Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14/VIII
VIII
THE ROMAN CONQUEST
The struggles between the generals, who divided
among themselves the world of Alexander, went
through five stages before things settled down into
the state in which we find them in the last period of
Greek nominal independence. In the first two of
these, B.C. 323 and 321, the empire is still professedly
united under the two kings, Philip Arrhidaeus
(half-brother of Alexander the Great) and Alexander IV.,
his posthumous child by Roxana. In the third (B.C.
312) Philip has disappeared (murdered by Olympias
in B.C. 317), and though Alexander is still nominally
king, four great satraps are really exercising
independent power—Ptolemy, son of Lagos, in Egypt;
Lysimachus, in Thrace; Antigonus, in Asia;
Seleucus in Babylonia. In B.C. 311 Alexander and
Roxana were murdered by the order of Cassander.
Then followed fresh quarrels, ended at last by a
naval victory of Demetrius, son of Antigonus, over
Ptolemy (B.C. 306).
COIN OF PTOLEMY, KING OF EGYPT, OB. B.C. 285.
After this the Diadochi assumed the title of king, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus of Syria and Asia Minor, Seleucus of Upper Asia (Babylonia), Lysimachus of Thrace, Cassander (son of Anti pater the
second regent) of Macedonia. There is now no
pretence of unity; Alexander's Empire has been
resolved into its component parts. Then followed
five more years of quarrel, caused partly by the
conflicting claims of Lysimachus and Antigonus upon
Asia Minor, partly by the question whether Coele-Syria
and Palestine are to belong to the kingdom
of Egypt or to that of Antigonus in Upper Asia.
This was ended by the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia
(B.C. 301), in which Antigonus and his son Demetrius
the Besieger were defeated by the three kings,
Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, and Antigonus was killed.
COIN OF SELEUCUS, KING OF SYRIA, OB. B.C. 280.
This led to the fifth re-arrangement. There were
now four great kingdoms—Egypt, Syria, Thrace
with part of Asia Minor, Macedonia. Besides these
Demetrius the Besieger had assumed the title of king,
though he had no regular kingdom.
He was, however, possessed of a strong fleet, and dominated Cyprus, Tyre and Sidon, and soon after the death of Cassander (B.C. 295) became King of Macedonia for two years, having just before asserted his power over
Athens and Greece. He lost the kingdom of Macedonia
in B.C. 287, and died a prisoner in Asia in
B.C. 283. The succession to the Macedonian throne
was a matter of dispute until it was secured by
Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius, in B.C. 277.
By that time a sixth rearrangement had been made. For a short time Lysimachus of Thrace had held Macedonia (B.C. 289-281), part of the time in conjunction with Pyrrhus, but on his defeat and death (B.C. 281) the kingdom of Thrace disappeared.
COIN OF LYSIMACHUS, OB. B.C. 281.
His dominions in Asia Minor were taken over by
the King of Syria, and the islands with the cities on
the Thracian Chersonese by the King of Egypt.
In the sixty years which elapsed between these events and the first political contact between Greece and Rome (B.C. 280-220) the three kingdoms had developed under the dynasties thus established. The Macedonian kings had been engaged in maintaining and extending their power in Greece; the Ptolemies had made Alexandria a centre of intellectual life and the richest city in the world; the Seleucids had at any rate kept back the tribes of the interior from Syria and Asia Minor, though a new monarchy had arisen beyond the Euphrates under the Parthian Arsaces (B.C. 350), one day to be a terror to the West. The minor kingdoms of Pergamus, Pontus, and Bithynia had come into existence, and the con- federacy of the sea-powers Byzantium, Chios, and Rhodes was still an important element in the political situation.
Greece Proper, meanwhile, though political independence was lost, in spite of proclamations of its freedom by various Macedonian pretenders, had enjoyed a good deal of practical liberty amidst the quarrels that distracted and weakened Macedonia. There was an aftermath of literature and art, and at no period was the credit of philosophers higher or the influence of their teaching more marked. But whatever freedom the Greeks possessed it was not generally political. The active and energetic men in the various cities adopted the profession of arms and served in the armies of the various sovereigns in Europe, Asia or Egypt. Those who remained at home devoted themselves either to country life, or, if in cities, to letters and philosophy of a kind. The most active gave themselves up to training for the games, a pursuit, however, which had been spoiled for ordinary people by professionalism, the athletes forming a well-defined class to which it required special aptitude and most elaborate training to aspire.
All political vigour, however, had not died out in Greece. We have seen how the Greeks in B.C. 280–279 were once more able to unite and repel the invading Celts. In one quarter—once the least considered in Greece—freedom had never been lost. The Ætolians—a rugged people living in open villages in a mountainous country—had repelled invasions of Athenians during the Peloponnesian war and of the Macedonians both in the time of Philip and Alexander, and in that of his successors. They had taken the chief part in the repulse of the Celts, and were gradually forming a league of cities outside their own borders, in the Peloponnese, Thessaly, and the Islands. They were, as a nation, much addicted to plundering and piracy, and their acknowledged principle was that where spoils were going they would take a share without any declaration of war (ἄγειν λάφυρον ἀπὸ λαφύρων). Their yearly elected Strategus seems, to have had the right to go to war on his own authority, and their constant raids upon Elis, above all, are attested by many writers. They were, however, making a great position for themselves in Greece. About B.C. 240 they appear to have got the management of the Temple at Delphi into their hands, monopolising the Amphictyonic Assembly, and excluding for a time the deputies from other places, thus making themselves, in a way, the mouthpiece of Greece and the arbiters in questions as to the laws of war. However, it seems to have been thought by certain states that an union with the Ætolian League was advantageous, while in other cases their adhesion was more or less compulsory. The terms on which they joined survive in an inscription containing their treaty with the island of Ceos, which had some traditional connection with them as a colony from Naupactus, a town which had been presented to them by Philip II. in B.C. 341. These terms are that the Ætolians are to abstain from pillaging the Ceans by land and sea; are not to summon them before the Amphictyonic Council (which only had jurisdiction between two foreign states); complaints of pillage on the part of Ceans are to go before the Strategus and courts of Ætolia. A state conducted on these principles was likely to rouse enmity in every direction, and in B.C. 220 a war was declared against them by many states in Greece, which is sometimes called the "Social War," and lasted till July, B.C. 217 with the usual effect of bringing foreign intervention.
COIN OF ÆTOLIAN LEAGUE.
The centre of the opposition to the Ætolians, however,
was another league which had become by this time
the best organised body in Greece. The Achæans
had always enjoyed a reputation for moderation and
honesty, and from very early times formed a league
of twelve cities. During the troubles of the
Peloponnesian war they had been forced to join Athens
and Sparta alternately; but at its end regained some sort of independence. In the Macedonian period
(about B.C. 359–285) the League was dissolved and
the several cities were garrisoned by Macedonian
troops, or fell under the power of some tyrant in the
Macedonian interest, the jealousy of Sparta often
co-operating with their oppressors. But the time of
Macedonia's greatest weakness (B.C. 284–280) was
seized upon by four towns to renew the League.
COIN OF ACHÆAN LEAGUE.
They were shortly joined by three others, and this league of seven cities existed quietly till B.C. 255. The general nature of the tie was a common system of coinage, of weights and measures, a common assembly which elected two Strategi to command a joint army in case of attack. After B.C. 255 there was only one Strategus with a vice-president or
hypo-Strategus, a hipparch to command the cavalry,
and a navarch to command a squadron of ten ships
which was maintained by the League.
The next step in the history of the League was the adhesion of Sicyon under the influence of Aratus, who may be regarded almost as its second founder (B.C. 251–245). One after another the chief towns in the Peloponnese were freed from their Macedonian garrisons, or their pro-Macedonian tyrants, and by B.C. 229 the League included two-thirds of the Peloponnese—Laconia, Messenia, and Elis standing aside. The most determined opponent was Sparta, under its reforming king Cleomenes III.; for the ascendency of the Achaeans was not only a blow to Spartan prestige, but it prevented the recovery of its seaports. The Ætolians were on the side of Sparta, because they hoped to share in the spoil if the League were broken up. They were accused by Polybius of intrigue with Antigonus Gonatas, King of Macedonia (B.C. 277–239) and with Antigonus Doson (B.C. 229–220) to secure their interference in the affairs of the Peloponnese against the Achaeans.
But after all it was the Achaean Aratus himself who brought the Macedonian arms into the fray. It had hitherto been the policy of Aratus to seek help rather from Egypt. About B.C. 250 Ptolemy II. had supplied him with 150 talents; and in B.C. 240 Ptolemy III. was nominated "General of the Achaean League by land and sea," and apparently assisted in the maintenance of the League fleet. When, therefore, a series of mutual provocations issued in a war with Cleomenes of Sparta (B.C. 227–222), it was a reversal of all his previous policy for Aratus to ask the aid of Antigonus Doson. It alienated King Ptolemy (Euergetes), who began sending help to Cleomenes, and it, in the end, riveted the Macedonian yoke once more upon Greece, till it was superseded by that of Rome.
The war thus began was a cause of much misery in the Peloponnese, and was at first wholly favourable to Cleomenes. But the complexion of affairs was changed, when Antigonus Doson arrived on the scene and was allowed to occupy the Acrocorinthus as his base (B.C. 224). From that time things went steadily wrong with Cleomenes, till after his defeat at Sellasia (B.C. 222) he fled to Alexandria and dis- appears from Greek history. But the effect of the policy of Aratus was altogether evil. Antigonus, indeed, "restored" the ancient constitution at Sparta, but it lasted only two years, and was succeeded by a series of tyrannies, which hampered progress much more than the opposition of the Spartan constitutional kings. The Achaean League, too, had had to concede the permanent occupation of the Acrocorinthus—one of the "fetters" of Greece—and of Orchomenus, in Arcadia, by Macedonian garrisons, and to agree not to apply for aid to any other sovereign. The fatal result of this policy was shown under the next Macedonian king.
Antigonus was succeeded in B.C. 220, by Philip V. (of whom he had been rightfully only guardian) a young man who soon showed that his ambition was not to be satisfied by anything less than complete ascendency in Greece, and whose policy was the direct cause of the advent of the Romans. The districts of Greece which had, during the Cleomenic war, formed some kind of alliance, were Achaia, Epirus, Phocis, Boeotia, Acarnania, Thessaly—under the hegemony, that is, of Macedonia. It was, indeed, not a measure of Greek unity, but of Macedonian influence. They, with the addition of the King of Bithynia, are still found to form the Macedonian alliance, when in B.C. 205 Philip was compelled to sign the armistice with Rome at Phoenice. All these states now had grievances against the Ætolians, which culminated in a joint declaration of war at Corinth, after Aratus, who was an able statesman but a poor military commander, had sustained a severe reverse at Caphyae. The professed object of the war was to restore to the several allies what had been violently taken from them by the Ætolians; to free those states which had been forcibly united to the Ætolian League, and to restore their free constitutions; and lastly, to emancipate the temple of Delphi and the Amphictyonic Council from Ætolian monopoly.
This "social war" lasted till B.C. 217, and its beginning synchronised with disturbances at many points in the Hellenic world. A revolution at Sparta gave Lycurgus the opportunity of getting rid of his king-colleague and securing the sole power for himself, in which he and his successors maintained the policy of bitter hostility to the Achaeans.
A war for the possession of Palestine was on the point of breaking out between Antiochus III. (of Syria) and 
Akrokorinthos.
Ptolemy IV. of Egypt; and a brief naval war did actually begin between Rhodes and Byzantium on account of the heavy dues imposed upon the corn ships at the Bosporus by the latter. Future combinations were foreshadowed by the grouping of allies in this war. Byzantium was joined by Attalus of Pergamus and Achaeus—a cousin of Antiochus, and properly Satrap of Asia Minor, who had assumed the title of king and set up his court at Sardis. The Rhodians were assisted by Prusias, King of Bithynia, whose position gave him the power of blocking one end of the Bosporus and of invading territories of Byzantium in Mysia. Rhodes was thus acting as a champion of the interests of Greek commerce as Athens had done in old days. Her help was asked in two other directions about the same period—in Crete where violent dissensions were raging which ended in the destruction of the town of Lyttos; and in Sinope, which was threatened by Mithradates IV. of Pontus. This was the beginning of the extension of the kingdom of Pontus, and the design was consummated by the next King Pharnaces seizing Sinope and making it his capital. This same year (B.C. 219) witnessed the beginning of the second struggle between Rome and Carthage, one of the far-reaching effects of which was to bring the Romans to Greece and Asia Minor.
It was then a critical period for Greece in many directions. The one important state which was standing aloof from these disturbances, and joined neither Ætolian nor Achæan, was Athens, which a few years before had regained its freedom, had got rid of its Macedonian garrison, and was enjoying a brief period of prosperity, its harbour once more secured, and its walls rebuilt. It had made an unsuccessful but gallant attempt to secure this freedom from Antigonus Gonatas in B.C. 263 (the Chremonidean war), but in B.C. 229, on the death of Demetrius II., Diogenes, the commander of the Macedonian garrison, gave up the forts to the citizens, and was commemorated as a benefactor for many centuries—his name still surviving on one of the seats in the theatre, while a gymnasium, called τὸ Διογένειον, was frequented till quite late times. According to one story, Aratus supplied the money which was paid to Diogenes; and Athens, though it did not join the Achaean League, took no part against it in the social war. But in the troubles that followed Athens looked to Attalus of Pergamus as offering the most profitable alliance, and therefore—though not displaying much activity—she is found among those states opposed to Achaia and Macedonia, which looked for protection to Rome.
The social war (B.C. 220–217), though it witnessed no great actions and settled no questions, had the result of giving Philip of Macedonia a decisive ascendency in Greece. In B.C. 217 he hastily patched up a peace on hearing of the Roman defeat at lake Trasimene, because he hoped that in alliance with Hannibal, and with the aid of Illyrian seamen, he might invade Italy and revive the old dream of a Western Empire. This involved a war with Rome, which lasted in a desultory way for ten years (B.C. 215–205), and created a division in the Hellenic world. Philip, up to the end of the social war, though receiving his own interests, had kept the confidence of the Greeks generally, or at any rate of the Achaean League. But after that time he had lost that confidence, was believed to have got rid of Aratus by poison, and had committed various out- rages in Messenia and Elis. However, when it came to be a question of siding with Macedonia or Rome, as it did in B.C. 211, when the Ætolians made a treaty of alliance with the Romans, the Achaean League stood by Macedonia, and were followed by the Boeotians, Phocians, Locrians, and Euboeans, and by the Western peoples of Epirus and Acarnania, and certain Illyrian princes. So in the East, Prusias of Bithynia stood by his relative, Philip, while Attalus of Pergamus joined the Roman alliance (B.C. 211).
In the years that followed this arrangement Philip was not by any means always unsuccessful. He more than once defeated the Ætolians; once even repulsed a detachment of Roman troops near Sicyon; foiled Attalus, King of Pergamus, in an attack upon Euboea; and by instigating Prusias to attack Pergamene territory, forced Attalus to abstain from the naval operations which he was carrying on in conjunction with Roman ships, using Ægina, which he had purchased, as his base. The details of the next two years of fighting (B.C. 207–6) are obscure. We find the sea-powers, Rhodes, Byzantium and Chios, more than once vainly attempting to intervene and make peace, in which they were sometimes joined with Egypt. These offered mediations are an indication of how annoying and ruinous to peaceful trade the disturbed state of Greece was—kept up by the fears of the Achaean League (now managed chiefly by Philopoemen) of attacks by the tyrants of Sparta or the hostile Ætolians, and cunningly fomented by Philip of Macedonia. To the Egyptians it was the cause of great financial loss. They had for some time seen the advantage of securing the corn trade with Italy. In B.C. 274, soon after the failure of the invasion of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy the Second had sent an embassy to Rome offering his friendship, which was eagerly accepted, with the result that in the First Punic War the Egyptian Government remained neutral and refused to supply the Carthaginians with corn. So now (B.C. 210–9) the Romans, when the Hannibalian invasion had nearly produced a famine in Italy, applied to the court of Egypt for corn, as being almost the only country in which war was not raging. Thus the eyes of all were turned to the West, and the wise saw that from Italy would come the final decision of all their disputes.
COIN OF PHILIP V., KING OF MACEDONIA, B.C. 220–179.
But Greece was not of one mind. As of old, while some thought that by uniting with a strong quasi-Hellenic
power like Macedonia the "cloud from the West"
might be kept off, others preferred their local
autonomies and precarious alliances. The result
was again the same—that all fell alike under a
great united power.
Peace, indeed, was made in B.C. 205; but it only gave Philip opportunity for fresh encroachments and provocations, and his policy brought into the arena another sovereign—Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, who had secured complete control of all Asia this side Taurus in B.C. 214 by the capture and death of his cousin Achæus, and since then had been on a seven years' expedition into Upper Asia, beyond the Hindu-Kush, and had reduced to obedience the satraps of a vast region (B.C. 212–205). Foiled for a time in his ambitions in Greece and the West, Philip turned his eyes to the East, and made an agreement with Antiochus to partition the outlying dominions of the infant King of Egypt, Ptolemy V., who had just succeeded. In pursuance of this agreement Antiochus at once occupied Pales- tine, long a bone of contention between the Syrian and Egyptian sovereigns; defeated Scopas, the Ætolian general in the service of Egypt, at Panium, near the sources of the Jordan; and contemplated the subjection of Cyrene and Egypt itself. Philip, for his part, proceeded to occupy those Egyptian dominions which had been taken over by Ptolemy at the division of the Thracian kingdom at the death of Lysimachus in B.C. 281—that is, the Thracian Chersonese, certain cities in Asia Minor, and the islands of the Ægean Sea. He went in person to the Chersonese and Asia, while he sent Dicaearchus with a fleet to seize the Cyclades, and an agent, named Heracleides, to prevent the interference of the Rhodians by inciting the Cretans to make war on them, and by treacherously setting fire to their arsenal and ships. These proceedings brought on him the enmity of Attalus of Pergamus, Rhodes, and Athens, and enraged the Ætolians, with whom he had shortly before come to some understanding, because three of the towns he first seized—Lysimacheia, at the head of the Chersonese, Chalcedon, and Cius, in Bithynia—were members of their league. Rhodes had vainly tried to save Cius, and Attalus had watched the movement with great apprehension, and in B.C. 201, as he was extending his conquests southward, both proclaimed war with Philip. Though he promptly invaded Pergamene territory, and his ships were partly successful off Chios and Lade, and he himself penetrated to Caria, thus threatening the Rhodian Peraea, yet the repaired fleets of Attalus, Byzantium, and Rhodes were able to shut him off from returning to Macedonia during the ensuing winter, as the news of dangers at home made him anxious to do. He managed, however, to evade the hostile ships in the spring of B.C. 200.
But the Nemesis was at hand. Attalus from Ægina went to Athens, where he was received with the greatest enthusiasm; an alliance with him and Rhodes was voted by acclamation, and certain Roman commissioners who happened to be at Athens took advantage of the popular feeling to
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ANTIOCHUS III. (THE GREAT), REIGNED B.C. 223-187.
(Louvre.)
enrol Athens among the "friends of Rome." This was again and again the first step to a Roman protectorate, merging in Roman annexation. And, in fact, the Roman government had resolved to intervene. The disorders in the Greek world were regarded as a danger to their commerce in the Mediterranean, and a kind of Philhellenism became the fashion at Rome, never standing in the way of active measures of suppression or extension, yet never quite insincere. A free Egypt, as a free Greece, seemed now of supreme importance, and the Roman government promptly answered to the appeal from Alexandria for help against Antiochus, and from the Greek states for aid against Philip. War was resolved upon against the king of Macedonia early in B.C. 200. At first this only led. to fresh miseries in Greece. Philip sent a strong force into Attica, overran in person the Chersonese, and, crossing the Hellespont, laid siege to Abydos. Here he was met with the Roman ultimatum—demanding that he should refrain from attacking any Greek city or any place belonging to Ptolemy, and submit to arbitration the indemnity claimed by Attalus and the Rhodians.
But though the Roman commissioners travelled through Greece assuring the towns that joined the Roman alliance that they would be protected, and though a Roman consul and a consular army landed in Epirus in the autumn of B.C. 200, for two years little was done to redeem this promise. Philip went on his way unchecked: reduced Abydos, twice invaded and ravaged Attica (though prevented by a Roman squadron from taking the Piraeus and city), and passed into the Peloponnese to secure the loyalty of the Achaean League; and next year surprised and defeated an ^Etolian force which was invading Thessaly under Roman auspices. Among the islands of the Aegean, however, the presence of the combined Roman and Pergamene fleet, stationed at Aegina, did give substantial protection, and forced the expulsion of many Macedonian garrisons. Still, there seemed some paralysing influence upon the Roman force in Epirus. A second consul succeeded the first, and ambassadors from various states crowded the Roman camp with complaints and anxious questions.
It was not until the arrival of T. Quinctius Flamininus, in the spring of B.C. 198, that the king's position on the Aous was turned, and the Roman army was marching on the heels of Philip as he fled through Thessaly to Tempe. Flamininus, however, presently turned south, and marched through Boeotia, receiving or taking town after town, and expelling Macedonian garrisons. As he lay before Elateia he received the adhesion of the Achaean League, and by the time he went into winter quarters Argos and Corinth were almost the only places of importance in the south that still held by Philip and retained their Macedonian garrisons, while Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, was waiting to see which side it would serve him best to join. But in Central Greece Demetrias and Chalcis were still in the king's hands. All these, however, were lost to him
next year (B.C. 197), when, after long conferences and a fruitless appeal to the Senate, the war was renewed, and Philip was utterly beaten in the autumn at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly.
The battle was decisive, and it was not an isolated event. In other parts of Greece, about the same time, the Macedonian cause had received a series of blows. The Rhodians had re-possessed themselves of their Peraea in Caria; the troops of the Achaeans had defeated the Macedonian commander at Acrocorinthus; and the Acarnanians had been forced to submit by a Roman fleet. The question for Greeks was whether the victory at Cynoscephalae meant recovered freedom or a change of masters. There had been Greeks fighting on both sides, as usual, and to neither was the answer clear. One state quickly showed its dissatisfaction. The Aetolians gave themselves annoying airs over their part in the victory, and had shown great cupidity in appropriating plunder. When Philip, recognising his position, had agreed to evacuate all Greek towns, the Aetolians claimed the restoration of those in Thessaly and elsewhere which had once belonged to their league; but Flamininus laid down the principle that towns which had voluntarily surrendered to Rome were under the protection of the Senate, and could only be disposed of by it. Only those which had resisted and had been captured were, according to the terms of the treaty of B.C. 211, to pass back to the Aetolians. This confirmed their discontent, which had already been roused by the terms granted to Philip. They had hoped for the dismembering of Macedonia, and the consequent extension of their own dominions in Acarnania and Epirus. At present, however, the Roman view was to maintain the kingdom of Macedonia as a buffer-state against surrounding barbarians, though it was to be confined to its natural frontiers. The Senate decided that, generally speaking, all Greek cities in Europe or Asia were to be free and autonomous Those in Asia, still occupied by Philip, were to be set free at once. Those in Europe were to be handed over before the next Isthmian Games (July) to the ten commissioners, who were sent to Greece and were to determine their status. This distinction was made because the Senate did not mean at present to have any responsibility in Asia, while in Greece it would be a question for the commissioners to decide whether the cities should or should not have a Roman garrison, especially the three “fetters”—Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acrocorinthus.
It was the decision of this point that was awaited with such anxiety and received with such enthusiasm at the next Isthmian Games. This first plan drawn up by Roman officials (no doubt much inspired by Flamininus) for the settlement of Greece deserves to be carefully studied. It was honestly intended, without any thought of annexation, and was founded on the principle of respecting existing combinations when they corresponded with natural divisions, but discouraging the government of isolated towns in one district by another and distant state. It related only to those parts of Greece which had been held by Macedonia either in full sovereignty or by garrisons professedly stationed in them for their protection. Of the rest of Greece—the Achaean and the Aetolian Leagues, Athens, Sparta—there was no question in this particular award. But as to the districts which had been in possession of Philip and had now come into that of Rome, the future was uncertain, and therefore the crowd attending the games waited in breathless expectation for the herald's proclamation, made by order of Flamininus. It declared, in the name of the Senate and the Proconsul, “the following people free, in full enjoyment of the laws of their respective countries: Corinthians, Phocians, Locrians, Eubceans, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Magnesians, Thessalians, Perrhaebians.” The excitable people in their joy almost crushed Flamininus to death in trying to grasp his hands and cover him with garlands. But, after all, this proclamation only announced a general principle; the commissioners still had details to settle. Phocis and Locris were allowed to rejoin the Aetolian League, and certain towns in the Peloponnese the Achaean League. Thessaly was to consist of four confederations—one called Thessaly, the others Perrhaebians, Dolopes, and Magnesians. Finally, some rectifications of the western frontier of Macedonia were made in favour of certain Illyrian princes who had stood by Rome. The settlement was completed next year by a joint attack upon Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, in which Eumenes, the King of Pergamus, the Rhodians, and King Philip took part. The harbour town of Gytheium was taken, and Nabis was obliged to evacuate Argos, surrender his ships, restore exiles, abandon all claims to govern towns outside Laconia, and pay a large war indemnity. At the following Nemaean Games, Argos was proclaimed free and rejoined the Achaean League. Finally, Flamininus, on his return to Italy, in B.C. 194, put a finishing touch upon his work of liberation by withdrawing the Roman garrisons from Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acrocorinthus.
The settlement seemed an equitable one and likely to be lasting, because it was founded on natural divisions and a respect for established facts, and involved no interference with local institutions. But from the very first there were two points of danger and discontent—Sparta and Aetolia. The tyrant of Sparta naturally resented the loss of all access to the sea; and the Aetolians were annoyed by not being allowed to reunite distant league states, especially Leucadia and Pharsalus, and at not having been commissioned to put down Nabis, and thus re-possess themselves of their larger towns in Arcadia. A disturbance in Boeotia, which had Macedonian sympathies, issuing in the murder of Roman soldiers and consequent severities by Flamininus, and the presence of Roman commissioners in Thessaly, where the details of settlement occupied some years, gave them a pretext for saying that Greece had only gained a change of masters. They were, in fact, determined upon the usual policy of discontented states in Greece—to call in the help of a foreign power. They selected Antiochus of Syria, whom we heard of last as having occupied Palestine as his share of the dominions of Egypt which he and Philip had agreed to partition. Since then he had taken up some of the work which Philip had been obliged to abandon, and had occupied the Egyptian protectorates in Caria and the Thracian Chersonese. He then gave his daughter Cleopatra in marriage to Ptolemy, with the revenues of Coele-Syria and Palestine as her dower. He thus had established a kind of right to the cities of Caria and the Chersonese, and at any rate had prevented the fear of an appeal from Egypt to Rome against him. Nevertheless the Romans had remonstrated against his encroachment upon the Chersonese, and had told him at last that, if he did not quit Europe, they would free the Greek cities in Asia from him (B.C. 193).
But Antiochus had many reasons for not yielding to these threats. First, he had received the application of the Aetolians, who assured him that if he would come to Greece there would be a rising in the Peloponnese, headed by Nabis, in Boeotia, and other parts of Central Greece, and that Philip of Macedonia would gladly seize the opportunity of shaking off the supremacy of Rome. Again, there had just arrived in Ephesus the greatest general of the day and the most implacable enemy of Rome, Hannibal the Carthaginian, driven into exile by the unworthy jealousy of the Roman government. Hannibal held out an alluring prospect of inducing his fellow-countrymen to renew the war when the Romans were hampered by the rising in the East. Lastly, his past successes in Central Asia and Palestine had given Antiochus confidence in his power and fortune. Nor was it only as a victor that he had gained men's good word. He had known how to conciliate as well as to conquer, had respected Jewish laws and customs, and had assured Greek cities that he would issue no orders that were contrary to their laws. Therefore, though appeals went to Rome from some cities, such as Smyrna, Alexandria Troas, and Lampsacus, there does not seem to have been any widespread dissatisfaction with his rule in the cities of Asiatic Hellas.
When at last, however, he did cross to Greece and land at Demetrias, he found none of the fair hopes which had been held out to him in the way of fulfilment. The Carthaginians, even if they wished it, were prevented from stirring by the ever-present hostility of Massanasa, who could always reckon on the support of Rome. Nabis of Sparta had fallen by the treachery of the Aetolians, whose help he had asked against the Achaean League, and Sparta had been added to the League by Philopoemen. The Aetolians, indeed, had prepared for the coming of Antiochus by seizing Demetrias, and, summoning a conference at Lamia, got him proclaimed “general” of the League. But the expected rising did not take place. The Boeotians hesitated, the Achaeans rejected his proposals, and almost the only people who openly joined him were the insignificant Athamanes. So far from joining Antiochus, Philip of Macedonia, who was threatened by a pretender in the person of a brother-in-law of the king of the Athamanes, was actively assisting the Romans. It is true that after his capture of Chalcis there seemed for a brief space some hope. In the winter of B.C. 192–191 messages of sympathy, and sometimes active adhesion came from Elis, Epirus, and Boeotia. In the latter the king was received personally with enthusiasm, and commissioners from some of the towns in Thessaly attended a conference with him at Demetrias. But the friendly states more often had need of help from him than ability to furnish any; and on the whole he must have felt that the idea of leading a united Greece was hopeless. Such alliances as he had been able to form collapsed next spring (B.C. 191) when a Roman army marched through Thessaly, receiving the submission of city after city. Antiochus had spent the winter at Chalcis, and now tried to block the famous pass of Thermopylae against the Roman advance; but being utterly defeated there, he escaped by sea to Ephesus and never returned. His intervention had been useless to Greece, and was in the near future to prove disastrous to himself. All parts of Greece relapsed into their former submissiveness, and hardly any severities were employed by the consul Acilius to the states which had favoured Antiochus.
But the Aetolians would not give in. An Aetolian force stood a long siege at Heracleia, just north of Thermopylae, and their main army was strongly posted at Naupactus. A year went by with indecisive sieges and protracted negotiations, during which the only gainer was Philip of Macedon, who was entrusted with the reduction of revolted cities in Thessaly, and was rewarded by the remission of his war indemnity and the restoration of his supremacy in part, at any rate, of that district. The Romans felt sure of being able to settle the Aetolian question whenever they chose, and gave all their energies for the present to crush Antiochus, whose high talk of a second expedition into Greece was partly responsible for the obstinacy of the Aetolian resistance. The king's fleet was defeated in the autumn of B.C. 191 off Phocaea, but in the spring of the next year it gained a victory over the Rhodians, while the Roman fleet was detained some time with the blockade of Abydos. Things seemed promising for the king at first, his son Seleucus carried all before him in Aeolis, and he himself, at the head of a large army, occupied the territory of Pergamus. But a Roman army was on its way, commanded by L. Scipio, assisted by his famous brother Africanus; and whilst waiting to fight this army the king's fortune at sea went from bad to worse. Hannibal, with a Phoenician fleet, was defeated by the Rhodians; his own fleet was beaten with great loss in the bay of Teos; Phocaea was captured by the Roman ships; and there was no chance of preventing the Scipios from crossing the Hellespont. The battle of Magnesia, late in B.C. 190, ended all his hopes. His army was cut to pieces, and he and his son with difficulty escaped to Sardis. He was obliged to submit to any terms the Romans chose to demand. They included an immense war indemnity and the abandonment of his authority in Asia this side of Taurus. It was a repetition of the so-called treaty of Callias in B.C. 452: Asiatic Greece was no longer to be under an Eastern sovereign. But times were changed, and the restoration of complete and separate independence to the cities proved to be impracticable, though that seems to have been the first idea of the Romans, and was suggested by Rhodian envoys.
Eventually the usual commission of ten senators arrived, and after listening to various claimants made their award: (1) Those parts of Asia Minor which had belonged to Antiochus in full sovereignty were to belong to Eumenes of Pergamus, except Lycia and Caria south of the Maeander, which were to belong to Rhodes. (2) Of Greek cities such as had formerly paid tribute to the king of Pergamus and had been wrested from him were to pay their tribute as before; those that had been originally independent but had been subjected by Antiochus were to recover their independence, and such as had been independent of either king throughout were to continue independent. Thus the historic cities on the coast such as Miletus, Cyme, Clazomenae, Smyrna, and islands such as Chios, became independent ; Rhodes recovered the Peraea in Caria, and had added to it Lycia in full sovereignty. But the greatest gainer was King Eumenes of Pergamus, who became sovereign of the Thracian Chersonese, of Phrygia, Mysia, Lycaonia, and Lydia, besides the rich trading city of Ephesus, with Tralles and Telmessus.
Pergamus thus became a strong and wealthy kingdom, and rivalled Alexandria as a centre of Greek letters and art. Eumenes II., who had succeeded his father in B.C. 197, continued his work in beautifying the city with splendid buildings and the best sculptures to be obtained. Some of the finest remains of ancient art that have survived were brought to Rome from Pergamus, such as the dying Gaul (called “the Dying Gladiator),” and the Belvidere Apollo. Eumenes also began the great library which contained 200,000 volumes, and was eventually transferred by Antony to Alexandria as a gift to Cleopatra after a great part of the Alexandrian library had been destroyed by fire. The sovereigns of Pergamus were enlightened men and apparently excellent rulers, and Asiatic Greece now enjoyed a brief period of peace and increasing wealth.
European Greece was not so fortunate. The Aetolians were still in arms, nor did they give in until their capital, Ambracia, had stood a long and memorable siege. They then had to submit to be deprived of all annexations, to surrender all right to make additions to their League either by war or negotiation, and, in fact, to be a dependency of Rome without the right of having a foreign policy, though for internal purposes they retained their constitution (B.C. 187). Aetolia ceases to count in Greek history from this time. Its population decreased, and its narrow territory—now bounded on the west by the River Achelous—seemed to lapse into barbarism. In Western Greece Ambracia and Acarnania were declared free states, but Corcyra was governed by a Roman praefectus, and the freedom of these states, as of the commonwealth of Epirus, was really on sufferance and at the mercy of Rome.
Nor was the freedom of Southern Greece in much better case. The great achievement of Philopoemen, the last great soldier of the Achaean League, had been to compel Sparta to join the League, and so to make the term Achaia applicable to the whole Peloponnesus (B.C. 192). But Sparta was always an unwilling member, and its adhesion had been at the cost of more than one bloody revolution, in the course of which now one and now another party had been exiled. These exiles were always clamouring for restitution; and at least four classes of them appeared by their representatives in Rome in B.C. 184. Philopoemen was murdered in B.C. 183, and Lycortas, the father of Polybius, became the most influential man in the League. His policy was to maintain independence by strictly adhering to the terms of their treaty with Rome, and thus to avoid the interference of Roman commissioners. But this implied internal union and loyalty and the observance of the rule—laid down in the treaty—that only legates from the Central League government were to go to Rome; individual states were not to send any. But with members of the League discontented such embassies were sure to be sent covertly, if not openly; and when the Senate saw reason to be displeased with the League these separate embassies were encouraged. Moreover, the party opposed to Lycortas was led by a certain Callicrates, whose policy was to promote the Roman interests and to make the control of Rome more complete. It was to him, then, that the Spartan exiles looked for help, and a statue-base exists at Olympia in which they record their gratitude for his success in securing their recall, which could only be done by appeal to the Roman Senate. Achaia was a house divided against itself.
Elsewhere in Greece there were also many signs of restlessness. In Thessaly Philip's hold on certain cities, connived at by Rome, was being resisted. In Boeotia, as in Sparta, there were disputes about the recall of exiles and signs that the Boeotian League preferred Macedonia to Rome. In the East the Lycians resented being subjects, when they believed that they were meant by the Roman award to be allies, of Rhodes, and were more than once in armed rebellion. These troubles led to constant and wearisome appeals to the Roman Senate, and eventually the renewal of war with Macedonia put an end to the farce of Greek independence, with its endless bickerings. This war had become inevitable. King Philip was extending his power in Thrace, sometimes by acts of great cruelty, thus coming into collision with the King of Pergamus, who governed the Thracian Chersonese; he was interfering in the affairs of the Illyrian princes, and was endeavouring once more to make a party for himself in Greece. These proceedings were jealously watched in Rome, and the king was irritated by frequent commissioners that visited Macedonia or parts of Greece and Thrace, where he was believed to be intriguing. His younger son Demetrius, who had visited Rome as his father's agent, was so ostentatiously patronised by them that Perseus was able, by false representations, so to inflame his father's suspicions that he at last consented to his death. The unhappy man never held up his head again; and though he continued working against the Roman influence, he died in B.C. 179, before an outbreak actually occurred. But his son Perseus succeeded to his policy as well as to the wealth and warlike stores which his father had accumulated.
Very soon after the accession of Perseus rumours spread through Greece of a change for the better in the government of Macedonia, from which advantages might be hoped. A young and vigorous sovereign had mounted the throne, who, while renewing his father's treaty with Rome, yet let it be understood that he wished to identify himself with Greek interests and Greek ideas. He at once made advances to the Achaeans for the removal of the mutual prohibition of the citizens of the one country visiting the territory of the other. As time went on instances of attempts to assert his power by force or favour in Thessaly and other parts of Greece accumulated. A civil contest broke out in Boeotia, in which the leaders of the Romanising party were killed (B.C. 171); in the previous year (B.C. 172), Eumenes, King of Pergamus, had visited Rome and had reported in strong terms on the progress which Perseus was making in Boeotia, Aetolia, and Thrace, and his life was attempted on his way home. The usual despatch of commissioners followed with irritating frequency, whose presence was resented by Perseus, and whose reports caused great uneasiness at Rome, till at length war was declared in B.C. 175 and was only ended by the battle of Pydna in B.C. 168, the capture of the king and the division of Macedonia into four districts, in which the inhabitants had no right of residence or ownership in any but their own division. And though these districts were nominally independent, they were fettered by so many conditions and prohibitions, as, for instance, in regard to working mines or felling timber for ships, that they were in effect in a worse position than any province. They were subjects without a subject's privileges.
But the effects of this war with Perseus on the Greek world were scarcely less disastrous. In the first year Perseus had gained some substantial successes in cavalry skirmishes on the Peneus. All the states which recently cherished a wish for a revived Macedonia as a counterpoise to Rome, were tempted by these successes to show their colours. The movement, says Polybius, “spread like a fire.” It was specially strong in Boeotia, Aetolia, and Epirus; but even some of Rome's most trusted allies were suspected—as Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and the Rhodians; and though the Achaean Government had not committed itself to any breach of its treaty with Rome, there was a strong nationalist party in the League, whom the Romans chose to regard with suspicion.
On the defeat of Perseus, therefore, the hand of Rome fell heavily upon many parts of Greece. Eumenes, in paying a visit of congratulation, was abruptly told to quit Italy, and his brother Attalus was ostentatiously promoted and honoured, while Prusias of Bithynia was instigated to annoy him by frontier disputes. But the royal family of Pergamus was distinguished by family affection, and Eumenes seems to have survived till B.C. 157, without any quarrel with his brother and successor. A more practical punishment was inflicted on Rhodes, its dependencies in Caria and Lycia being declared free, while its finances were injured by the recognition of Delos as a free port. This diverted the passage of ships between Greece and Asia, and at once seriously diminished the harbour dues, on which the revenue of the Rhodians had greatly depended. In Greece proper, though no Roman province was created, yet the whole country was made to feel its subordination. Epirus, as having openly favoured Perseus suffered worst. Not only was the League government dissolved, but all its cities were stripped of their wealth and fortifications.
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COIN OF PERSES, KING OF MACEDONIA, B.C. 179–168.
More than 150,000
persons are said to have been sold into slavery, and
whole districts were left desolate and uncultivated.
The Boeotian League was also dissolved, and some
of the most disaffected cities practically demolished.
The Achaean League was not formally dissolved,
but complaints against it by Sparta or other
discontented members were encouraged, and 1,000
members of the nationalist party were ordered to go
to Italy and await trial.
The same was done in other parts of Greece. These men were detained in various cities in Italy and never brought to trial till
their numbers had diminished to about 300, when
they were allowed to return as no longer dangerous
(B.C. 151).
Their return, however, presently involved the entire dissolution of the League. For one of the restored exiles named Diaeus was elected Strategus for B.C. 150–149, and by an ill-judged quarrel with Sparta brought upon the League first the loss of Sparta and then that of Corinth, Argos, and Orchomenus in Arcadia, by the order of Roman commissioners. The Strategus of that year (B.C. 147), Critolaus, was a violent anti-Romanist, and persuaded the cities of the League to resist this order and to enrol troops. In the spring of B.C. 146, he was able to occupy Thermopylae in considerable force. But there was a Roman consul and army in Macedonia which, after the defeat of various pre- tenders, was being reduced to the form of a single Roman province, the quadruple division being abolished. Metellus, who was in command of this army in Macedonia, marched quietly down the country and defeated Critolaus, who perished in some unknown way after the battle. His predecessor, Diaeus, according to the League law, became at once Strategus, and he determined to continue the resistance, fortifying himself in Corinth. There he was so utterly defeated by the successor of Metellus, L. Mummius, that he fled to Megalopolis and took poison, while Corinth was given up to pillage and fire. Its treasures of art which were saved from the flames or the ignorant destruction of the soldiers were transported to Rome, and the town itself was reduced to ruins and remained a mere village till recolonised by Julius Caesar.
This was the end of Greek independence; but Greece was not as vet made into a Roman province. The system pursued was to abolish all leagues and to treat each city and its immediate territory as a separate and distinct entity with a local constitution of its own. Ten Commissioners visited the Peloponnese, now often called Achaia, and drew up a lex or charter for each city, assisted by Polybius the historian and son of Lycortas, who was commissioned to explain to each city the terms granted to it. So in other parts of Greece—as in Attica and the islands. Greece was in effect not one but many provinces, and Cicero enumerates among the "provinces" of the Roman people, Achaia, Thessalia, Boeotia, Lacedaemonii, Athenienses. Some cities were in a better position than others—such as Athens, Sparta, Sicyon—which did not pay tribute. Their status depended on former treaties made with them as sovereign states. But all alike were under the direction of Rome in regard to external relations and the right of going to war: and for certain purposes all alike were subject to the governors of Macedonia, who could levy soldiers in them. In Northern Greece the greater part of Epirus and Thessaly were united to the province of Macedonia. ilia was desolate and neglected, but in most of the districts large tracts of lands were made ager publicus; that is, the property of the Roman people, who received a regular rent from their occupiers. This was the case with all Euboea and Boeotia, and the territory of Corinth; some of which last, however, was granted to Sicyon on condition of keeping up the Isthmian games. Some of the smaller states were for special reason excused the payment of tribute, but as a general rule every community recognised as a state paid a fixed sum to the Roman exchequer.
Thus Greece, which the course of events since the death of Alexander had brought into line with the Hellenistic kingdoms of Egypt, Syria, Pergamus, and Macedonia was now joined to the Roman system, destined before long to absorb the first three of these as it had already done the last. Greece cannot be said to have flourished in this new position. Population went down; what had once been important cities became mere villages, and most of the active and vigorous men who survived sought employment elsewhere, either as soldiers, or physicians, or teachers, or artists. Hellenism flourished at Pergamus, Antioch, and above all at Alexandria, rather than in Greece; and though Greek culture survived and deeply affected the conquering race, the Greeks themselves ceased to be regarded as of weight in the political history of the world. Still, some of the characteristic features of Greek life survived. The great games were still largely attended, though the Romans rather despised them; the Amphictyonic League still existed, though with much diminished importance, and the oracles were still consulted. Athens not only retained the glamour of its great past, but was still a well-fortified city and the home of philosophic schools,—maintained in part by legacies from the original founders or subsequent masters,—and was attended by young men of rank or wealth from all parts of the Empire. Certain towns attained or recovered some prosperity from being places of call in journeys between Italy and the East, such as Dyrrachium and Apollonia in Epirus, Patrae in the Peloponnese, Athens itself, and some of the islands, as Corcyra and Samos. Artistically Greece suffered much from the Roman conquests. An immense amount of the finest works of art were transferred to Rome either by conquering generals or private collectors. Whole towns were stripped, as Syracuse and Tarentum, Corinth and Chalcis, Ambracia and all the cities of Epirus. But besides these and other wholesale robberies a steady drain went on as wealth got more into the hands of the Romans. Yet, as the remains still testify, much was left, and the traveller Pausanias (in the second century of our era) found enough in most parts of Greece to fill many pages of mere enumeration. Wherever the Roman power extended there was on the whole peace and a reign of law. Administration of law involves the art of oratory, and accordingly we find both in European and Asiatic Greek this art still cultivated and in high repute, especially at Rhodes and in some cities in Asia Minor. Both Caesar and Cicero visited Rhodes to study in the rhetorical schools, and Cicero went to Asia Minor for the same purpose. There was thought to be a marked difference of style between the two. That of Rhodes was the purer and more classical, the oratory of Asiatic Greece was more elaborate and artificial; but at any rate in this respect Greece was still the teacher; and though material prosperity was diminished or destroyed, she still drew to her a large part of those who cared for art, science, or letters.
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| Photo] | [Neurdein. |
Aphrodite of Melos (Venus of Milo in the Louvre).