of the heroic deeds of their forefathers, who were inspired with patriotism by the names of Marathon and Salamis, and who failed to see the vast gulf which separated those times from their own. If any Greek community could do so, the Rhodians had a right to think themselves worthy of their ancestors; and indeed against the Persians the Greek sword would still have proved as sharp as ever. But an enemy was now to be encountered of a different temper; and it would have been wiser, though perhaps less dignified, to take into account the altered circumstances than to be guided by patriotic feelings alone.

The treacherous overtures of the consul Marcius Philippus were followed in the course of the year 169 by reports of the warlike operations, which, especially so far as they regarded the fleet, were far from realising the expectations of the Romans, but which raised once more the wildest hopes of the patriotic party in Greece. Then, in the following winter, ambassadors came to Rhodes from Perseus, and from king Gentius. They brought the news of an alliance formed by the two kings, and invited the Rhodians to join. This seemed the right moment to the hot-headed leaders of the national party. On their advice it was now resolved to send embassies to Rome and Macedonia, to ask the belligerents to put an end to the war, and at the same time to declare that Rhodes would range itself against those who refused to make peace.1 We shall soon see what lamentable consequences this rash step entailed upon Rhodes.

While Perseus was hoping for the support of the Hellenic states in Asia, offers of immediate military assistance came to him from a very different quarter. A horde of twenty thousand Gauls, who had crossed the Danube, and were approaching the frontier of Macedonia, offered to serve as mercenaries. If Perseus had at that time been hard pressed, or in want of troops, he would probably have accepted the offer without hesitation; but his army was strong enough, and twenty thousand Gauls were a force hard to manage, should they take into their heads to mutiny under some pretext or other, as was by no means unusual with Gallic mercenaries. Perseus was willing to take into his pay five thousand of them. These he fancied he could employ and keep in order. But, as the chief of the Gauls would not agree to a division of his forces, the negotiations came to an end, and the Gauls marched back to their own country.

Perseus thought that he could the more easily dispense with these untrustworthy hordes, because, about this time, the treaty with the Illyrian king, Gentius, had at length been concluded. Gentius had demanded three hundred talents as the price of his participation in the war with Rome, and had received a small amount in advance. Perseus promised to send the remainder, but he was in no hurry to do so, until Gentius should have openly declared war against Rome. When Gentius had done this by seizing two Roman ambassadors, Perseus felt convinced that his aid was secured to him in any case. He therefore kept back the rest of the stipulated sum, as if, to use Livy’s expression, he were intent upon keeping undiminished the spoil which the Romans would find after his defeat. If this report be true, Perseus acted not only dishonourably but also unwisely, for, in withholding the reward from a man who only worked for the sake of it, he could not but expect to find in him an unwilling, and therefore a useless servant. It is, however, not impossible that this story, too, belongs to the list of slanders of which the Romans were so liberal towards their enemies.

The prospects of Perseus had never been brighter than during the winter of 169-168. Everywhere negotiations were being carried on satisfactorily, even where they had not yet, as in Illyria, arrived at the desired conclusion. The Roman army, and still more the fleet, were in a condition which obliged them to remain inactive. The consul Marcius Philippus, in his winter quarters, was intent chiefly upon providing for the efficiency of his army, by procuring corn, clothes, and horses. The force in Illyria, commanded by Appius Claudius, was in a deplorable condition. After his abortive operations in the year 170 he had been obliged to remain inactive. An attempt to summon to his aid five thousand Achaeans had failed, because the consul Marcius Philippus, probably out of jealousy and envy, had advised the Achaeans to pay no attention to the requests of Appius. It was indeed a delicate question which now presented itself to the Achaeans, for the wily Marcius had given them no written order, and matters had already come to such a pass, that no allied state ventured to refuse compliance with the demands of any Roman commander without trembling for its safety. But, on the other hand, Appius Claudius could show no senatorial authorisation for his request, and only a short time previously the senate had formally told the Greeks to attend to no demands of any general issued without a written order from the senate. The five thousand men had therefore not been sent, and Appius Claudius found himself in so wretched a state that if he did not now receive other reinforcements he would be obliged to evacuate the country with the rest of his troops.

The fleet was in a worse plight still. The crews had dwindled away, partly by disastrous battles, partly by disease, partly by desertion, while those who remained were suffering from insufficiency of clothing, and complaining of arrears of pay. While the Roman fleet was thus paralysed, the small Macedonian galleys issuing from Thessalonica made the whole sea unsafe, attacked the transports intended for the army, and interrupted the communication. A total change had taken place. In the beginning of the war Perseus had had no ships, and the Romans, feeling their superiority, had declined the assistance offered them by their allies. Now the new fleet of the Macedonians commanded the sea, and the Roman vessels lay useless on the shore. No wonder if the Greeks, especially the Rhodians, began to lose faith in the Romans, and to believe that in the end the Macedonian arms would prevail. However, if they really thought so, they had a very mistaken notion of the Roman power. The ill success which the Roman arms had hitherto met with, was due only to the incapacity of the generals and to the false economy of the senate. A happy choice at the next consular election, and the earnest desire on the part of the government to furnish the necessary means, sufficed to make good the mistakes hitherto committed, and to bear down all resistance. The senate and the people had at length roused themselves, and resolved to complete the work which they had begun.

The consuls of the year 168 were Caius Licinius Crassus and Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the son of the consul of the same name, who had been killed at Cannae. The command in Macedonia was conferred upon the latter in the usual way by casting lots. Aemilius had acquired some reputation as a general. When proconsul in Spain (190 BC), he had suffered a considerable reverse, and, after losing six thousand men, had been repulsed by the Lusitanians. But in the following year he had redeemed his loss by defeating the Lusitanians in a great battle. After his first consulship, in the year 182, he had as proconsul compelled the Ligurians to renounce their habits, of piracy, and had been rewarded by a triumph for his military exploits. But he had not succeeded in being re­elected until, in the third year of the war with Perseus, the poor results attained by the previous commanders caused public attention to be directed towards him as a more able soldier. His honesty perhaps was still more in his favour; for it was known that he had not enriched himself in his public offices, as was then the custom with most men. He was, however, anything but a democrat, and was closely connected with the ruling families. His eldest son had passed by adoption into the family of the Fabii, and his second son, who afterwards destroyed Carthage and Numantia, was adopted under the name of Scipio Aemilianus by a son of the victor of Zama. After having divorced his first wife, a lady of the ancient and noble family of the Papirii, Aemilius Paullus married a second time, and had four children, two daughters and two sons, who were still very young when their father, a sexagenarian, but hale and strong, entered upon his second consulship (168 BC). Love of his children seems to have been a prominent feature in the character of this man, of whom, unfortunately, in spite of Plutarch’s long biography, in reality we know so little. He employed all his leisure time in superintending their education, and conducted it in the spirit of the age, causing his sons to be instructed by Greek masters in the language and literature of Greece, and in mental as well as bodily accomplishments. We shall see how the day of his triumph over Perseus and the last years of his life were clouded by the death of his two youngest and most beloved children, and how he bore this misfortune with Roman fortitude.

The wars with the barbarous tribes in Spain and Liguria were not a good school for the Roman generals, as is plainly shown by the incapacity of those who commanded in Macedonia. If, therefore, as is reported, something extraordinary was expected of Aemilius Paullus, it must have been his character, apart from his former exploits, that inspired the Romans with confidence. At the same time, care was taken that he should have the means of accomplishing the task entrusted to him. Armaments were made which recall to our minds the time of the Hannibalic war. About eighty thousand infantry and more than four thousand cavalry were levied. The remainder of the troops in Illyria and Macedonia could not amount to less than twenty-five thousand. Thus the republic had far above one hundred thousand men in arms, without counting the forces scattered over Spain, Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. Of this overpowering force, fourteen thousand infantry, twelve hundred horse, five thousand marines, besides the remainder of the old troops still fit for use, forming together with, the auxiliaries an army which at the very least must have amounted to fifty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, were destined for Macedonia. Twenty thousand four hundred infantry and fourteen hundred horse were sent to Illyria, where the Roman troops had suffered even more than in Macedonia, and where the alliance of Gentius with Perseus had created new enemies. The array in that country must thus have been raised at the very least to thirty thousand infantry and two thousand horse. With such forces the Romans might begin the fourth campaign with a fair prospect of a speedy victory.

The first blow was dealt against king Gentius. The Illyrian pirate vessels were quickly swept off the sea by the Roman fleet, and the praetor Anicius who now relieved Appius Claudius in the command, marched straight upon Scodra, the capital of the country. Gentius had actually courage enough to march out and meet the Romans in the field, but he was immediately driven back into the town. Although he had suffered but a slight loss, and might have stood his ground for a long time in the fortified town, yet he at once lost courage and asked for a truce, and afterwards, when the expected reinforcements did not arrive, for peace. He was obliged to surrender unconditionally, and was carried off as a prisoner to adorn the triumphal entry of the victor. In Rome the news of this first victory of the new campaign arrived before it was known that operations had begun in earnest.

The sudden collapse of Gentius was, from a military point of view, no great loss to Perseus, for up to this time the Illyrian chief had been of no service to him. But it was a bad omen, and could not but lessen the confidence of all those who wished success to the Macedonian arms, or who were more or less inclined to join Perseus. Events, which had hitherto marched so slowly, now followed each other in rapid succession. The aspect of affairs changed so suddenly, that the plans and calculations which the Rhodians had only just made for an armed intervention proved very soon to be most unseasonable.

We have seen that the consul Marcius Philippus had in the preceding year invited the Rhodians to try to bring about a peace between Rome and Macedonia, and that thereby the Macedonian party in Rhodes had become more influential, especially as at the same time the alliance between Perseus and Gentius became known there. The Rhodians had, in pursuance of this plan, resolved to send an embassy to Rome, to declare that they wished to see peace restored, and that they would eventually declare against the side that insisted on continuing the strife. At the same time they had sent messengers to the theatre of war to demand the cessation of hostilities. The former embassy was not received by the senate until after the battle of Pydna; and the Rhodians, finding themselves forestalled by events, tried to represent the original object of their mission as dictated by friendship for the Romans, and now congratulated them on their victory. The ambassadors who had been sent to Macedonia reached the camp of the consul Aemilius Paullus just as the latter, having arrived with reinforcements, had newly organised the army and introduced a stricter discipline. They received the answer that they should wait a fortnight. By that time Aemilius hoped to be no longer obliged to consult their wishes; nor had he made a mistake in his calculations.

Perseus still held his strongly fortified position on the Elpeus, south of Dium. Aemilius was posted immediately in front of it. Octavius, the commander of the fleet, was prepared to co-operate, and to support the front attack by a diversion in the rear of the Macedonian line. But, after due consideration, Aemilius preferred to engross the attention of Perseus by making a feigned attack in front, while at the same time he attempted a flank march—a plan which had so often been adopted, and had always succeeded. He sent a strong detachment, in which his eldest son, Fabius Maximus, was serving, under the command of Scipio Nasica, across the pass of Pythium, which was indeed occupied by the enemy, but was taken at once without difficulty. Thus Perseus was a second time by a simple flank march driven out of an impregnable position, and he had no alternative but to retreat further north. He took up a new position at Pydna. Aemilius at once followed him, and was joined by the detachment under Scipio Nasica. When he had come up with the Macedonian army south of Pydna, in the immediate vicinity of the sea, his subordinate officers, and especially Scipio Nasica, urged him to commence the attack at once. But he first ordered his troops to encamp, and to rest from their fatiguing march. In the night of the 21st of June, 168 BC, an eclipse of the moon took place, which the military tribune Sulpicius Gallus is reported to have calculated beforehand, and to have announced to the soldiers as impending, so that this natural phenomenon produced no consternation in the Roman camp, whereas in that of the Macedonians it was unexpected, and consequently filled the soldiers with superstitious fear. Even on the next day Aemilius did not wish to give battle, when, towards evening, the advanced troops on both sides, who were watering their horses, came into collision, and a general engagement was presently the result. Thus, as at Cynoscephalae, the decisive battle was brought about without the intention of the two commanders, and, as at Cynoscephalae, the victory was decided partly by the courage of the Roman soldiers, partly by the Roman order of battle, which, owing to the manipular tactics, was more easily moved than the unwieldy phalanx. Wherever in the Macedonian line of battle a gap was formed, which was inevitable in marching over uneven ground, the Romans forced their way in and broke the ranks asunder. Incapable of offering resistance in a hand-to-hand struggle, the phalangites fell by thousands, helpless as sheep, under  the thrusts of the short Roman swords. It is reported that twenty thousand were killed and eleven thousand taken prisoners. The Macedonian cavalry exhibited the utmost cowardice. It appears to have taken no serious part in the battle, but rode off from the field, first to Pydna, and thence immediately further north. On the other hand, all parts of the Roman army co-operated to produce the most brilliant result. The elephants advanced steadily, and helped to bring about the decision, and even the naval troops came in boats from their ships, and cut down all the fugitives they could overtake. The Macedonian phalanx had fought its last great battle. On Macedonian ground it succumbed in a bloody struggle to the Roman legion, and in its fall it brought down with it the Macedonian monarchy. It was the excellent tactics of the legions, and not the strategic talent of the worthy Aemilius Paullus, that decided the victory—a victory which, like the other great decisive battles in the East, was gained with a surprisingly small sacrifice of blood, for on the Roman side hardly more than one hundred men were killed. Whilst in the struggles with the barbarous tribes of Spain, Gaul, and Liguria, thousands of Roman soldiers were butchered in nameless battles without profit and without glory for the Roman state, the great civilised countries of the successors of Alexander succumbed to the first powerful blow, almost without being able to give a blow in return. But in the East the war was carried on, not by the nations, but by the rulers; besides, civilisation, usually stronger than barbarism, had here become paralysed and enervated during the long period which had estranged the Greek people from their ideals, and had caused them to degenerate in misery and suffering, in unceasing wars of truculent warrior kings, and the desperate struggles of the rich with the poor.

We have contradictory reports of the conduct of King Perseus during the fatal battle. Whilst Polybius unhesitatingly accuses him of cowardice, relating that he rode off in the beginning of the battle, under the pretext of offering up a sacrifice to Hercules at Pella, a certain Posidonius, the author of a biography of Perseus, tells us that on the previous day he was injured in the thigh by a kick from a horse, that, nevertheless, in spite of the pain, and against the entreaties of his friends, he mounted a baggage horse unarmed, and remained on the battle-field until he was grazed by a spear. As Perseus had, as yet, never exhibited a want of personal courage, the Roman report sounds strange. We are involuntarily reminded of the systematic slandering of Hannibal, and of the meanness which always prompted the Romans to speak ill of their enemies. The authority of Posidonius may be slight, but yet he was in a better position than a Roman writer to know how Perseus behaved in the battle. At any rate, it is not improbable that the chance kick of a horse may have paralysed the spirit and energy of Perseus on the very day which decided his fate.

We cannot, without compassion, watch the fugitive king of Macedonia stealing along byways to the woods, accompanied by a few faithful followers, trying to escape unrecognised, for he already began to fear that he might fall by the dagger of a traitor. Since the memorable flight of the last Persian king from the battlefield of Arbela, the world had witnessed no such event, nor such a fall from so great a height. If we recollect that, in spite of the partiality of hostile historians, all our sources agree in praising not only the manly, handsome, and noble appearance of the king, but also his clemency, humanity, and moderation, and that in reality they can reproach him with nothing but disinclination to part with his treasures if we are, moreover, convinced that the war was entirely provoked by the Romans, this compassion is heightened to sympathy such as only great and noble men suffering from, undeserved adversity can inspire. Hunted by his pursuers, forsaken by his best friends, the fugitive hastened on without pausing. His magnificent cavalry was scattered in all directions: only about five hundred Cretan mercenaries remained with him, and these remained not from self­sacrificing fidelity, but because they counted upon grasping some of the treasures which he might possibly take with him. Not one of his higher officers remained in his company. Hippias, Midon, and Pantauchus hastened to submit to the approaching consul. All the large towns in the country, among them Pella, the ancient capital, with its impregnable castle, Beroea, and Thessalonica, surrendered within two days. Nowhere was there a pause in the flight, or a shadow of resistance. The Macedonian nation bowed its neck under the Roman yoke. The suffering caused by so many wars, and the oppression of foreign mercenaries, had made the people indifferent to the dignity and pride of independence, and had left them only a longing for peace.

One example will show the total collapse of the Macedonian monarchy. In the strongly fortified and important town of Amphipolis there was still a garrison of two thousand Thracians, under a captain called Diodorus. Upon the news of the defeat at Pydna the peaceable inhabitants began to fear not so much the Romans as their own protectors, the Thracian mercenaries. Diodorus, by a stratagem, induced the Thracians to leave the town, pretending that there was a rich booty to be made outside, whereupon the inhabitants immediately shut the gates. Perseus reached Amphipolis on the third day after the battle. He had now crossed the Strymon, and hoped that the Romans would leave him time to negotiate. But his own subjects entreated him to leave them. They feared that his presence might force them to offer resistance to the Romans, whereas their only thought was submission. Perseus yielded to their entreaties. He left fifty talents to the faithful Cretans to loot, and embarked with the rest of his treasures, amounting, as reported, to two thousand talents, for the island of Samothrace.

Aemilius Paullus had at once comprehended the full importance of his victory at Pydna, and resolved to turn it to account, not for the purpose of enriching himself and his friends, but for the advantage of the Roman republic. He protected the inhabitants from being plundered and ill-used by his soldiers, a proceeding by which, he doubtless hastened the rapid subjection of the country, but at the same time made himself unpopular in his own army. Towards the conquered king he assumed all the dignity and pride of victorious Rome. The resolution had been formed at Rome from the beginning to put an end to the Macedonian monarchy. When, therefore, Perseus sent a letter, in which he, as ‘king of Macedonia’, sent his greeting to the Roman consul, Aemilius returned it unanswered. This humiliation made it clear to Perseus that he was not only conquered but also dethroned. A second letter to the consul was signed only with his name, without the title which he had forfeited. But the negotiations led to no result, because Aemilius insisted on unconditional surrender, and Perseus desperately clung to vain hopes. The uncertainty was not of long duration. The praetor Cneus Octavius approached with the Roman fleet, and took up his position oft the island. Perseus seems to have hoped for some little time that the sanctity of the temple of Samothrace, so highly revered throughout Greece, would protect him from violence. At length, however, he resolved to make his escape to Thrace. A ship was held in readiness by the Cretan Oroandes in a solitary part of the coast, and was laden towards evening with necessaries, and as much money as could be secretly conveyed into it. In the dead of night the king, with his wife and his children, stole away through a back door of the house at which he lodged, crossed the garden, climbed over a wall, and reached the sea. There the fugitives wandered to and fro on the shore, seeking the ship in vain. The faithless Cretan had sailed away at nightfall with the treasures, leaving the king to his fate, and to despair. Perseus, with his eldest son, remained for some time in hiding; but when all his pages had given themselves up to the Roman consul, to whom also his younger children had been handed over by their tutor, he at length surrendered at discretion to the praetor Octavius. He was immediately taken on board a ship, conducted to Amphipolis, and thence to the camp of Aemilius.

Never before had a Roman consul had in his power so noble a prisoner. There was a great temptation to be haughty and overbearing. But it appears that Aemilius was too noble-minded to ill-use his unfortunate enemy after his fall, and too wise to exult in his victory. It is true, he spoke harshly to him, and reproached him with his hostile disposition towards Rome, as not only wrong but foolish; but he extended his hand to him, raised him up when he was about to fall on his knees, and offered him a seat before the council of war assembled in the tent; he also ceased questioning him when he saw that Perseus remained silent to all inquiries. Then he turned to his friends, reminded them of the uncertainty of all human greatness, and admonished them to be moderate and humble in good fortune.

The capture of Perseus brought the war to a final close. It was not to be expected that the Macedonians, who even before this event had surrendered rapidly and completely to the conquerors, would, when they were left to themselves, resume hostilities. After a short campaign, Aemilius could safely dismiss his troops into winter quarters at Amphipolis and the neighbouring towns, and await the instructions which the senate would issue with regard to affairs in Macedonia.

This important question now occupied the minds of the leading Roman politicians. Two roads were open to them. Macedonia, now completely conquered, might be converted into a Roman province like Sicily, Sardinia with Corsica, and the two divisions of Spain, or it might be kept politically dependent upon Rome, and free only in name. The senate resolved to pursue the latter course, not from moderation or satisfied ambition, but in the well-founded conviction that the large extent of territory already acquired was too heavy a superstructure for the foundation on which the republican government was established. It was clearly perceptible that the development in the form of government had not kept pace with the extension of the boundaries. The Roman magistrates, who were to represent the authority of the republic in foreign parts, had already begun to disregard this authority to an alarming extent. The Roman nobles showed more and more an inclination to act independently, and this inclination was justified and supported by the fact that it was impossible for commanders far from the centre of the Roman power, the seat of the actual sovereignty, to be implicitly guided by orders and instructions. A Manlius, who carried on a war with the Galatians on his own responsibility, a Cassius, who, contrary to distinct orders, left his province to march into Illyria and to take part in a war which had been entrusted to his colleague; a Lucretius and a Hortensius, who forgot their duties in eagerness for plunder and rapine—men who, like the brother of the great Scipio, did not return from the field with pure hands, might well serve as a warning to Cato and other honest patriots who were anxious to preserve the spirit of the old republican institutions. As these men, however, could not conceive a plan of reform which would have burst the narrow circle of the ancient town institutions, which would have widened the limits of the old citizenship, and restrained the abuses of office, they attempted to check, at least for a while, the downward course with which the state was hurrying to its fall. Perhaps they felt that their attempt was vain. The momentum of the enormous force set in motion was too great to be stopped or turned into another direction by any man or any party. The attempt which was made ended in a temporary arrangement, altogether unavailing and unsatisfactory to Rome, and ruinous to Macedonia, the country more directly concerned.

The senate resolved that Macedonia should be free. How this freedom was to be understood and realised was left to the decision of a committee of ten men selected from the senate, who were despatched to Greece in order to arrange matters on the spot, under the direction of Aemilius Paullus. In Amphipolis a great congress was held. Deputies from all the Macedonian towns appeared before the Roman proconsul and his ten coadjutors to hear what had been decided with regard to their destiny. It is hardly probable that the word liberty, so often misapplied, now produced an effect similar to that which had been called forth at the Isthmian games when Flamininus first pronounced it. The Greeks in the meantime had learnt what was meant by freedom granted by the Romans. The abolition of royalty, which, according to tradition, had been the foundation of liberty in Rome, could not be regarded as a beneficial change by a nation which from time immemorial had been accustomed to a monarchical constitution, and had never wished for any other. But if liberty was to mean independence from other states, especially Rome, the Macedonians knew only too well that it was a mere illusion and a sham.

This was soon made clear to everyone by the demand that Macedonia was from this time forward to pay an annual tribute to the Roman state, only half, it is true, of what had formerly been paid to the native kings, but still a tribute to a foreign state, which alone was to have the disposal of it. In return for this tribute paid to her as the protecting power, Rome undertook to guarantee Macedonia from all foreign enemies, and thus, by relieving the Macedonians from the duty of military service, or rather by taking away from them the right of carrying arms, degraded them in their own estimation. Only in the districts bordering upon the northern barbarians armed posts were to guard the frontier. The brave and warlike Macedonians, who by their habits, customs, and past history, had come to regard the profession of arms as their chief occupation, a people who had brought the Greek tactics to the highest perfection, and had conquered the whole Eastern world with their phalanx, were condemned, like the Lydians after the fall of Croesus, to devote themselves only to the arts of peace.

But in the very practice of these arts, and in the enjoyment of tranquil life, the strength of the Macedonian people was paralysed by the insidious policy of their conquerors. The country was divided into four parts, each of which was to govern itself as an independent republic, entirely distinct and separate from the other three. The four divisions were deprived of the connubium and commercium among one another, i.e. no one was allowed to own landed property in more than one division, or to conclude a legitimate marriage with anyone belonging to another division. In addition to this, the commerce of the country was restricted by laws affecting the export and import of merchandise. One of the restrictions which the Romans found it necessary to impose shows plainly the difficulty involved in their new conquest, although they had abstained as yet from converting the land into a regular province. They resolved that the gold and silver mines of Macedonia should not be worked any more, and that the royal domains should not be let. This regulation, which was tantamount to the destruction of national wealth, was dictated by administrative impotence. The military and civil officers in the Roman provinces, and the tax­collectors had by this time attained such power that they inspired more and more alarm to the home authorities, and threatened entirely to escape from their control. The Romans, therefore, chose rather to part with a copious source of revenue than to give the tax-collectors a new sphere for their operations, which had long been abused, to the injury of the public interests and for the oppression of the subjects. On the other hand, they could not make up their minds to allow the Macedonians the profit of the working of these valuable domains, because they looked upon their poverty as a security for their obedience.

In order to insure the permanence of these new regulations in Macedonia, the Romans conceived a plan which in excessive harshness surpassed everything that Roman policy had as yet invented. All the men who had ever served the king of Macedonia in any important public capacity, as military and naval officers, as civil servants, or as his councillors and friends, in short, all who by their position and capacities had to be regarded as the natural leaders of the people, were transported to Italy, together with their grown-up sons. Nothing remained but the inert mass of the meaner classes, and these were thrown back into the condition of mere peasants, from which, since the time of their great kings, they had risen almost to equality in education and culture with the Hellenes.

Such was the liberty which Rome granted to the Macedonians, in order, as Livy pompously explains, that it might be clear to all nations that the Romans did not enslave the free, but liberated the enslaved. As time showed, the new liberty was so unbearable, that after twenty years of vexation and oppression the Macedonians were driven to despair, and ventured to take up arms once more in a hopeless contest.

Illyria was treated like Macedonia. This country also received its ‘liberty’ as a gift. It was divided into three cantons, which, like the four divisions in Macedonia, were allowed a certain amount of independence in the management of their internal affairs. Some few towns, which during the war had taken the part of the Romans, were rewarded with immunity from taxation. The others were obliged to pay as a tribute to Rome one-half of the sum hitherto paid in taxes.

Kotys, the Thracian ally of Perseus, escaped unscathed, because it seemed not worth while to carry the war into Thrace; the Romans even sent him back his son, who had been taken prisoner with the children of Perseus, and thus he was laid under a special obligation to keep the peace.

The fall of the Macedonian monarchy was not less fatal to the Greek states than to the Macedonians themselves. Everywhere, as we know, there were Roman parties which, under the protection of the great foreign power, had seized the direction of affairs, and endeavoured to oppress their opponents who inclined more or less to Perseus. Every trace of political principle and of patriotism had long disappeared from the minds of these people. They were not even honest fanatics, but common ruffians who sought to obtain wealth and power for themselves, and for this object stopped short neither of violence nor cunning, treason nor murder.

In Achaea it was Callicrates who undertook to perform the dirty work for the Romans, in Epirus the infamous Charops, in Acarnania Chremes, in Aetolia Lyciscus, in Boeotia Mnasippus, and every one of these men had a host of supporters and partisans ready to commit the most atrocious crimes. The signal for these was given by the Aetolian Lyciscus. He called together to a meeting five hundred and fifty of the richest and most eminent of his countrymen, and caused them all to be massacred by Roman soldiers, commanded by one Aulus Baebius, under the pretext that they had favoured the party of Perseus. Lyciscus and his companions then seized the property of their murdered victims, and of a great number of others who had escaped from the same fate by flight. This atrocity was actually countenanced by Aemilius Paullus, who was himself anything but cruel, because he thought it served the interests of Rome. In Amphipolis, where, on the occasion of settling the affairs of Macedonia, the Roman partisans assembled from all parts of Greece, further measures were concerted for the extermination of the Hellenic party. All those men who had had any transactions with Perseus, or who were only suspected were sentenced to transportation to Italy. The whole of Greece was in this manner to be cleared of all the opponents of the Roman partisans, and these partisans were left unchecked in the possession of political power. They were at the same time rewarded for their fidelity, and encouraged to future services by being allowed to divide among themselves the property of their proscribed opponents.

In most of the Greek states these cruel measures were not without an appearance of justification; for in Boeotia, Aetolia. and Acarnania, there had been numerous enemies of the Romans, some of whom were convicted of their guilt by their open acts, others by letters which were found among the papers of Perseus. But with the Achaeans the case was different. They had wisely avoided having any dealings with Perseus. After their disputes with Sparta and Messenia, which had almost involved the Achaean league in a war with Rome, a period of comparative quiet had succeeded, and the national party had given way to that of the friends of Rome headed by Callicrates. This man proved in every respect a ready tool of the Roman policy. As matters stood, it is true, the Achaeans had no choice but to submit to the dictates of Rome, and to waive those rights which formerly belonged them as independent allies. As soon, therefore, as it became evident that there would be a rupture between Rome and Macedonia, the Achaean league unequivocally took the Roman side, and rejected all advances, and the most tempting offers which Perseus made to gain their friendship. Thus far the Roman partisans at the head of the federal government succeeded in their policy, and they were of course backed by direct pressure put upon the league by Rome. But after all it was not possible entirely to suppress among the mass of the people, especially the democratic party, the sympathies which were entertained for Perseus in all parts of Greece. The national patriots were not bold enough to act upon these sympathies resolutely and openly; but they could not be restrained from making at least a demonstration which, though hostile to Rome, was of no practical effect. They carried a decree to deprive Eumenes, the Roman partisan, of the honours and distinctions with which he had been loaded in the form of statues, inscriptions, and festal celebrations. Having in this paltry and somewhat childish manner made an indirect demonstration against Rome, the league nevertheless took the Roman side when the war with Perseus broke out, and were even eager to send forthwith one thousand men to garrison Chalcis, and fifteen hundred men to join the army of the consul Licinius. It is not quite clear from the evidence, whether after the despatch of these auxiliaries some disagreement took place between the Roman generals and the Achaeans, or whether, in consequence of the wretched strategy of the Romans, and the first victories of Perseus, the ardour of the Achaeans cooled down. At any rate, it seems certain that their auxiliary corps was sent back by the Romans or withdrawn, and that from this time the Achaeans occupied a reserved and neutral position. This, however, did not last long. When in the third year of the war the consul Marcius Philippus had taken the command, the Achaeans found it in their interest to prove their continued loyalty to Rome by a formal resolution that the whole of their military force, consisting of five thousand men, should be placed at the disposal of the Romans. At the same time the decree was repealed which deprived Eumenes of his honours. The historian Polybius, who, like his father, Lycortas, was among the leaders of the national party, distinctly recognised the necessity of changing the policy hitherto pursued. He had been elected hipparchus, or second officer of the league, for the year 169, and undertook himself an embassy to the consul Marcius for the purpose of offering him the contingent of the Achaeans. It happened just to be the time when Marcius had undertaken his bold expedition into Macedonia, across the range of Mount Olympus, an expedition which, contrary to all expectations, succeeded. Polybius delivered himself of his commission when Marcius, after having crossed the mountains, had already entered Macedonia. The offer was declined, and at the same time, as we have seen, Marcius authorised the Achaeans to refuse the auxiliaries which Claudius, the Roman praetor commanding in Illyria, had asked of them. We have seen how dangerous it was for Roman allies to refuse such a request of a Roman general. It seemed almost as if the directions given by Marcius to the Achaeans were as insidious as the advice which about the same time he gave to the Rhodians, and which caused them such distress. Yet the Achaeans, as we have seen, knew how to extricate themselves out of the difficulty. They declined the request of Claudius, taking their stand on the instructions of the senate, that without a written order from that body no Roman officer should call upon the allies for any assistance. Nevertheless, they did not feel quite comfortable in this matter. They knew that they were suspected of secret sympathies with Perseus, and they wished to clear themselves of this suspicion. They resolved to do this in an indirect way by sending a portion of their army as an auxiliary force to the king of Egypt, who just then happened to be at war with Syria. By thus supporting a friend of the Roman republic, they showed clearly that they did not wish to reserve their troops with a view hostile to Rome, in case the Macedonian war should present an opportunity. But at the instigation of Callicrates, the resolution of sending the troops to Egypt was postponed, and as shortly afterwards Marcius disapproved of it, it was not carried into execution at all.

Shortly afterwards the decisive blow was struck at Pydna. This put an end to the uncertainty of the position in which the Achaeans were placed. Equality of rights with Rome was now out of the question. It was a settled resolve in Rome to establish Roman supremacy beyond dispute in Achaia, as well as in the whole of Greece. But as in the papers of King Perseus nothing was found which could incriminate the league or individual Achaeans, a pretext was wanting to chastise them. Nevertheless, Callicrates was sent with two Roman plenipotentiaries, Caius Claudius and Cneus Domitius, from Amphipolis to the Peloponnesus, in order to institute an inquiry against the adherents of the king of Macedonia. Accusations were not wanting, and a pretext was soon found for a measure which had been from the first intended, namely, that of removing all suspicious personages to Italy. When one of these men indignantly refuted the accusation, and declared that he was ready to prove his innocence before any Roman tribunal, he and all who thought like him were taken at their word, and the resolution was passed that all the accused Achaeans should plead their case in Italy. The Roman partisans had ample scope now to clear the field of all their opponents. They knew well the men who were in their way, and they eagerly and skilfully drew up the lists of proscription. More than one thousand of the noblest and best Achaeans were selected for punishment. Every man who was conspicuous by his authority, patriotism, wealth, or birth, was taken away from his home and his occupation, in order to justify his political acts before foreign judges. Thus the unhappy country was deprived of its best citizens, and treated as Macedonia had been treated before. The Achaeans were punished, because, as allies of the Roman republic, they had presumed to claim a certain degree of independence, and because there were men among them who could submit only with disgust and reluctance to the brutal word of command of the Roman magistrates and the perfidious policy of the senate. Among the exiled leaders of the national party was the historian Polybius, who afterwards undertook the sad task of relating the downfall of his country, which he himself had witnessed, and who was able, through his personal influence with the victors, to soften in some measure the deplorable fate of his countrymen. We shall see, in the course of this history, how the personal adventures of the thousand transported Achaeans were connected with the final catastrophe which befell Greece.

The same violent measures which the Romans adopted to secure the dominion of their adherents in Macedonia and Achaia was also applied in other parts of Greece. The most notable opponents of the Roman supremacy in Aetolia, Acarnania, Epirus, and Boeotia were sent to Italy, and detained there for an indefinite time. Some few, who were more especially obnoxious, even suffered death, as, for instance, the Boeotian Neon, one of the few faithful friends who had not forsaken Perseus in his flight. Thus the Romans thought that they had cleared the whole country of every hostile clement, and that they had permanently established obedience to their commands.

It was not Greece proper alone that felt the disastrous effects of the battle which had raised Rome to uncontested supremacy over the whole Grecian world. The commotuon caused by it extended to Asia, and threatened to overthrow more particularly the republic of Rhodes. We have seen that, in consequence of the first miscarriages of the Roman generals, that party gained strength in Rhodes which endeavoured to rescue the island from Roman tutelage, and that Perseus and Gentius addressed themselves to Rhodes for military aid. We have seen, moreover, that the Rhodians were induced by the crafty consul Marcius to act as mediators between the belligerents. This step was looked upon as an unpardonable crime after the victory at Pydna. The Rhodian ambassadors, who had been delayed in Rome for some time, and were admitted to an audience by the senate only when the news of the victory had arrived, received now a harsh, threatening, and yet indistinct answer. They were charged with having offered their mediation not, as they said, in a spirit of benevolence for Rome and the Grecian states, but in the interest of Perseus. Much would the Rhodians have given to undo what they had been tempted to do. They trembled at the mere thought of having incurred the displeasure of the powerful republic, and not only asked forgiveness in a humble and undignified manner, but also attempted to throw the guilt upon a few individual citizens, by punishing, without delay, the chiefs of the anti-Roman party. They eagerly anticipated the measures which the Romans had taken in Macedonia, Achaia, and the rest of Greece, by banishing all the leading men of the national party. We are presented with a fearful picture of the omnipotence of the Roman state, already established in the whole of the ancient world, when we read how a man proscribed by Rome could find no place of refuge in all the countries round the Mediterranean, and had only the alternative of choosing a voluntary death or of being delivered up to his executioners. On the news of the battle of Pydna, Polyaratus, the head of the national party at Rhodes, had fled to Egypt, and had sought the protection of King Ptolemy. When the Romans demanded his extradition, Ptolemy was so far afraid of violating the law of hospitality, that he did not deliver up the fugitive directly to them; but not daring to keep and protect him, he extricated himself from the difficulty by ordering him to be sent back to Rhodes. Polyaratus, knowing full well what fate awaited him at Rome, escaped on the way, and sought a refuge at the public hearth of the town of Phaselis. The people of this town, perplexed and fearing the revenge of Rome, endeavoured to rid themselves of the fugitive, and begged the Rhodians to fetch him. The latter called upon the Egyptian captain, who was commissioned to deliver him up, to perform his duty. Polyaratus, shunned and cast out like a leper, escaped a second time, and sought protection in the Rhodian town of Caunus. But here also he could not remain. The Caunians pressed him to deliver them from his presence, which threatened them with danger, and the unhappy man fled further to the independent Phrygian town of Cibyra, the ruler of which, Pancrates, had long been his friend, and lay under obligations to him. But even here, in the heart of Asia Minor, the strong and dreaded arm of the Roman republic made itself felt. Pancrates applied to Rhodes, and at the same time to Aemilius Paullus, to ask what he should do. An order from the proconsul, directed both to Pancrates and to the Rhodian republic, left them no alternative. The wretched man was transported first to Rhodes and then to Rome. Under such circumstances, it would have been better for Polycratus to act as Polybius advised all those to act who were placed in a similar position, he tells them not to expose their weakness before the world, but to follow the example of the high-spirited Molossians, Antinous, Theodotus, and Cephalus, and voluntarily to put an end to their lives. The world had, indeed, become a huge prison, from which an outlaw could escape only through the gate of death.

Whilst the Rhodians, by expelling the leaders of the national party, endeavoured to regain the favour of Rome; while they assured the Romans by a new embassy of their undiminished loyalty, and perhaps indulged in the vain hope that their fault had been expiated and forgiven, the dreadful news arrived in the island that a formal proposal had been made in Rome to declare war against Rhodes. There were men in Rome who were not ashamed, under some paltry pretext, to treat an old, deserving ally as an enemy, or to overthrow an almost defenceless state from motives of the meanest rapacity and cupidity. The praetor Manius Juventius Thalna acted as spokesman for these men, who, however, to the honour of Rome, did not as yet command a majority in the senate. Without, therefore, asking for the approval of the senate, the praetor made known his intention to bring in a motion before the popular assembly to declare war against Rhodes, and to give the command in it to one of the magistrates of the current year (167). He probably hoped to obtain this command himself, and after an easy victory to enrich himself and a Roman army with the spoils which that small but wealthy island promised. But he had overrated his power. The Rhodian ambassadors in Rome, who, on meeting with an ungracious reception, had put on mourning, and entreated the most influential men with prayers and tears for protection, found in old Cato a powerful advocate of their cause. Cato, who was a narrow-minded but an honest man, protested against a scheme which would dishonour the Roman name. He opposed it still more, perhaps, because he feared that a mere war of plunder with Rhodes would give the Roman nobles an opportunity to increase their individual and family power, which was already menacing the foundations of the Roman republic. A fragment from the speech which Cato delivered on this occasion is the first really genuine sample of ancient Roman eloquence and honesty which has been preserved to us. It is highly creditable to the speaker, both on account of its style and on account of the policy it recommends; but it would produce a more agreeable impression upon us if we could forget that the same man who spoke so warmly for the oppressed Rhodians, lost no opportunity of inflaming to a war of extermination the hatred and jealousy which was felt in Rome for the humbled and ill-used Carthaginians. As the motion of Juventius had not found favour with the majority of the senate, and was supported only by a few men, it fell to the ground, two of the tribunes of the people having moreover declared their intention to stop it by their formal intercession. The Rhodian ambassadors felt relieved. The storm which threatened their town had passed over it without breaking. Whatever might come now, the Rhodians had reason to congratulate themselves, and to render thanks to the Romans as their deliverers.

The ambassadors who brought this good news to Rhodes returned to Rome with a golden wreath, as an emblem of homage to the protecting power, and continued their endeavours to ward off the anger of the powerful men. Up to this time Rhodes had been on terms of intimate friendship with Rome, but had not formally entered into an alliance. It had preserved full freedom of action, as became an independent people. But recent events showed how dangerous such a position was under the present circumstances. The Rhodians were convinced that it would be better for them to give up their full independence, and that in the character of Roman allies they would be protected from the danger of complete annihilation. They therefore commissioned one of their ambassadors, Theaetetus, their admiral (nauarchus), to ask as a favour to be received into the Roman alliance. The free state voluntarily surrendered its independence, in order to insure its continued existence. Rome, after a delay of a couple of years, accepted the offer with apparent reluctance, but not without first placing the Rhodians in a position of such weakness that their submission and their permanent obedience seemed guaranteed. By a decree of the senate, those territories in Lycia and Curia, which the Rhodians had received as a reward for their services in the war with Antiochus, were declared to be free. They were only allowed to retain their ancient possessions on the continent of Asia Minor (the district called Peraea), with the exception of Caunus and Stratonicea, which two towns, on hearing of the distress of Rhodes, had rebelled, and placed themselves under Roman protection. Thus the island of Rhodes lost its most valuable dependencies. But decree of the senate that the island of Delos should be a free port was probably a more serious blow to the prosperity of Rhodes. By this decree Delos was made the chief centre of commerce in the Eastern seas, and the harbour dues of Rhodes were reduced to a sixth of their former amount. Even indirectly Roman policy tried to injure the Rhodians by supporting the Cretan pirates who annoyed the Rhodian commerce. Nevertheless, the thrifty people of Rhodes, though in more humble circumstances, continued for the time to enjoy a fair amount of prosperity.

If the Romans, in order to reap the fruits of their victory over Perseus, thought it necessary to crush in the various Greek states the party hostile to them, and in so doing to weaken and paralyse these states, their proceeding was indeed harsh; but from their point of view it was intelligible and justifiable. For in Achaia, Aetolia, and Rhodes, the state of parties was so unsettled before and during the war, that a sudden reaction in favour of the Macedonians, which had actually taken place in Epirus, might be expected anywhere. But it was not so in the kingdom of Pergamum. Here there were no republican parties with divided sympathies. The ruling house of Attalus alone determined the policy of the state, and this house was faithful to Rome. King Eumenes himself had urged the Romans to make war upon Perseus. He had not ceased to set spies, to denounce his enemies, and to excite the Romans against him, until war was declared. His personal appearance in Rome (172 BC) had brought about the decision of the senate. During the war, Pergamenian auxiliaries, under Attalus and Athenaeus, the brothers of the king, accompanied the Roman armies, and Pergamenian ships took part in the operations of the Roman fleet, which turned out so inglorious and unsuccessful. It is therefore surprising that the news was spread, in the third year of the war, that Eumenes had entered upon negotiations with Perseus, the object of which was nothing less than to give up the alliance with Rome, or eventually to mediate between the belligerents for the restoration of peace. As these negotiations were carried on secretly, and came to no result, it is hard to decide how far the statements regarding them are trustworthy, and whether, indeed, Eumenes entertained any treacherous intentions. The latter supposition is in the highest degree improbable, and, considering the relation in which Eumenes stood to Perseus and to the Romans, it seems almost impossible. We can only surmise that for some time he entertained the idea of attempting by his mediation to put an end to the war, which, by its unexpectedly long duration, must have been very burdensome to him as well as to all other Eastern states. Even king Prusias of Bithynia made an attempt in the same direction, little thinking that the Romans would be displeased. Prusias was of so little importance that his fault might be overlooked. Not so the king of Pergamum, who, since the overthrow of Macedonia, was the only prince able to claim the right of carrying out an independent policy. He was therefore made to suffer for having entertained the mere hope of being able to deal with Rome as an equal. One breath of suspicion blighted the recollection of all the devoted services which he had rendered in the war with Antiochus, and then in that with Perseus. In the exaggerated or altogether fictitious charges which Livy has borrowed from the Roman annalists, we hear only the echo of the complaints which were at that time loudly brought against Eumenes in the Roman camp or in Rome itself. It was said that he had suddenly and without cause called away his auxiliaries and his ships. A pretext was evidently wanted for lowering the petted and somewhat spoiled ally to his former level of unconditional dependence.

The method adopted to reach this end is one of the worst specimens of the craftiness of Roman policy. After the victory of Rome and her allies over Macedonia, when Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, and commander of the Pergamenian auxiliaries, arrived in Rome in the crowd of congratulating and petitioning ambassadors from all states, several eminent men among the Roman nobility took him into their confidence, trying to set him against his brother, and thus to sow the seeds of discord in the royal family of Pergamum. They gave him to understand that he was personally in great favour at Rome, and might obtain anything for himself, but that his brother Eumenes had forfeited the Roman friendship. A partition of the kingdom would have been desirable for the Romans. It was not difficult to find a pretext for rewarding Attalus and for resenting the intrigues of Eumenes. But the family of the Attalidae presented a rare example of mutual affection and fidelity. Instead of conspiring against and betraying each other, as was so common in the Graeco-Macedonian dynasties, the members of this family had always aided and supported one another, and this was one of the most efficacious means by which they, in a short time, established and extended their dominion. It was not so easy to excite enmity between Attalus and Eumenes as it had been on a former occasion between Perseus and Demetrius. Attalus, it is related, was almost tempted by the delusive proposals made to him, and was, for a moment, doubtful what to do; but he listened to the advice of his true friend, the physician Stratius, whom his brother had sent after him to Rome. Besides, it was not hard to see that, apart from all natural feelings, policy commanded him to remain faithful to his brother; for as the latter was old and still childless, Attalus had the surest prospect of succeeding him on the throne, and he had actually begun to take an active part in the government.—Attalus showed much sense in escaping from his critical position. For the moment he gave no direct refusal to the insidious offers. He only asked for himself the two Thracian towns of Aenos and Maronea, as an earnest of what he was to have afterwards. Having obtained an encouraging reply, he left Rome without letting the Romans suspect that their perfidious design had failed. When they afterwards discovered this, their feigned partiality for him turned to anger, and they unceremoniously deprived him of the promised towns by declaring them free.

Besides his chief commission of congratulation to the Romans, Attalus had been charged with another, which was to complain of an inroad of the Galatians into Pergamenian territory, and to ask for Roman help against them. In consequence of this request Roman ambassadors were sent to Asia Minor to remonstrate with the Galatians. We should fancy that these barbarians, who had already felt the heavy arm of the Romans, would without hesitation comply with the demands of the ambassadors; but, as the Romans gave out, they were only the more exasperated, and continued their devastating inroads. It is no injustice to these ambassadors to infer, and it is even hinted by Polybius, that they did in reality instigate the Galatians whilst they pretended to pacify them.

Eumenes began to perceive that his relations to Rome were no longer what they had been. Feeling that he must make an effort to regain the position which he had occupied before the war, he resolved, notwithstanding the bad state of his health, to undertake, in the winter of 167-166, the long journey to Italy, in order to try what effect he could produce in Rome by his personal appearance. But he met with a mortification which he could not have expected. When he had landed in Brundusium, a quaestor appeared before him, and informed him that a resolution had been passed in the senate forbidding foreign princes to come to Rome. He was therefore asked to state if he had any request to make to the senate, otherwise he must leave Italy without delay. Eumenes saw that the old times were gone, that he was no longer wanted as an ally, and that he was contemptuously pushed aside. Declaring that he had no request to make of the senate, he left Italy to return to his own kingdom. He had but a short time to live; but it was long enough for him to see that he had now arrived at the stage which Philip of Macedonia had occupied after the defeat of Antiochus. Roman ambassadors went backwards and forwards, undermining the ground upon which he stood. It became known to everybody that he had fallen into disgrace. His subjects and his neighbours were formally called upon to prefer complaints against him. The arrogant Caius Sulpicius Gallus, sent by the Roman senate, invited the malcontents to Sardes, and here, in the second city of the Pergamenian kingdom, he established his tribunal in the public gymnasium for the trial of the king, and listened for ten days with apparent satisfaction to the abuse and the complaints which were brought forward from all sides against Eumenes. Though the Romans did not allow these proceedings to have any further result, but remained satisfied for the present with having humiliated an old friend, they nevertheless gained their object. Only by submitting unreservedly to Rome could Eumenes escape the fate of his former rivals, to whose ruin he had unwisely contributed. He died (159 BC) leaving behind him a son of tender age, for whom his brother Attalus, deservedly called Philadelplius, conducted the regency for twenty-one years. The kingdom of Pergamum preserved its seeming independence a little longer, until, in the time of the Gracchi, it suddenly, and without any painful death­struggle, passed over into the condition of a Roman province.

The ungenerous treatment of Eumenes by the Romans is the more striking if we compare it with that of the contemptible Prusias. This potentate was among those who, immediately after the Roman victory over Perseus, hastened to offer their congratulations to the senate, and on this occasion he exceeded the most servile flattery that had ever been witnessed in Rome. Appearing in the costume of a freedman, his shorn head covered with a hat, he humbly asked leave to bring an offering of thanks to the gods of the Roman people, his deliverers. When he was introduced into the senate, he bowed down to the ground according to the custom of Asiatic courtiers, and greeted the senators as ‘the gods of his salvation’. So undignified was the manner in which he implored them to bestow their favour on him and on his son Nicomedes whom he had brought with him, and to grant him a slight increase of territory, that Polybius felt too much disgust fully to report the scene. This writer gathers up the full significance of what passed in a single sentence. “Because Prusias appeared so utterly contemptible he received a favourable reply.” So much had the Roman nation by this time degenerated that they adopted the despotic principles of eastern rulers, and in their dealings with other states measured their benevolence according to the servility of their submission. It is easy to comprehend that the spectacle of such abject behaviour as that of Prusias must have had a demoralising effect upon the nation destined for universal dominion. If Roman magistrates became despots, and the spirit of republican equality vanished more and more, no inconsiderable part of the result was due to these wretched princes, who vied with one another in self-abasement and slavish flattery.

The effects of the Roman victory were felt not only by those Hellenic states which had been directly involved in the war with Perseus. Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of the distant Syria, had hoped meanwhile to carry out quietly his designs upon Egypt; but he was now reached by the hand of Rome. Coelesyria was once more the bone of contention between Syria and Egypt. Antiochus defended it so successfully against an attack on the part of his rival, that after a victory at Pelusium he could penetrate into Egypt. Having here taken prisoner the young king Ptolemaeus Philometor, his nephew, he entertained the idea of conquering the whole country; but the national pride of the Egyptians was now at length roused. In Alexandria, Euergetes, the younger brother of Polemaeus Philometor, afterwards ironically called Phiyscon (pot-bellied), was proclaimed king, and Antiochus, alter an ineffectual siege, was obliged to return to Syria, He left Ptolemaeus, whom he had now taken under his protection, in Egypt to fight against the pretender. The two brothers, however, understanding what their interest demanded, came to an agreement, and opposed their combined forces to the claims of Antiochus, who kept possession of Pelusium and conquered Cyprus. At the same time they applied to Rome for protection.

Antiochus now invaded Egypt a second time, and had advanced as far as Alexandria, when he was met by a Roman embassy sent by the senate to arrange a peace between the two rival states. The chief of the embassy was C. Popillius Laenas, a man eminently qualified by his harsh, imperious temper to enforce obedience to a Roman word of command. In this mission the Romans did not think it necessary to act as cautiously and tenderly as their Greek allies, whose attempts at mediation they had so cruelly resented. They had indeed tried already to settle the quarrel; but as long as the war with Macedonia lasted, Antiochus had not listened to their remonstrances. Popillius Laenas was determined that this time the voice of Rome should not be slighted. Meeting the king of Syria a few miles from Alexandria, he handed him the letter of the senate without any previous greeting, and asked him to read it. It contained a request that he should leave Egypt at once and make peace. The king replied evasively that he would consider the matter. Popillius then drew with his staff a circle in the sand round the king, saying, “Before you step out of this circle tell me what answer I shall bear to the senate”. “I shall do what the senate requires of me”, replied Antiochus, after some hesitation, and not until then did Popillius offer his hand to the king as a friend and ally of the Roman people. Having thus performed his task, he sailed to Cyprus, and ordered the Syrian fleet to withdraw. Antiochus evacuated Pelusium, and returned to his own states. It was evident that the battle of Pydna had had its effect even upon the far east. The Roman republic had, without a formal recognition, acquired sovereign rights over Syria and Egypt.

The great importance of this battle has now been noticed in its effect upon Macedonia, Illyria, Greece, Rhodes, the Pergamenian kingdom, Syria, and Egypt. It was so decisive that we can date from this time the establishment of the Roman dominion over the world. As a mere battle, it cannot be reckoned among the great military achievements of the Romans or any other nation; but the more remote causes which led to it are, as it were, manifested in its results. It was gained not by the military genius of the Roman general, nor in consequence of an exceptional effort with an excessive sacrifice. On the contrary, it was fought by a single consular army and a general of average capacity; and the victory was gained not by any display of genius, but by common military routine. The result was due to the Roman institutions, not to extraordinary events or extraordinary men. What chances had the world in those days in struggling against a nation which, even when it sent out men as incompetent as Licinius, Hostilius, Lucretius, or Hortensius, found itself at the worst only interrupted for a short time in its victorious course, and could look on calmly until a more able general or some fortunate accident brought the hostile armies under the sword of the legions? The barbarous tribes in the north and west, who were too ignorant to appreciate the relative proportion of strength, and too poor to have much to forfeit besides heir bare lives, could alone venture to defy the Roman legions for some years longer; and in thus acting these tribes relied partly oil their courage, and still more perhaps on the difficulties which their countries presented for the inarch of armies. The wars that still continued in civilised countries were nothing but the final death­struggle of despairing nations.

Aemilius Paullus would not have been a member of the Roman nobility if he had not taken to himself the greater part of the credit of this glorious victory, and if he had not conducted himself from this time forward as a general justly entitled to triumph. There was very little left to do after the battle of Pydna that could be called military work. A few towns in Thessaly had still to be conquered, or rather to be plundered; for serious resistance was out of the question. There were also a few penal sentences to be executed, for instance, on the town of Antissa, in the island of Lesbos, which was charged with having harboured and supported the Macedonian fleet during the war. This place was destroyed, and the inhabitants were removed to Methymna. The dreadful punishment which was inflicted on Epirus before the return of the Roman army to Italy was perhaps not yet resolved upon. The consul had leisure to enjoy a journey through Greece until the ten plenipotentiaries of the senate should arrive to settle with him the affairs of Macedonia. Aemilius showed an unfeigned admiration for Greek antiquity by visiting with his son Scipio, and with Athennaeus, a brother of king Eumenes, all those places which were sacred in the mythology and religion of the Greeks or memorable in their history, such as Delphi, Aulis, Athens, Corinth, Sicyon, Argos, Epidaurus, Lacedaemon, Megalopolis, and Olympia. Everywhere he offered up sacrifices in that spirit of toleration which marked the religion of the Greek and Roman world, and which, recognising under numerous names and shapes embodiments of the same deity, allowed every nation, and even every man, the right of worshipping this deity in his own fashion. At Olympia he was struck by the masterpiece of Phidias, which brought the great Zeus visibly before him. The Olympian Jupiter was honoured by him with such sacrifices as if he had been the high and mighty protector of the Roman Capitol itself. At Delphi Aemilius found the pedestal on which statues of Perseus were to have been placed. We regret to hear that he was mean enough to order that his own should be erected in the place of those of his conquered enemy.

On his return to Amphipolis he conducted the long and important discussions of the senatorial delegates regarding the new settlement of Macedonia and of the whole of Greece. Ambassadors had arrived from all parts of the Grecian world in Europe and Asia, from Africa and all the innumerable islands in the eastern seas. The smallest community had some request to make of the powerful Roman imperator, or to implore pardon and mercy; the most powerful states were eager to make professions of loyalty. Before this large assemblage Aemilius celebrated at great expense magnificent games, such as it was customary to exhibit at the regular national festivals in Olympia or on the isthmus of Corinth. The Roman general was proud of being able to arrange a festival as skilfully as the Greeks in accordance with approved rules. But it did not occur to him to exhibit any contest, game, or sport of national Italian growth. He showed the Greeks no fighting gladiators, but collected athletes and racehorses from all parts of the Hellenic world, and issued invitations in all directions. There was a certain significance in the fact that while the first liberator of Greece, Flamininus, proclaimed the success of his mission at the regular Isthmian festival, the present conqueror of Macedonia did not bind himself to ancient times or places, but assembled the Greeks in the country recently subjected, and thus made it clear that they had left their old orbits, and would henceforth have to move as satellites round a new sun. A huge pile of captured arms was erected, and lighted by Aemilius himself, as if it were intended to show that the funeral games of Graeco­Macedonian independence should be finished by an act emblematic of the burning of the body.

In the autumn of the year 167 the Roman army began its homeward march. Aemilius was anxious to preserve undiminished the valuable booty, consisting of money and works of art, in order to show it to his countrymen on the day of his triumph, and then deliver it into the state treasury. The Roman soldiers, exasperated at being deprived of it, received a promise of compensation. Epirus lay on their way. A portion, at least, of Epirus had joined Perseus, and was now to undergo its deserved punishment. It was in vain that after the Roman victory the leaders of the hostile party had been deserted by their followers, and had died by a voluntary death. It was in vain that all the towns had surrendered to Lucius Anicius, who entered the country from Illyria. Paramount considerations required that Epirus should be visited by a punishment justified by the terrible usages of the ancient world. Every Roman soldier was here to receive the extra pay to which he considered himself entitled, and which had been withheld in Macedonia. The senate sent an order to Aemilius that he was to deliver up the whole country to plunder, an order which was executed in cold blood. As the leaders of the Macedonian party had been sent from Epirus to Italy, and Charops, the Roman partisan, was de facto the ruler of the country, the Epirots hoped to be spared further sufferings. They were soon undeceived. Aemilius marched into the country with his legions, summoned the heads of the towns and villages to his presence, ordered them to set apart from their property all the gold and silver, and sent troops with them, as if the intention had been merely to receive the treasures. Then, on one and the same day, the Roman soldiers fell upon all the towns throughout Epirus, and plundered them completely. About one hundred and fifty thousand people were then made slaves, and seventy towns sacked and destroyed. Never yet had Rome annihilated a whole nation so systematically and so cruelly; and this was done not to execute a penal sentence, but to satisfy the rapacity and greed of Roman soldiers, which, after all, as was shown by later experience, was insatiable.

Four days after the battle of Pydna the news of a great victory was spread in Rome. The joy was great. But on investigating the matter it was found to be merely an empty rumour. So much the greater was the delight when nine days later Quintus Fabius, Lucius Lentulus, and Quintus Metellus, the messengers despatched by Aemilius with the news of the victory, sent a man in advance before them with the authentic report and details of the battle, and when soon after they themselves made their solemn entry. The people were in almost as boundless an excitement as they had been when, in their great distress at the time of the Hannibalic war, the long succession of evil tidings was at last interrupted by the news of a glorious victory over Hasdrubal on the river Metaurus. Again, as at that time, the crowd poured forth to meet the messengers of victory, and almost blocked their way to the forum and to the senate-house. There was indeed no comparison between the present state of the republic and its circumstances in the second Punic war. Actual danger, distress, and trouble were never felt during the struggle with the Macedonian king. But yet the people impatiently looked forward to peace, and one of the first measures which the senate took was to stop all further preparations for war, and to dismiss the reserves. A festival of public thanksgiving, lasting for five days, showed the satisfaction which the senate felt in the successful end of the war.

These feelings had time to cool before the final return of Aemilius Paulins, which was delayed for a whole year by the settlement of affairs in Macedonia. But even then the reception of Aemilius in Rome was brilliant. He arrived with all the pomp of a general celebrating his triumph. Sailing on a monster ship, with sixteen tiers of oars, the state barge of Perseus, richly decorated with arms, purple sails and streamers, he ascended the Tiber as far as the town, watched by the dense crowds of spectators that lined both banks. Soon afterwards Octavius, the commander of the fleet, and Anicius, the conqueror of Gentius, also arrived in Rome. The senate decreed the honours of a triumph to each of the three. In the whole town, and in the surrounding country, were already accumulated the booty and the prisoners destined to adorn these triumphal processions.

But, after all, the man who had personally the first claim to be rewarded by his country, the man who had served Rome most honestly, faithfully, and successfully in a great and decisive war, was almost deprived of an honour which had been repeatedly accorded to men of mean capacity on the strength of very doubtful victories over contemptible barbarians. This danger Aemilius Paullus incurred because he was distinguished by a virtue rare among Roman politicians of his day. If he had allowed his soldiers and subaltern officers to steal and plunder to their hearts’ content, no one would have opposed his claims to a triumph. But he had saved as much as possible of the Macedonian booty for the state treasury. The proceeds of the plundering of Epirus, which the soldiers were to receive as their only compensation, amounted to four hundred denarii for every horseman and two hundred for every foot soldier. The troops were dissatisfied. They considered themselves curtailed of their rewards, and resolved to make their general suffer for it. Servius Sulpicius Gallus, who had served as military tribune in Macedonia, urged in the comitia tributa that the proposal, which the senate had approved, of granting Aemilius Paullus the ‘imperium’ within the town during the days of his triumph should be rejected. With the help of the soldiers, who crowded to the voting-place in the Capitol, he almost succeeded in preventing the triumph of Aemilius by a resolution of the people. The friends of the general, with great difficulty, secured a decision in favour of the triumph. Thus Rome was almost deprived of a day of national rejoicing and of a triumphal show more brilliant than any that had, up to this time, been exhibited. The contemptible opposition made to the well-earned honours of one of the best men in Rome revealed a weakness in the military organization which would have had a most pernicious effect, had not the enemies of Rome suffered from greater evils. This weakness was caused by the fact that political dissensions were not confined to the senate or the market-place, but extended to the camp. As the same men were on one day leaders of political parties at Rome, and on another officers of different rank and station in the army, the bonds of discipline were naturally loosened. The divisions among the leaders spread to the mass of common soldiers, who inclined to one side or to the other from such considerations as can be expected to influence the rank and file of an army. Every Roman general had therefore to expect to find among his troops a certain amount of ill-will and opposition; but if, in addition to this, he ventured, like Aemilius Paullus, to set his face, on principle, against their disorderly habits and insatiable greed, if he kept strict discipline, and if, especially in money matters, he had an eye to the public interests, his popularity in the army was in a precarious state. It is a proof of unusual honesty in Aemilius Paullus that he did not stoop to act as a military demagogue, although, like every noble Roman, he eagerly aspired to distinction, and especially to his triumph, the highest of all honours. Fortunately he obtained it in full measure, in spite of the undignified jealousy of base and envious detractors.—But he could not escape the jealousy of the gods, which, according to the notions of antiquity, he had drawn upon himself by an excess of good fortune. He was visited by a harder fate than the vanquished and imprisoned king. Perseus had at least the consolation that, in his deep fall, his children were spared to him. But the house of Aemilius was a house of mourning while all Rome cheered and applauded him. Five days before it he lost the third of his four sons, a lad of fourteen, and three days after the festival the youngest, a boy of twelve, was carried off. Thus his home was desolate, for his two remaining sons had already been adopted by the families of the Scipios and Fabii.

We must pause for one moment to contemplate the spectacle of the triumph which ended this memorable war. Rome had long been accustomed to magnificent sights of this kind. The conquerors of Tarentum and Carthage, of Philip and Antiochus, had exhibited before the Roman people the greatness of their exploits in brilliant shows. But the past was entirely eclipsed by the magnificence of the procession which brought home to the Romans the fact that the empire of Alexander the Great was completely overthrown. The festival lasted three days. On the first day two hundred and fifty wagons, containing the paintings and statues taken in the war, were driven through the streets and exhibited to the people. On the second day were seen wagons with trophies consisting of piles of the finest and most precious arms. Then followed a procession of three thousand men carrying the captured silver (two thousand two hundred and fifty talents); after these the silver vessels, drinking horns, bowls, and goblets. The third day was the most magnificent of the whole festival. A string of animals decorated for sacrifice was followed by the bearers of the captured gold and golden vessels, the heirlooms of the dynasty of Macedonia. Then came the royal chariot of Perseus, with his arms and his diadem; behind it walked his children, led by their attendants and tutors. They were too young to comprehend the full extent of their misfortunes, yet it was a sight that melted even the hard hearts of the Romans to pity. Next came Perseus himself in unkingly garb, bowed down and completely broken in spirit. He had begged and entreated to be spared this humiliation; but even the gentle Aemilius gave him, as is reported, the reproachful answer, “It lay, and it still lies, in your power to deliver yourself”. But the king of Macedonia had not the courage for self-murder, and paid dearly for the last few years of a miserable life which far surpassed death in bitterness. His friends and higher servants, who had been taken prisoners in the war, and now walked behind their master, had tears and prayers only for him, and almost forgot their own fate in contemplation of his overwhelming misfortune. Four hundred golden crowns, the offerings of Greek communities, were carried behind the prisoners; then came the general himself on his chariot, dressed in the garb and decked with the insignia of Jupiter Capitolinus, with a laurel branch in his hand. The whole army also was adorned with laurels, and marched in warlike order behind their chief, singing songs of victory, mingled with occasional sallies of satire directed against him. A solemn sacrifice in the Capitol concluded the festival.

The triumph of Aemilius was followed at short intervals by the triumphs of the pro-praetor Cn. Octavius and the pro-praetor L. Anicius, who had conquered Gentius. Octavius, who, with his fleet, had in reality accomplished nothing, could produce neither prisoners nor booty, and his triumph only served as a foil for that of Aemilius Paullus. Anicius, it is true, also brought home a captured king. But Gentius was of too little importance to bear comparison with Perseus. The fame of Aemilius Paullus could only be increased by the fact that the men who had conducted the secondary operations under him also enjoyed the honours of a triumph.

Aemilius Paullus was indeed not only the first citizen of the state, but the model of a Roman of the best time. Without possessing eminent qualities as a statesman or as a soldier, he was nevertheless capable of doing his duty creditably in every capacity. He was a man of average abilities, and free from the vices of excessive party spirit, cupidity, and ambition. He was not, like his contemporary Cato, a one-sided worshipper of everything old; but he was conservative in the best sense of the word, anxious to preserve old institutions, but at the same time to improve them. Although adhering to the true Roman virtues, unselfish fidelity to his country, rigorous discipline in the field, temperance and moderation, he did not exclude from his mind the Hellenic culture which at that time had begun to exert its powerful influence. On the contrary, he strove to make his own countrymen more and more familiar with it. It would have been fortunate for Rome if succeeding statesmen had taken him for a model. But with the fall of the Macedonian kingdom the Roman republic had obtained undisputed dominion over the civilised world, and this dominion could not be exercised by simple citizens, who, as the laws of republican government demanded, alternately ruled and obeyed. In the conquered countries Rome educated the men for whom the modest home of republican liberty became too small, who were anxious to be masters also in Rome, and who finally were obliged to submit to one who proved stronger than the rest.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FALL OF MACEDONIA AND GREECE, 148-145 B.C.