A policy precisely similar guided their settlement of the affairs of Greece. When the consul Manlius passed over into Asia, his colleague, M. Fulvius Nobilior, landed at Apollonia to coerce the Ætolians, who had flagrantly violated the armistice made with Scipio (B.c. 189). A single campaign reduced them to complete submission; and, besides the payment of a large contribution, they lost a great part of their possessions, including the port of Ambracia and the island of Cephallenia; but the latter, with the neighbouring island of Samé, had to be reduced by force. These islands and Zacynthus were retained by the Romans, to strengthen the hold which Corcyra already gave them of the Adriatic. With this exception, and their slip of territory on the Illyrian coast, they resolved not to be tempted over the seas which divided Italy from Greece; and all the other gains of the recent war were divided between Philip and the Achæans. But even their policy of moderation was carried out in such a manner as to offend both these allies, and to sow the seeds of future disagreement. The Macedonian king, who had not only resisted the temptations of Antiochus, but had fought against the Etolians and smoothed the passage of the legions through Thrace, saw a rival planted in that country in a spirit of manifest suspicion. The Achæans reluctantly gave up the island of Zacynthus and their claims upon Ægina, and were humiliated by being advised to confine themselves to the Peloponnesus. The patriot party chafed at finding themselves not only subject to Roman intervention, but invoking it by their utter inability to keep their own confederacy in order. The accession of Sparta to the league, and the enforced inclusion of Messene, which had prayed to be admitted to the Roman alliance as an independent state, revived ancient national antipathies. Sparta broke out into open revolt, and suffered severe punishment as a conquered city, even the institutions of Lycurgus being superseded by the Achæan laws (B.c. 188). The Roman Senate, constantly appealed to as arbiters in these disputes, showed a reluctance to interfere, which was partly founded on the frivolous weakness displayed by the envoys; and it has been well observed that, instead of their carrying strife to Greece, it was the Greeks that carried their dissensions to Rome. The revolt of Messene, in B.c. 183, led to the death of Philopomen, who was taken prisoner and compelled to swallow poison in his dungeon. His death was amply avenged, and his remains interred with heroic honours at Megalopolis, the urn containing his ashes being carried by the historian Polybius. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SUBJUGATION OF GREECE. B.C. 187 TO B.C. 146. "He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled, * Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour, DISCONTENT OF PHILIP-HIS RENEWED PREPARATIONS FOR WAR-HIS SONS DEMETRIUS OF ROMAN COMMISSIONERS IN GREECE--RIOTS AT CORINTH-WAR WITH THE ACHEANSSACK OF CORINTH BY MUMMIUS-GREECE BECOMES THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF ACHAIA. WHILE the Romans were contending in the East with Philip and Antiochus, they had been compelled to meet resistance and insurrection in the West. It will be convenient, however, to reserve the little that need be said of the Gallic, Ligurian, and Spanish wars, with the more important subject of the internal history of Rome, till we have traced the brief closing chapters of the contest of the Latin with the Hellenic and Phoenician nations. Macedonia and Carthage were in a very similar position towards Rome; too deeply humiliated ever to be fully trusted; and exposed by that humiliation to constant aggressions and complaints from their more favoured neighbours, out of which some pretext of necessity must inevitably arise for putting an end to their embarrassing existence. The fate of Macedonia involved that of Greece, where the Roman settlement had left the smouldering embers of discontent, which internal discord was ready to fan into a flame. Philip, whose warm support of the Romans in the late war had doubtless been confirmed by resentment against Antiochus, not unmingled with the hope of recovering the ancient possessions of Macedonia in Thrace, saw the kingdom of Lysimachus revived in favour of the Attalids, the greatest enemies of his house. His occupation of the conquests of Antiochus in Northern Greece, which had been bestowed upon him by the Romans, was resisted by the Thessalians. He was continually denounced in the diet of the Greek confederations, and the perpetual complaints made against him at Rome were followed by decisions which gave him numerous causes for resentment. But he had the power of dissembling what he was resolved no longer to endure, and his only reply to the taunts of his enemies was, in the words of the poet, "our last sun is not yet set." Meanwhile he was aided in keeping on good terms with the republic by his younger son Demetrius, who, having been sent as a hostage to Rome, entered warmly into the views of the philo-Hellenic party. But when Philip was informed by the Senate that they forgave his provocations for his son's sake, he began to view the latter with suspicion, and his elder son Perseus found means to give his jealousy a fatal issue. Demetrius, who had returned to Macedonia, was accused of being a party to the intrigues which were constantly on foot to form a Roman party; and appearances at least were so much against him, that he meditated flight to Rome. This intention, made known to Philip, acquired the character of a plot from an intercepted letter of Flamininus; and the father ordered the execution of his son. The deed was scarcely done, when Philip discovered the intrigues of Perseus, whose punishment he was meditating, when he died, overwhelmed with remorse and disappointment, in the fifty-ninth year of his age and the forty-second of his reign. "Philip V. was a genuine king, in the best and worst sense of the term. A strong desire to rule in person and unaided was the fundamental trait of his character; he was proud of his people, but he was no less proud of other gifts, and he had reason to be so. He not only showed the valour of a soldier and the eye of a general, but he displayed a high spirit in the conduct of public affairs whenever his Macedonian sense of honour was offended. Full of intelligence and wit, he won the hearts of all whom he wished to gain, and especially of those who were ablest and most refined, such as Flamininus and Scipio: he was a pleasant boon companion, and, not by virtue of his rank alone, a dangerous wooer. But he was at the same time one of the most arrogant and flagitious characters which that shameless age produced. He was in the habit of saying that he feared none save the gods; but it seemed almost as if his gods were those to whom his admiral Dicæarchus regularly offered sacrifice- Ungodliness and Lawlessness. The lives of his advisers and of the promoters of his schemes possessed no sacredness in his eyes; and it is quoted as one of his maxims of state, that whoever puts to death the father must also kill the sons. His career was a striking illustration of the accidents of a despotic monarchy. Having first by his selfish neglect shipwrecked the enterprize of Hannibal, his great talents were unable to preserve his own from the same ruin through the like faults in Antiochus. Passion robbed him of the offered distinction of becoming the leader of the Greeks; and the prince who, as a mere boy, seemed able to set a limit to the advance of Roman conquest, lived to be borne upon its tide as a zealous vassal, and died vainly meditating how to turn it back (B.c. 179). His son PERSEUS, the last king of Macedonia, was of a character altogether different. Succeeding to the throne at the age of thirtyone, and with a military reputation early gained in the war against the Romans, he brought to the execution of his father's last schemes that self-discipline in which Philip had been most deficient; while, free from the weaker vices of Philip's more genial character, he inherited all his arrogance and unscrupulousness. His stately person and carriage, and his accomplishment in all manly exercises, were worthy of a royal captain; and he was persevering in the formation of elaborate plans. But when the time of action came, he wanted the genius and versatility of his father; and the care with which he amassed treasures for his campaigns was neutralized by his reluctance to part with them on the greatest emergency. "It is a characteristic circumstance," says Mommsen," that after defeat the father first hastened to destroy the papers in his cabinet that might compromise him, whereas the son took his treasure-chests and embarked." Macedonia had been far more humiliated than weakened during the reign of Philip. She still formed a compact territory, rich in agriculture, mines, and commerce; and the eighteen years that had elapsed since the peace with Rome had renewed her resources under Philip's constant care. An army of 30,000 men, with the means of paying 10,000 mercenaries, and immense provisions of corn and arms, formed the nucleus of a formidable force, if only other powers could be brought into a new coalition against Rome. * Mommsen, vol. ii. pp. 224-5. But all such schemes failed both in Carthage and in Asia; and the plot to murder Eumenes at Delphi, on his return from Rome in B.C. 172, would have been fruitless had it succeeded. The attempts to gain over the barbarians on the north prospered better. Perseus secured allies among the Illyrians, and among the powerful Odrysians on the Lower Danube. Philip had previously formed a scheme for pouring down into Italy over the Eastern Alps a torrent of barbarians from beyond the left bank of the Middle Danube, but the whole horde was destroyed by the resistance of the Dardani (in Servia); and the fortress of Aquileia, at the head of the Gulf of Trieste, seems to have been built about this time to protect the eastern frontier. Throughout the Hellenic world, in Asia as well as Europe, the sentiment of discontent against the foreign power of Rome, and against Eumenes as its instrument, led the national party to look with hope towards Perseus. He was received with favour at Delphi, where he used the pretext of a religious vow to display his army before the eyes of the Greeks, and his proclamations were posted in various cities, inviting refugees to come to Macedonia. The whole Rhodian fleet escorted his Syrian bride from Antioch; envoys from the disaffected cities of Thrace and Asia held secret conferences with Macedonian officers, and Perseus made alliances with the Byzantines, the Etolians, and some of the Boeotians. So prudently, however, did the king conduct all his intrigues, that it was not till the seventh year of his reign, after Eumenes had appeared at Rome to prefer a long list of accusations against Perseus, that the Senate resolved upon the Third and last Macedonian War (B.c. 172). From this moment, Perseus began to show that irresolution in action which contrasted so strangely with his long and patient preparations. The winter, which ought to have been spent in securing a position in Greece, was wasted in discussing the Roman declaration of war, through the medium of Q. Marcius Philippus, who had connections of hospitality with Perseus, while the Roman envoys were busy among the Greeks. Among the Achæans, even the patriot party held firm to their alliance: their influence was predominant among the Thessalians; and even the Etolians had a general devoted to the Romans. The fourth great confederacy, that of the Boeotians, was divided, and its disruption-upon the demand of the Roman envoy, that each of the cities should declare in his presence what part they took-was attended with open hostilities. Coronea and Haliartus, which had formed alliances with |