CHAP. XXIII. PROSPECTS OF EASTERN CONQUEST.

185

consolidate the forces of such an empire required the genius of another Alexander; it required an energy and elasticity in the national character which it no longer possessed; but under no circumstances perhaps could she have resisted the steady advance of the Roman power, which was now brought in contact with her through the agency of the Etolians.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Romans commence the conquest of the East.-Flamininus encounters the Macedonians.-The victory at Cynoscephala.-Philippus, king of Macedon, sues for peace.-Flamininus declares the freedom of Greece. (B. C. 200-195.)

TEN years before the conclusion of the struggle with Hannibal the Senate had declared war against the king of Macedonia, and continued for seven years to carry it on, though only as a secondary object. For some time, indeed, under the pressing exigencies of the contest in Italy and Africa, the war with Philippus had been dropped, and he had been enabled to send 4000 Macedonians to fight for Carthage on the field of Zama. The submission of her great rival left Rome free to concentrate her energies against this obstinate enemy. Straightway the Senate decreed a renewal of the war. But the commons felt or pretended to feel exhausted with the demands so constantly made upon them. They were in fact jealous of the nobles, whose privilege it was to enrol the legions, to lead them to victory, to reap the plunder, and to secure to themselves therewith the honors and offices of the city. The Senate proceeded, however, to carry out its views with a high hand. In the year 200 P. Sulpicius Galba and C. Aurelius Cotta were appointed consuls, and to the first of these was assigned the province of Macedonia. Arrangements were speedily set on foot for furnishing him with an army. An attempt perhaps was made to ward off the opposition of the people by the creation of decemvirs for the distribution among them of land in Samnium and Apulia. The Roman games were celebrated with more than ordinary sumptuousness by the curule ædiles, and a second day repeated; vast quantities of corn which Scipio had sent from Africa were dispensed to the citizens, together with a sum of money. The citizens accepted the largess and admired the games, but they persisted nevertheless in their profession of repugnance to the renewal of war, and the rogation sent down to

U.C. 554.

them by the Senate was rejected by almost the whole of the centuries. The tribune Bæbius undertook to make a criminal charge against the Senate in the spirit of his valiant predecessors; but his office carried with it less authority now than in the olden time. The fathers abused and insulted him in the curia, and laid the question again before the comitia, deigning only to enforce their policy with a public speech from the consul. The centuries voted a second time, and now at last ratified with their suffrage the decision of the real masters of the commonwealth. This transaction fully shows how completely under the military rule of the last century the aristocracy of Rome had recovered its predominance, though still maintaining the forms of a balanced constitution.

The Romans were about to plunge, indeed, into a career of Eastern conquest, which did not stop till it led them at last to the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. But neither the people nor the aristocracy conceived at this moment any such vast results. The nobles were fully alive to the importance of securing the republic against the aggressive spirit of the Macedonian rulers. They were jealous, perhaps, of the moral influence of Greece. They were anxious to denude Carthage of future alliances. Still more the immediate temptations of warfare, with the wealth, the honors, the power at home which it insured them, were becoming more and more irresistible. The people, on their part, though at times weary and reluctant, were still generally willing followers in a career of excitement and plunder. But beyond these direct incentives we shall not err in giving some weight to the gross passion for wider dominion which was working not at Rome only, but among all the leading states of the civilized world. The day of petty republics and loose federations had passed. The marvellous sweep of Greece over Asia had aroused the lust of empire. Carthage had aspired to sovereignty in the West; the kings of Macedonia, of Syria, and of Egypt still longed for the succession to Alexander throughout the East. If Rome entertained as yet no schemes of universal conquest, such as are shadowed forth in the pretended testament of the Czar Peter, she was not, at least, tending towards it with the mere brute instinct with which the madrepore extends his empire over the bottom of the ocean. The moment was indeed critical. Attalus and the Rhodians had incited the Athenians to renounce their subjection to Macedonia, but their aid seems to have been confined to calling upon the Romans to intervene. Lævinus, the commander of the legions on the Macedonian border, joined urgently in this requisition. He represented how Philip had insulted and defied him. "You think you may do anything with me," were the words of the insolent foreigner to Emilius, "because you are a young man, and a fine young man,

CHAP. XXIII. SECOND WAR WITH MACEDONIA.

187

and a Roman! But if you want war, you shall have it!" Such language was well calculated to determine the policy of the vacillating populace.

U.O. 556.

Rome declared war a second time against the tyrant of Macedon. While a great part of her disposable forces were retained in Italy to keep in check the still turbulent Gauls in the north and Bruttians in the south, not more than 20,000 men could be transported across the Adriatic. The operations of the years 200 and 199 were conducted by Sulpicius Galba and Villius Tappulus, successively consuls. Athens was enabled to secure her deliverance; but though marked by cruel reprisals on both sides, these campaigns were productive of no other signal incidents. In 198 the consul T. Quinctius Flamininus arrived to take command of the Roman forces. The tribunes had declared him ineligible for the chief magistracy, inasmuch as he had not yet mounted the first round of the ladder of office, which commenced with the quæstorship; but the Senate had rejected their appeal, and the centuries had bowed to the Senate's decision. He reached the scene of action more promptly than his predecessors in command. He brought with him considerable reinforcements. Thus put upon his mettle he was determined to act vigorously. He immediately sought out the enemy on his own borders, and led the whole strength of his legions in array against him. He offered terms, indeed, but they were such as he knew would be intolerable. A battle ensued; it was well contested. The result was for a moment doubtful, but by skill or luck Flamininus was enabled to throw a detachment on the rear of the enemy, and thus put him into confusion and worsted him. Philip conducted his shattered forces to his stronghold at Pella, and the Roman leader was left free to treat with the states of Southern Greece, many of which he succeeded in attaching to his side. At his instance the representatives of the Achæan league met to determine upon their course. The result, indeed, was to split them into two parties, and some of their cities made common cause with Macedonia. Flamininus, however, proclaimed that the general vote was in favor of the Romans, and declared himself Protector of the Achæan league and champion of the liberties of Greece.

After the expiration of his consulship Flamininus continued at the head of affairs in the capacity of proconsul, but he was anxious to have the merit of settling them himself and to bring them quickly to a conclusion. On both sides there was a desire for peace, and the Roman and Macedonian, attended by their principal allies, met in conference at the Pass of Thermopylæ. The Etolians, who would not be satisfied without reducing Philip to extremity, did their best to insult and irritate him, but Flamininus soothed him,

and induced him to send envoys to Rome, and refer the decision of affairs to the Senate itself. When, however, the Senate opened the discussion by demanding his withdrawal from the three fortresses Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth, which he vauntingly called the Fetters of Greece, his agents at once declared themselves incompetent even to treat on so vital a point, and the negotiation fell to the ground. Rome had gained in public opinion even by this abortive reference to her power at a distance, and the states which had hitherto held themselves aloof from her were more inclined to take sides with the leader who professed to be the champion of their common cause. In 197 Flamininus could advance northward to Thermopyla with the general support of the Greek people, as well as with the auxiliary force of Ætolian cavalry, which might serve him effectually against the heavy masses of the Macedonian phalanx. Philip shrank from meeting him among the hills and passes through which he was advancing, but awaited his arrival on ground chosen by himself on the plain of Thessaly near Scotussa. A great battle was fought at a place U.C. 557. called Cynoscephalæ, in which the strength and weakness 10.197. of the Macedonian army were in turn displayed. Philip had disposed the greater part of his forces in two phalanxes, each of 8000 men. With the first he broke through the lines of the legions, which, however, closed in upon it again with no material loss; the other was suddenly attacked while in process of formation, and in a moment scattered to the winds. The victory of the Romans was decisive; their success might be embittered for a moment by the insolence of the Etolians in claiming one half at least of its merit; but they passed over the affront, treating the remembrance of it in secret. Their allies were not to be trusted; but it would be easy to cast them off at a later period.

Philip felt that the cherished instrument of his power was broken in his hands. He remitted to the Senate the conditions of peace, and gladly accepted easier terms from Rome than he could have extorted from his implacable enemies nearer to him. The Etolians felt themselves baffled, but Flamininus carried out the policy of the republic, which had no wish to crush the men whose alliance might still be serviceable to it. An interval of suspense ensued while reference was made to the Senate, and commissioners appointed to settle on the spot the future condition of the Grecian cities. It was just a year after the battle of CynosU.O. 558. cephalæ that at the Isthmian games, at which the repreB.C. 196. sentatives of every Grecian community attended, it was declared, with sound of trumpet, that the Roman Senate and T. Quinctius, its general, had liberated the whole of Greece from the power of Macedonia. The Greeks threw themselves into a frenzy

CHAP. XXIII, ROMAN PROTECTORATE OVER GREECE. 189

of joy, eager to touch the hands of their deliverer and covering his head with garlands, as if he were the victor in all their games, and they had no other interest in them. The old national sports of Greece were now at best but a frivolous excitement, but the rejoicings of the Greeks at the exchange, for such it plainly was, of one master for another, were really more frivolous still.

The arrangements now made extended to the breaking up of Thessaly, long subject to Macedon, into a number of petty republics; the establishment of various independent communities in Illyria and Epirus; the restoration of Corinth to the Achæans, and above all the establishment of Athens as a free state, with the addition to her dominions of the islands of Delos, Paros, and others. The Etolians alone were disappointed. Their claims, whatever they might be, were referred again to the Senate, and the Senate did not care to consider them.

The Romans had undertaken the protectorate of Greece; but the limits to which this obligation might be pushed extended beyond the continent of Europe. Antiochus, king of Syria, had concerted together with Philip a division between them of the Greek communities in Asia Minor which appertained at this time to the kingdom of the Ptolemies. While Philip was engaged hand-to-hand with the Romans, his ally had occupied himself with making these acquisitions in his own behoof, and adding to them the reduction of other places in the western part of Asia Minor. It was not till he had accomplished his views in that quarter that he threatened to lead his forces across the Hellespont, while at the same time he sent envoys to Flamininus to negotiate for the peaceable retention of his conquests. The Roman general was not to be intimidated or cajoled. He required Antiochus to relinquish every Greek city which he had seized, and at the same time forbade him to cross over into Europe. While awaiting submission to these orders he turned his attention to affairs in another quarter. Sparta had fallen under the tyranny of Nabis, and had become more and more alienated from the rest of Greece, to which she properly belonged. But Argos had surrendered to the domination of Nabis also, and Flamininus represented to the Greeks the iniquity of suffering so integral a portion of their common country to remain thus subjected to the foreigner. The league at his instance declared war, and he led its forces by the side of the legions to the gates of Sparta. At the same time a Roman fleet arrived off the coast, and prevented the arrival of succors from abroad. Nabis was soon driven to extremities, Argos was restored, and a portion of the tyrant's own territory declared indepen- .c. 559. dent. The Achæans, indeed, complained of these terms B.C. 195. as too moderate, but Rome maintained her usual policy in clipping