Chapter M: Livius Drusus, 340 (7)

Flamininus, who now entered upon the consulship, was a distinguished man, and had moreover been chosen by the people before he was thirty years old, owing to their confidence in his personal qualities. It is indeed a proof of the utter falsehood of the notion that the Romans had only in later times sought to make themselves acquainted with Greek literature, when we find it distinctly stated of men like Flamininus that they were imbued with Greek learning. His conduct towards Greece is not indeed to be approved of in every respect; but he was provoked, when his noble attempt to win her applause, was darkened by the ingratitude of a nation which was already partly degenerated. Had the Greeks been able to suit themselves to the actual state of things, they might have been spared many a sad experience. Flamininus became convinced that it was necessary to try and drive the Macedonians from their vantage ground, and he attained his end by means of that faithlessness then so general in Greece. He tampered with a chieftain belonging to the Epirote republic of the name of Charops; and the latter, being gained over by money and promises, undertook to lead a small Roman division of four thousand men through unknown roads to the rear of the Macedonian army. The Romans did not indeed trust their guides, and they carried them bound along with them; but no treachery was committed, and on the third day they reached the heights above the Macedonians. That day had been appointed for the attack. At sunrise, Flamininus began the battle in front, and thus engaged the attention of the Macedonians; he had already lost a great many men, when the detachment which had gone round the Macedonians, gave the signal with fire from the heights. He now renewed the attack with redoubled vigour: the other Romans fell upon the Macedonians from the rear, and these were panic-struck and fled; so that the Romans by one blow became masters of Epirus, where all the towns opened their gates to them. Philip escaped across mount Pindus into Thessaly. Flamininus did not follow, as he wished first to take advantage of these circumstances, entirely to drive the Macedonians out of Greece. But an expedition to Thessaly had no great results. He united with the Ætolians in Ambracia, and took up his winter-quarters in Phocis, where he besieged the strong town of Elatea.

During the campaign, the combined fleet of Attalus, the Rhodians, and the Romans, was in the Greek seas; they made several undertakings, which, however, led to nothing but the ravaging of unhappy Greece. Thus Chalcis, once so flourishing, was destroyed and pillaged. The Achæans had before been obliged to give up Megara and Corinth to Philip, who had likewise kept Orchomenus without asking their leave; at a later period only, that is to say at the beginning of the second war, he gave it back to them. Had he now after his defeat, likewise restored to them Corinth, they would hardly have forsaken him; for they had an implacable hatred against the Ætolians, and also against the Romans on account of the savage devastations of the former war. But now that Philip had not been able to stand his ground, and all the country as far as Thermopylæ was in the hands of the Romans, the Macedonian party, although certainly still considerable, could not come forward, and the proposal was discussed of concluding an alliance with the Romans. Roman ambassadors appeared at Sicyon; the Achæan strategus Aristænus, a shrewd statesman, took advantage of the disposition which was felt by many to yield to sense and reason, and to dwell on the injuries suffered from Philip; and he got the alliance with him dissolved, though not without difficulty, and another one concluded with the Romans. The restoration of the places of which Philip had stripped them, was promised; Nabis and the Ætolians were not to exercise any hostility against them. It was no longer possible, as Demosthenes once had done, to lead the nation by inspired eloquence and high feeling, but shrewdness had its effect. The Achæans were not warlike, although Philopœmen had done everything he could to make them so. The war with Macedon was very irksome to them; for, although there was only a small Macedonian garrison stationed at Corinth, yet it was able by its allies to do much harm to the neighbouring places in the Peloponnesus. The governor of Corinth, Philocles, even took Argos.

In the meanwhile, Flamininus called upon the Bœotians to enter into the league with Rome; yet they showed themselves wavering, as after a hundred and forty years of the Macedonian yoke, it seemed impossible that that power should have been suddenly broken. It was only by what was almost a stratagem, that Flamininus managed to bring them to that alliance (555). The proconsul (Flamininus’ consular year had expired, but his _imperium_ had been prolonged) appeared before Thebes, and demanded to be let in, that he might negotiate; now he had brought soldiers with him, who came forward whilst he was before the town, and so he marched in without asking leave. The decree which the Bœotians still made, was now but a mere form: there was, however, also a Macedonian garrison in the place.

One hundred and twenty-five years had passed away since the death of Alexander; the proud waves had gone down, and the Greeks no longer deemed themselves to be the people which alone had been called to rule the world. They no longer thought Macedonians upstarts, but they beheld in them their protectors against the Gauls, Scordiscans, Thracians, and other Northern peoples; they looked up to the Macedonian court; Macedonian money also did its work; in short, they acknowledged their leadership. Nor did they indeed any more reckon them to be barbarians. At Pella, Greek was no doubt as much spoken as Macedonian; at court, and among all the educated classes, it was the language in vogue; so that the difference between Hellenes and Macedonians had by this time been effaced.

Before the new campaign had begun, but when the Achæans had already declared against him, Philip sought to negotiate. He would not, however, yield to the demand of the Romans that he should evacuate the whole of Greece; and so determined again to try his luck in war, as he had become much more spirited in the course of his reign. These negotiations failed, and the hostile armies marched against each other in the year 555. Thessaly was the natural scene of the campaign of this year, in which Philip had put forth all his strength. If what Livy tells us of his levy be true, and he was indeed able to raise but so small an army, then must the Gauls have dreadfully visited his country. But the statement does not seem to be correct; for if Macedon had any thing of a population, it must easily have furnished a hundred thousand men. The Romans took the field, reinforced by the Ætolians; no other allies are spoken of, and the Ætolians themselves are said not to have been more than a few thousand foot and four or five hundred horse, unless this be another mistake; altogether, we are told, the army of Flamininus consisted of twenty-six thousand men and a small body of horse. The struggle began rather early in the year. The harvest in Thessaly is gathered in about the middle of June, and by that time the battle of Cynoscephalæ must have taken place; for the corn was ripe, but not yet cut, so that the soldiers, when foraging, had only to reap it. The Romans and Macedonians, who were each advancing, fell in with each other at a spot where they were separated only by a range of low hills. This was on the borders of the Thessalian plain, at which the Phthiotic hills gently slope away into Thessaly proper. Here the two armies were marching in the same direction, without knowing it, each believing the other to be far behind: the object on both sides, was to take up their quarters wherever they might find provisions, and they wished to avail themselves of the ripe corn. Both were on their way to Scotussa. It had rained the day before, and in the morning there arose a thick fog; so that they scarcely saw the hills along which they were marching to the right and left, and the Romans chanced to hit upon one which the Macedonians were about to ascend. Philip had no wish whatever to fight; the Roman general also would rather have chosen another battle-field, as the country thereabouts was still too open: the force of circumstances, however, compelled them to engage. The Romans were already on the height when the Macedonians came up; but their number was small, and at first they were driven back, until they got reinforced. This took place on the left of the Macedonian army, and thus both generals became aware of the nearness of the enemy, and quickly sent troops to the help of their own men. With the support of the Ætolians, the Romans gained the upperhand on the hill; but this led the foe to make a grand attack upon them, and they were pushed down again by the whole of the Macedonian left wing. The Macedonians now thought themselves sure of victory, and Philip was obliged to risk a battle, lest he should damp the spirit of his soldiers. He therefore had only to choose the best line for their advance; and, what was bad for the Macedonian phalanx, he had to take up his position on the hill, where the moveable array of the Romans was much more efficient. The description of this battle in Polybius’ fragments is masterly. The whole of the left wing had pressed forward, and had driven the Romans down the hill on the other side; but when the right wing had with great exertion ascended thither, the Roman left wing was already there before it, and thus was this part of the Macedonian army soon defeated. The Ætolian cavalry, to whom this success was owing, went in pursuit of the fugitives. On the left wing of the Romans, which had to encounter the phalanx, the struggle was undecided; at first, they had even the worst of it: the phalanx, which was once sixteen deep, and now fourteen, charged heavily with its immense masses and its terrible _sarissæ_, the rear ranks pushing those in front with almost irresistible force against the enemy. But the Romans wheeled half round to the right, and drove the Macedonians on the other side up the heights from which they had come down; and in this position, in which the phalanx was not able to move, the battle was won. There is no denying that the Romans owed their victory mainly to the Ætolian cavalry: the rout of the phalanx was the work of these alone. Philip had a narrow escape. The Macedonians lifted up their lances in token of submission; but the Romans, who did not understand this signal, fell upon them, and thus most of them were killed, and the rest taken prisoners. After this overthrow, in which the loss of the Macedonians, according to the lowest estimates, those which Polybius gives, was eight thousand killed, and five thousand prisoners, Philip fled to Larissa, and from thence to Tempe. He had led the whole of his forces into the field, so that he had no reserve left: this was his fatal mistake. He therefore began to negotiate, and after two vain attempts, a truce was agreed upon: he was to send ambassadors to Rome, and in the meanwhile to furnish supplies to the Roman army, and to pay a contribution.

The Romans were inclined to peace, as there had begun to be much ill-blood between them and the Ætolians. These had plundered the Macedonian camp after the battle of Cynoscephalæ, and in consequence dissension had arisen. The Romans were in much greater numbers in that fight than the Ætolians; but the cavalry of the Ætolians had indeed decided the victory, and moreover, in the beginning these had stood the brunt of the battle on the heights, by which the Romans were enabled to make an orderly retreat. As there was no blinking these arguments, the Ætolians, even if they had not been a vain people, might very well have taken to themselves the honour of the victory; and this indeed they did in a way which gave great offence to the sensitive Flamininus, who therefore, immediately after the day was won, tried to cut them out of all its advantages. Throughout the whole of Greece, the Ætolians were sung of as conquerors, and the Romans with their consul looked upon only as auxiliaries: there came out at that time a fine epigram still extant of Alcæus of Messene on the victory of Cynoscephalæ, full of scorn against Philip, in which it is said in plain words that the Ætolians, and with them the Latins under T. Quinctius, had beaten the Macedonians, and that thirty thousand Macedonians had been slain. This insolence the Greeks had dearly to pay for, as Flamininus was provoked by it; yet it would have done them still greater mischief, had any other than he been general. It is difficult to form an idea of the blind infatuation of the Ætolians,--a people, whose territory was not larger than the canton of Berne, and who yet could have been mad enough to think themselves the equals of the Romans: one of their generals, who had a quarrel with Flamininus, told him, that arms would decide it on the banks of the Tiber. The only clue for this is in the character of the southern nations, who, though unable to do anything, fancy that they can do everything. Even so it was with the Spaniards in their relations with the English: they are always talking of the immortal day of Salamanca, on which they beat the French, whereas they did not lose more than one man in that battle. And thus did the Ætolians, without any substantial cause, become at variance with the Romans. It is true that Flamininus was too irritable: he ought to have treated this with contempt, as his mission to give freedom to Greece was such a fine one. Nor were the Romans by any means just to the Ætolians: by the original conditions, these had a right to claim the restoration of all the places which had been taken from them by Philip; but the Romans decided against them, and they either kept the places themselves, or embodied them with other states, or else they left them independent. This would not have happened, unless there had been indeed some provocation; but it made the Ætolians quite furious.

It was, of course, the policy of the Romans, to restore Greece in such a manner, that the separate nations should balance each other. The peace was concluded in 556, and a most mortifying one for Philip it was. By its terms he was limited to the kingdom of Macedon, which, however, was larger than the old one of that name, as it reached as far as the Nestus, taking in part of Thrace, and many Illyrian and Dardanian tribes, and he had to give up all his places in Greece and on the Thracian coast, and all his conquests in Asia Minor and Caria: these last ought to have been restored to Ptolemy; yet, for appearance’s sake, they got their freedom. Moreover, he had to bind himself to keep no more than five thousand men as a standing army, and only five galleys, and his royal ship; to pay a thousand talents in ten years; and also to give hostages, among whom was his own son Demetrius.

Of this peace the Romans made a generous use. It would be hardly fair to search keenly into their reasons for it; yet it was perhaps that they might leave no vantage ground to Antiochus. Flamininus himself seems to have had very pure motives. The whole of Thessaly, the countries south of Thermopylæ, and the three fortresses, Acrocorinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias, were in the occupation of the Romans, and it was now a question what was to be done with them. Men were not wanting, who never would have sacrificed the positive advantage of the moment for the sake of a fair fame, and who strongly urged that these three places, with some others besides, should still be retained, so as to ensure the dependence of Greece; but Flamininus declared himself against this, and so effectually, that Corinth, the citadel of which had as yet been provisionally held by the Romans, was now already restored to the Achæans. This was the more nobly done, as not only the Ætolians, but also the Achæans, with Philopœmen at their head, claimed to be equal with the Romans; so that it certainly cost Flamininus a struggle with himself to follow his generous impulse. It was lucky for the Greeks, that, in spirit and education, he was a Greek, to which the epigrams on his votive gifts also bear witness.

On the day of the Isthmian games, the decision of the senate was to be made known, from which people expected different things according to their different dispositions. An immense throng was gathered together at Corinth; and there, in the theatre, Flamininus had the decree of the senate proclaimed, by which freedom was granted to all the Greeks. This beautiful moment of enthusiasm gave Greece fifty years of happiness. In the history of the world, fifty years are a long period,--not long enough indeed for a man to go down to his grave without having lived to see evil times; yet to many the sad experience of early youth was requited by a cheerful old age.

The Ætolians did not rejoice with the rest, neither did Nabis of Lacedæmon. The alliance with the latter was a disgrace to Rome. He had made it a condition that he should keep Argos, which he had got Philip to sell to him, and Flamininus was afterwards glad indeed to lay hold of an opportunity of setting aside the treaty, and of waging war against him. Livy is here very explicit, as he copies from Polybius, to whom these events had a peculiar interest. In this war, the tyrant showed himself to be not without ability; but he would have been crushed and Sparta taken, had not Flamininus, guided no doubt by his instructions, followed the baneful policy of not wishing to rid Greece of this source of apprehension, in order that the Achæans might be obliged to make great efforts, and thus want the help of Rome. A large part of Laconia, the district which is now called Maina, was wrested from the grasp of the tyrant, and formed into an independent state, inhabited by the former periœcians; the Achæans got Argos; and Nabis had to pay a war-contribution of a hundred talents down, and of four hundred more within eight years, and also to give his son as a hostage. This did not last long. When Flamininus was absent, the Achæans took advantage of a riot in which Nabis was slain, to unite Sparta with the rest of the Peloponnesus; which was very disagreeable to the Romans, but at that time could not be helped.

The two fortresses, Chalcis and Demetrius, the Romans bound themselves to evacuate, as soon as their affairs with Antiochus stood on a firm footing. Thessaly was made much larger than it had hitherto been; joined with Phthiotis, it formed the Thessalian republic: on the other hand, Perrhæbia and some other districts were detached from it. Orestis, which had fallen away from Macedon, was proclaimed free, and probably united with Thessaly, as I conclude from the list of the Thessalian generals. Magnesia became independent. Eubœa, Locris, Acarnania, Bœotia, Phocis, Athens, Elis, Messene, and Lacedæmon became separate states; the rest of the Peloponnesus and Megara were Achæan. Whilst, however, the Romans called themselves the liberators of Greece, they, in spite of principles which they had publicly professed, yielded up Ægina to Eumenes, the son of Attalus. Athens, down to the times of Sylla, was treated by Rome with peculiar favour: never were the Muses so beneficial to any people. The Romans gave them Scyros, Delos, Imbros, Paros.

THE INSUBRIANS AND BOIANS VANQUISHED. WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS. WAR WITH THE GALATIANS.

We have now reached much beyond the times of the development of the constitution at home, and the rest of the history has not for us the same interest which it had for the ancients. Even the wars are losing that grand character which arose from the display of native energy. What sort of a subject for description, for instance, is the battle of Magnesia, in which a well-ordered Roman army came off victorious over a horde of eastern barbarians, which did not even deserve the name of army? Some wars, like the Cimbric, form an exception. Livy from henceforth becomes more and more diffuse; for he had other interests in his history, and more than two-thirds of his work are taken up by the two centuries which now follow. We are going to adopt just the opposite plan, and are able to be more and more concise.

The Insubrians had risen against the Romans. During the second Punic war, they had been quiet; except in the first years, they took no part in it, as the scene of operations was in general too far distant from them, and they kept up but little communication with Hannibal. But now they were in arms, and the Romans met with peculiar difficulty, owing to Hamilcar, an enterprising Carthaginian who had remained behind from Mago’s army, and had organised the Ligurian and Gallic forces. The Insubrians were very different from the Boians: the former made their submission after one or two campaigns; but the war with the latter lasted to the tenth year. They defended themselves with distinguished bravery, and they destroyed the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona; for they knew that the Romans were carrying on against them a war of extermination, and they therefore fought with all the energy of despair. Historians do not state as explicitly as a fragment of Cato does, that they were utterly rooted out. The fate of this people is remarkable. After their emigration from Gaul, they had either turned themselves to Italy, or had gone to the Danube: in Gaul, their seats are now hardly known; in the country near the Danube, they were probably exterminated in the Cimbric war, and hence the _desertum Boiorum_ (_Böheim_, Bohemia), which was afterwards occupied by the Marcomanni: in Italy they are said to have had a hundred and twelve cantons. That in Italy they were extirpated, and that there could therefore have been no question about them, was not at all understood by the jurists who have written on the _lex de Gallia Cisalpina_. But all the Celts south of the Po were destroyed, and the whole of their land taken up by Roman colonies: Bologna, Modena, Parma, and also Lucca, were founded at that time, and received a considerable territory. Yet even in the days of Polybius, that country was nearly without inhabitants, and it was repeopled only by slow degrees. The _Lex Julia_ united the Cispadana as to political rights with Italy.

At the close of the war with Philip, the Ætolians were filled with the most envenomed resentment. This bitterness of feeling was by no means softened down in the course of time; for the Ætolians made too great pretensions, and the Romans were unfair towards them. Yet even without that, they would have moved heaven and earth to drive the Romans out of Greece. They therefore turned their eyes towards Antiochus.

Antiochus is one of those princes, who unjustly bear in history the surname of the Great. The Seleucidæ were poorer in great men than any of the dynasties which succeeded Alexander; even Seleucus himself hardly deserved to be so called: the Asiatic degeneracy shows itself in them much earlier than among the Ptolemies. Antiochus got that surname because his reign was happy: compared with the princes of his house who had the same name, Antiochus Soter, and the utterly infamous Theos, his grandfather and great-grandfather, he may have been the better man. He certainly restored his empire, which had come to him almost in a state of dissolution from his brother Seleucus; but he did this without any grand achievement of his own, as he only put forth against his cowardly enemies the comparatively great might of his dominion. He had no real difficulties in his way, and those, which he had to face, he did not overcome like a great man. He might have called himself εὐτυχής; for before his war with the Romans he had a more extensive monarchy than the kings of Syria had ever possessed. He ruled from the Hellespont to the borders of India, over Phrygia, Cilicia, Syria, Palæstine, Cœle-Syria, Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Media, Persia as far as Sidgistan and Cabool; he had made treaties with Indian princes, and his riches were immense: but with all this, there was nowhere the vigour of a warlike state, but Asiatic effeminacy throughout. His strength had not been put to the proof. The descendants of the Macedonians and Greeks in the colonies of Alexander and Seleucus, had become quite unwarlike; just as the _Pullani_ (the offspring of the crusaders) in the Holy Land, a set of people with all the vices of the east without its virtues. Yet, as he possessed the whole extent of the Persian empire, Antiochus was looked upon in Asia as the μέγας βασιλεύς, and in Europe, as the terrible adversary of the Romans: the Ætolians therefore built great hopes on him.

It was natural that Hannibal should turn himself towards this prince, and try to stir him up to a war against Rome; although as things then were, he did not wish to begin it at once, especially as he had the prospect of still remaining for a long time in the prime of life. The Romans had, since the war with Philip, entered into negotiations with Antiochus, which, however, led to nothing: it was a step, such as they had often taken before, as they would risk an enterprise, and not mind if it miscarried. When leagued with Philip, Antiochus had gained the Egyptian possessions in Asia Minor, and he dreamt of nothing less than of extending his empire to Europe. Philip, in consequence of his peace with the Romans, had been obliged to abandon the towns which he had conquered from the Egyptians; these were exposed to the inroads of the savage Thracian tribes, and they called upon Antiochus for help. This prince also meddled in the feuds in the Chersonesus, and restored Lysimachia which had been destroyed by the Thracians. But the Romans forbade him to set his foot in Europe; they declared that they would never let him overstep the natural boundaries of his empire, in which they very wisely kept to this undefined expression: he was also to acknowledge the independence of the Greek towns in Asia,--this was a piece of immense presumption, put forth by those who wanted a war. Antiochus refused; and thus the negotiations were carried on for four years, during which he fortified Lysimachia and the Chersonesus as the outworks of Asia. He also fitted out a fleet, for which he possessed the most ample resources, having taken the Phœnician coast from the Ægyptians, and being likewise master of Cilicia and Pamphylia. In Greece the Ætolians were on his side; but the Rhodians were decidedly against him, as they were allies of the Egyptians, and though not actually leagued with the Romans, yet on terms of such good understanding with them, that it came nearly to the same thing.

Antiochus had not always his abode at Antioch; he had at that time chosen the beautiful city of Ephesus for his capital: thither Hannibal came, and was received with the greatest distinction. The latter, who had passed the first years after the conclusion of the second Punic war in his native city, had by no means given himself up to despair: he soon showed himself, after the peace, to be as great as during the war. He had been made Suffete, a term which we also find in the Book of Judges, meaning the head of the state in peace; and though this was a dignity which had not any longer much weight, as the ruling power in Carthage was already seriously paralysed by the democratical element, while in office, he by his ability had given it its former influence. He reformed abuses of every kind,[33] and turned his attention particularly to the finances, in which he had found out an immense deficit, as the great men had helped themselves to all the good things: in short, he brought with him new life and new hopes into his native city. But the more he laid abuses bare, the faster grew the party of the traitors, who at that time were to be met with in Carthage as well as in all the states,--a set of men who sought their own individual power, whilst sacrificing their country to the Romans. The latter, who, to use Livy’s fine expression, had made peace with Carthage, but not with Hannibal, looked upon him with great mistrust; which was very natural, as his only thought was to raise his country. Rome had long ceased to be a conscientious state; her unsullied moral purity, which in her earlier days was far from being a mere dream, was quite gone, and just when she had the power, and therefore the opportunity of acting uprightly, she broke all the laws of honour and virtue. The Romans had already more than once complained of Hannibal; and now they regularly charged him with the design of preparing war, and demanded that he should be given up to them. This embassy, however, was not set on foot without the strongest opposition from the great Scipio, who denounced such conduct as unworthy, as shameful indeed. But before the Carthaginians had come to a resolution which would perhaps have been wrung from them, Hannibal fled to Antiochus, the king of Syria.

Hannibal was startled, when he saw the state of the Syrian troops. He found a host, of which the great mass were barbarians, which though apparently trained in some measure to the Macedonian way of fighting, was unsound to the core, and quite as cowardly as under the Persian rule: it was only from single divisions of such an army that he could expect anything. But his plan was worthy of him. He advised Antiochus to bestow his greatest exertions on the fleet, and by means of it to carry the war into Italy; the picked troops and those which he himself still hoped to train, might then be embarked on it and landed in southern Italy, which was so exasperated against Rome on account of the revenge which she had taken. Greece he should not touch; for that would irritate Philip, to whom he should rather leave it, and seek to aggrandize himself in Egypt. But it was natural that men of small minds should reject this plan; and it was resolved to transfer the war to Greece, where the Ætolians were their allies, and to try and gain over Philip. The latter plan was the more hazardous, and in fact quite impracticable, owing to the folly which the advisers of Antiochus displayed in all that they did: they wished to work upon Philip, not by fair means only, but also by fear. Thus at the very moment, when everything turned upon Philip’s goodwill being won, a pretender, who gave himself out to be a descendant of Alexander the Great, and who had been with the Acarnanians in Epirus, was received at Ephesus as the rightful sovereign of Macedon: they even fostered the fond hope of bringing about a revolution there. This was childish folly. As matters now stood, Hannibal gave his advice against war; and this was accounted to him as treachery, and the wretched king with his wretched councillors so thoroughly misunderstood this great man as to think him capable of playing into the hands of Rome. In this belief they were confirmed by a stratagem of the Romans by which bad men only could have been taken in. Scipio was sent over to Asia for a last negotiation with Antiochus. He and Hannibal were personally acquainted, and two such great men passed lightly over the circumstance of their having faced each other as enemies. They were not mere tools of the state; but they were as two great moral powers arrayed against each other, which after a mighty struggle had made peace, and not as ordinary men. In such cases, there is kindled in truly great souls a mutual love. They met familiarly, and Hannibal was thus led to offer hospitality to Scipio, which the latter said that he would have accepted, had not Hannibal been dependent on an enemy of Rome. Scipio was perhaps less frank in this conversation than Hannibal, and he may have taken advantage of him: this may have contributed to make Hannibal suspected.

When it became known, that the Romans began to arm, the Ætolians demanded that Antiochus should come over with his forces to Greece. Hannibal saw that Antiochus was running to his destruction, if he undertook the war with his present means; and he told him, that he must gain over Philip, and if possible, the Egyptians. Yet there were great difficulties in the way of these alliances. If Philip united with the Ætolians, the Achæans were thrown into the arms of the Romans. Philip also was angry, because Antiochus had not supported him in his war; and moreover, should everything turn out most favourably, the object of Antiochus was no other than to conquer Greece: if it therefore became possible to weaken Rome, the Macedonians thereby merely got another dangerous neighbour. Thus the negotiations did not advance matters; and if Antiochus had been wise, he would not have listened to the blind rage of the Ætolians, and he would have been aware of their insignificance: but he thought them to be a great nation.

The preparations were made with so little method, that Antiochus had no more than ten thousand men ready to embark. The Ætolians, who expected an innumerable army, had likewise described their own power as much larger than it really was; so that he was highly astonished to find that they had scarcely four thousand men. He landed at Demetrias, which, as we shall see, was already evacuated by the Romans, and now occupied by the Ætolians. He now reduced Phthiotis, and passed over to Eubœa, and made himself master of the strong town of Chalcis. It was fated that the Romans should be justified in their unwillingness to intrust their fortresses to the Greeks, who did not know how to behave. From thence he went on to Bœotia, where he was joyfully welcomed, to Phocis, and into Thessaly. This last country had been converted by the Romans into a republic; yet it had never known how to govern itself, and owing to its having been so long dependent on Macedon, it had become quite unable to take care of its own affairs: the Magnesians and Phthiotes had been detached, and formed into an independent state. He met with a good reception on both sides of mount Œta, and here he made fresh acquisitions. This was the critical moment: had Philip energetically declared himself, the Romans would have been driven back as far as Illyricum. But Philip was diverted from it by the Romans. He saw that the war had been begun with so little judgment that there was not much to be expected from it: moreover, he had not himself acquired strength enough, and he knew well, that if the issue were unfavourable, he should fare the worst; and if he were to wait awhile, he might hope that the Romans would crush his enemies the Ætolians, whilst his position would be none the worse, and then he might quietly abide his time when the Greeks would begin to be hostile to the Romans. He therefore only took possession of the town of Demetrias, one of the three chief strongholds of Greece, which gave him the command of Thessaly. There must have been a secret treaty about it with the Romans; for it henceforth remained Macedonian until the fall of that empire, without its evacuation having been called for. The district of Magnesia was also incorporated with Macedon.

In the war of Nabis already, a bitterness of feeling between the Romans and Achæans had begun to show itself: the latter were mistrustful, because the Romans had not yet withdrawn their garrisons from the Acrocorinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias. But as Antiochus was approaching, of whose power quite an exaggerated opinion was entertained, the Romans were wise enough now to remove those garrisons. The other Greek states likewise fell off one by one from Rome, and there was everywhere a Roman and a Macedonian party. Flamininus now sullied his fair fame by allowing the faction devoted to himself and to the Romans in Bœotia to murder the leader of the Macedonian faction, and by screening the guilty from justice. The Achæans were still his friends, but very negative ones: they did not wish to join themselves with the Ætolians.

Antiochus and the Ætolians had now on both sides their eyes opened with regard to the expectations which they had entertained of each other. Hannibal, who from the very first had been a prophet of evil, was now called in. This is the usual fate of great men. So long as one is doing well, and one can still follow their advice, they are not listened to; but if one has got into trouble by acting against it, then are they charged with obstinacy, if they declare that nothing any more is to be done. Hannibal could only propose that they should renew the attempts to gain over Philip. But the latter had already concluded his alliance with Rome, hoping thereby to regain Thessaly; at the same time, to him the thought was delightful of revenging himself on the Ætolians by means of a union with the Romans. Antiochus now ventured no more on any greater undertaking; but by the advice of his courtiers, he sought to employ the winter in making preparations in Asia. This, however, was only done to a small extent, and in the meanwhile he wasted his time in feasts at Chalcis. By the beginning of spring, a new consular army under M’. Acilius Glabrio, which was reinforced by the Macedonians, appeared in Thessaly, where it was opposed by no more than ten thousand Asiatics and a few Ætolians; and it encamped near Heraclea, whilst Antiochus occupied Thermopylæ, just the reverse of what happened in the days of the Persians: for this time it was the Asiatics, though indeed these were half-Macedonians, who in their turn defended the pass. The Achæans had now again decidedly joined the Romans, and they did them good service. That the pass at Thermopylæ could be turned, unless Œta, over which there lay a path, were occupied as well, was then generally known already, as experience had twice shown it. The order to take two mountains which covered the defile, was given to old Cato, and to his friend L. Valerius Flaccus. The latter was unsuccessful; but the former got possession of the heights, and dashed into the enemy’s camp along with the flying Ætolians, whilst M’. Acilius beat the Syrians in front. The army of Antiochus broke, and was scattered; he himself escaped to Chalcis, where a short time before he had been revelling in Asiatic luxury and childish festivities. That town he abandoned, leaving behind a weak garrison which made no stand against the Romans, who, however, did not pursue him; and he went to Asia. His fleet also, at the sight of a Roman one which had now arrived, sheered off to Asia Minor. Antiochus looked upon the war as ended; yet he gathered together a new army, and again gave himself up to his pleasures. There is no doubt but that he would have agreed to any peace, however indifferent it might have been.

M’. Acilius Glabrio now turned the war against the Ætolians. Heraclea and Lamia, on the Thessalian side of Thermopylæ, belonged to Ætolia Epictetus: the former of these was besieged by the consul, Lamia by Philip. The siege of Heraclea, where the main force of the Ætolians lay, was carried on with the utmost spirit, according to all the rules of military art. The town was taken by storm, and the garrison surrendered at discretion. The Ætolians now lost courage. Yet they were still saved by the eagerness of the Romans to pass over into the rich country of Asia, and to have done with this toilsome mountain war against a race which had nothing; and also by the anxiety of these that Philip should not gain his ends. When Lamia was about to fall, although without doubt possession of it had been promised to Philip, the consul sent him word, that he had made a convention for Lamia, and that therefore the king was to give up the siege. Hereupon Philip took no further share in the war, beyond reducing the Athamanians and the Dolopians.

The Ætolians would have been extirpated, had not the Romans themselves wished to have them preserved. The latter besieged Naupactus. Had they urged on this siege with true vigour and earnestness the town must have yielded; but they went to work sluggishly and with much forbearance, which enabled the Ætolians to save the place. The war ended with the siege of Ambracia, which at that time was Ætolian, and in the defence of which the little people of the Ætolians, though abandoned by all the Greeks, and without any great man to head them, displayed the highest gallantry. The siege is one of the most scientific in the whole of ancient history: the description of it is delightful, owing to the cleverness of invention, and the stedfastness of the besieged: it does one good to see physical weakness holding its own by means of skill. This defence does honour to the Ætolians, whose wars are otherwise not very glorious: it is of a somewhat later date (564). At length, peace was mediated by the Athenians. The Ætolians had to pay a few hundred talents as a war-contribution; to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, and to bind themselves to follow the Romans in their wars; to evacuate Ambracia, and to give it up to them, as well as Cephallenia, which was taken and laid waste by the conquerors: a like fate had already befallen the Acarnanians. The peace was a hard one, yet under the circumstances fair enough. Thus the Romans gained possession of the country along the coast, and of the landing places in Greece.

Antiochus now confined himself to holding out with his fleet against the Rhodians and the ships of Eumenes, amongst which there were only a very few Roman ones. An unimportant battle was fought, in which these had the best of it; but after the fleets had separated, the Rhodians were shamefully deceived, surprised, and defeated by the Syrians. The Roman admiral, M. Æmilius Regillus, now came up with a new fleet of not more than eighty ships: the Romans were so little made for the sea-service, that they kept no fleet whatever, when they did not actually want one. Hence likewise, at least one half of their crews were then Rhodians; for these were the best seamen of the age, being yet in their prime, as in the best days of Greece. The fleet of Antiochus had been furnished almost entirely by the Phœnician towns, which, however, important as they were during the Persian rule, must now have very much gone down; and it was commanded by Hannibal. Yet though led by Hannibal, it was not able to effect a junction with another division, when a battle was fought near Myonnesus. The victory was altogether on the side of the Romans and their allies: the fleet of Antiochus was all but destroyed; the ships which were left, fled away into two harbours in Caria. This success had been achieved by the Rhodians; it was won, however, by means of fire, the Rhodians having engines on board their ships which hurled fire upon the enemy, most likely a kind of what was afterwards called Greek fire: it was not thrown with rockets, and from the way in which historians speak of it, this at least is certain, that the masses of it were quite extraordinary, and that it could not be quenched. This naval victory decided the war. Antiochus, by the advice of Hannibal, had meant to occupy the Chersonesus, which is joined to Thrace only by a narrow tongue of land about half a mile in length; on this lay Lysimachia, a well fortified town, from whence strong walls stretched out to the Melas Colpos and the Propontis, so that on the landside it could only be taken by a siege: one could land indeed at several places, but the Syrian fleet might have prevented it, and ought to have done so. He would then have been unassailable in Asia, so long as he chose to keep on the defensive. Yet such was the blindness of this king, that he sent Hannibal, as a hateful reminder of rejected counsels to Pamphylia, and banished him from his presence. It is possible that Antiochus by occupying the Chersonesus might have protected Asia, although he could not have kept it in the long run; but what was senseless, was his giving it up without making even so much as an attempt to defend it: the rich magazines there, which had been laid up for a long campaign, were abandoned to the Romans, and the garrisons withdrawn from the towns. He beguiled himself, or his subjects, with the thought that he should be able to make a stand behind the Hellespont; yet this coast also he forsook at the approach of the Romans, and fell back into Lydia. In the same way, the troops of Philip, which, even before Alexander’s days, had set foot on those shores, were not hindered by the Persians from crossing.[34]