Ancient History of Macedonia
George Rawlinson M.A, Canon of Canterbury and Camden Professor of Ancient history at the University of Oxford
Ancient History of Chaldaea, Assyria, Media, Babylonia, Lydia, Phoenicia, Syria, Judaea, Egypt, Carthage, Persia, Greece, Macedonia, Parthia, and Rome., The Colonial Press, New York, 1899.
PART III (B.C. 323 to 146)
History of Macedonia, and of Greece, from the Death of Alexander to the Roman Conquest
Grecian history had been suspended during the time of Alexander's career of conquest. A slight disturbance of the general tranquillity had indeed occurred, when Alexander plunged into the unknown countries beyond the Zagros range, by the movement against Antipater, which the Spartan king, Agis, originated in B.C. 330. But the disturbance was soon quelled. Agis was defeated and slain; and from this time the whole of Greece remained perfectly tranquil until the news came of Alexander's premature demise during the summer of B.C. 323. Then, indeed, hope rose high; and a great effort was made to burst the chains which bound Greece to the footstool of the Macedonian kings, Athens, under Demosthenes and Hyperides, taking, as was natural, the lead in the struggle for freedom. A large confederacy was formed; and the Lamian War was entered upon in the confident expectation that the effect would be the liberation of Greece from the yoke of her oppressor. But the result disappointed these hopes. After a bright gleam of success, the confederate Greeks were completely defeated at Crannon, B.C. 322, and the yoke of Macedonia was riveted upon them more firmly than ever.
The position of Antipater, as supreme ruler of Macedonia, was far from being safe and assured. The female members of the Macedonian royal family-Olympias, the widow of Philip; Cleopatra, her daughter; Cynane, daughter of Philip by an Illyrian mother; and Eurydice, daughter of Cynane by her husband Amyntas (himself a first cousin of Alexander) -were, one and all, persons of ability and ambition, who saw with extreme dissatisfaction the aggrandizement of the generals of Alexander and the low condition into which the royal power had fallen, shared between an infant and an imbecile. Dissatisfied, moreover, with their own positions and prospects, they commenced intrigues for the purpose of improving them. Olympias first offered the hand of Cleopatra to Leonnatus, who was to have turned against Antipater, if he had been successful in his Grecian expedition. When the death of, Leonnatus frustrated this scheme, Olympias cast her eyes farther abroad, and fixed on Perdiccas as the chief to whom she would betroth her daughter. Meanwhile, Cynan6 boldly crossed over to Asia with Eurydic6, and offered her in marriage to Philip Arrhidaeus, the nominal king. To gratify Olympias, who hated these members of the royal house, Perdiccas put Cynan6 to death; and he would probably have likewise removed Eurydic6, had not the soldiers, exasperated at the mother's murder, compelled him to allow the marriage of the daughter with Philip. Meanwhile, he consented to Olympias' schemes, prepared to repudiate his wife, Nicaea, the daughter of Antipater, and hoped with the aid of his friend, Eumenes, to make himself master of the whole of Alexander's empire. (See Second Period.)
The designs of Perdiccas, and his intrigues with Olympias, having been discovered by Antigonus, and the life of that chief being in danger from Perdiccas in consequence, he fled to Europe in the course of B.C. 322, and informed Antipater and Craterus of their peril. Fully appreciating the importance of the intelligence, those leaders at once concluded a league with Ptolemy, and in the spring of B.C. 321 invaded Asia for the purpose of attacking their rival. Here they found Eumenes prepared to resist them; and so great was the ability of that general, that, though Perdiccas had led the greater portion of his forces against Egypt, be maintained the war successfully, defeating and killing Craterus, and holding Antipater in check. But the murder of Perdiccas by his troops, and their fraternization with their opponents, changed the whole face of affairs. Antipater found himself, without an effort, master of the situation. Proclaimed sole regent by the soldiers, lie took the custody of the royal persons, re-distributed the satrapies (see Second Period), and, returning into Macedonia, held for about two years the first position in the empire. He was now, however, an old man, and his late campaigns had probably shaken him; at any rate, soon after his return to Europe, he died, B.C. 318, leaving the regency to his brother officer, the aged Polyperchon.
The disappointment of Cassander, the elder of the two surviving sons of Antipater, produced the second great war between the generals of Alexander. Cassander, having begun to intrigue against Polyperchon was driven from Macedonia by the regent, and, flying to Antigonus, induced him to embrace his cause. The league followed between Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Cassander on the one hand, and Polyperchon and Eumenes on the other (see Second Period), Antigonus undertaking to contend with Eumenes in Asia, while Cassander afforded employment to Polyperchon in Europe.
In the war which ensued between Cassander and Polyperchon, the former proved eventually superior. Polyperchon had on his side the influence of Olympias, which was great; and his proclamation of freedom to the Greeks was a judicious step, from which he derived considerable advantage. But neither as a soldier nor as a statesman was he Cassander's equal. He lost Athens by an imprudent delay, and failed against Megalopolis through want of military ability. His policy in allowing Olympias to gratify her hatreds without let or hindrance was ruinous to his cause, by thoroughly alienating the Macedonians. Cassander's triumph in B.C. 316 reduced him to a secondary position, transferring the supreme authority in Macedonia to his rival.
The reign of Cassander over Macedonia, which now commenced, lasted from B.C. 316 to 296, a period of twenty years. The talents of this prince are unquestionable, but his moral conduct fell below that of even the majority of his contemporaries, which was sufficiently reprehensible. His bad faith towards Olympias was followed, within a few years, by the murders of Roxana and the infant Alexander, by complicity in the murder of Hercules, the illegitimate son of Alexander the Great, and by treachery towards Polysperclion, who was first seduced into crime and then defrauded of his reward. Cassander, however, was a clever statesman, a good general, and a brave soldier. His first step on obtaining possession of Macedonia was to marry Thessalonice, the sister of Alexander the Great, and thus to connect himself with the family of the conqueror. Next, fearing the ambition of Antigonus, who, after his victory over Eumenes, aspired to rule the whole empire (see Second Period), he entered into the league of the satraps against that powerful commander, and bore his part in the great war, which, commencing B.C. 315, on the return of Antigonus from the East, terminated B.C. 301, at the battle of Ipsus. In this war Cassander, though he displayed unceasing activity, and much ability for intrigue, was on the whole unsuccessful; and he would probably have lost Greece and Macedonia to his powerful adversary, had not the advance of Seleucus from Babylon and the defeat of Antigonus at Ipsus saved him.
Cassander did not live long to enjoy the tranquillity which the defeat and death of Antigonus at Ipsus brought him. He died B.C. 298, three years after Ipsus, leaving the crown to the eldest of his three sons by Thessalonice, Philip. This prince was carried off by sickness before lie had reigned a year; and the Macedonian dominions at his death fell to Tliessalonic6, his mother, who made a division of them between her two surviving sons, Antipater and Alexander, assigning to the latter Western, and to the former Eastern Macedonia.
Antipater, who regarded himself as wronged in the partition, having wreaked his vengeance on his mother by causing her to be assassinated, applied for aid to his wife's father, Lysimachus; while Alexander, fearing his brother's designs, called in the help of Pyrrhus the Epirote and of Demetrius, B.C. 297. Demetrius, after the defeat of Ipsus, had still contrived to maintain the position of a sovereign. Rejected at first by Athens, he had besieged and taken that city, had recovered possession of Attica, the Megarid, and great portions of the Peloponnese, and had thus possessed himself of a considerable power. Appealed to by Alexander, he professed to embrace his cause; but ere long he took advantage of his position to murder the young prince, and possess himself of his kingdom. Antipater was about the same time put it) death by Lysimachus, B.C. 294.
The kingdom of Demetrius comprised, not only Macedonia, but Thessaly, Attica, Megaris, and the greater part of the Peloponnese. Had he been content with these territories, he might have remained quietly in the possession of them, for the families of Alexander the Great and of Antipater were extinct, and the connection of Demetrius with Seleucus, who had married his daughter (see Third Period, Part 1.), would have rendered his neighbors cautious of meddling with him. But the ambition of Demetrius was insatiate, and his self-confidence unbounded. After establishing his authority in Central Greece and twice taking Thebes, he made an unprovoked attack upon Pyrrhus, B.C. 290, from whom he desired to wrest some provinces ceded to him by the late king, Alexander. In this attempt he completely failed, whereupon he formed a new project. Collecting a vast army, he let it be understood that he claimed the entire dominion of his father, Antigonus, and was about to proceed to its recovery, B.C. 288. Seleucus and Lysimachus, whom this project threatened, were induced, in consequence, to encourage Pyrrhus to carry his arms into Macedonia on the one side, while Lysimachus himself invaded it on the other. Placed thus between two fires and finding at the same time that his soldiers were not to be depended upon, Demetrius, in B.C. 287, relinquished the Macedonian throne, and escaped secretly to Demetrias, the city which he had built on the Pagasean Gulf and had made a sort of capital. From hence lie proceeded on the expedition, which cost him his liberty, against Asia. (See Third Period, Part I)
On the flight of Demetrius, Pyrrhus of Epirus became king of the greater part of Macedonia; but a share of the spoil was at once claimed by Lysimachus, who received the tract adjoining his own territories. A mere share, however, did not long satisfy the Macedonian chieftain. Finding that the rule of an Epirotic prince was distasteful to the Macedonians, lie contrived after a little while to pick a quarrel with his recent ally, and having invaded his Macedonian territories, forced him to' relinquish them and retire to his own country, after a reign which lasted less than a year.
By the success of Lysimachus, Macedonia became a mere appendage to a large kingdom, which reached from the Halys to the Pindus range, its centre being Thrace, and its capital Lysimachea in the Chersonese. These circumstances might not by themselves have alienated the Macedonians, though they could scarcely have failed after a time to arouse discontent; but when Lysimachus, after suffering jealousy and dissension to carry ruin into his own family, proceeded to acts of tyranny and violence towards his nobles and other subjects, these last called on Seleucus Nicator to interfere for their preservation; and that monarch, having invaded the territories of his neighbor, defeated him in the battle of Corupedion, where Lysimachus, fighting with his usual gallantry, was not only beaten but slain.
By the victory of Corupedion, Seleucus Nicator became master of the entire kingdom of Lysimachus, and, with the exception of Egypt, appeared to have reunited almost the whole of the dominions of Alexander. But this union was short lived. Within a few weeks of his victory, Seleucus was murdered by Ptolemy Ceraunus, the Egyptian refugee whom lie had protected; and the Macedonians, indifferent by whom they were ruled, accepted the Egyptian prince without a murmur.
The short reign of Ptolemy Ceraunus (B.C. 281 to 279) was stained by crimes and marked by many imprudences. Regarding the two sons of Lysimachus by Arsinoë, his half-sister, as possible rivals, he persuaded her into a marriage, in order to get her children into his power; and, having prevailed with the credulous princess, first murdered her sons before her eyes, and then banished her to Samothrace. Escaping to Egypt, she became the wife of her brother, Philadelphus, and would probably have induced him to avenge her wrongs, had not the crime of Ceraunus received its just punishment in another way. A great invasion of the Gauls-one of those vast waves of migration which from time to time sweep over the world-occurring just as Ceraunus felt himself in secure possession of his kingdom, disturbed his ease, and called for wise and vigorous measures of resistance. Ceraunus met the crisis with sufficient courage, but with a complete absence of prudent counsel. Instead of organizing a united resistance to a common enemy, or conciliating it for whom he was too weak to oppose singly, he both exasperated the Gauls by a contemptuous message and refused the proffers of assistance which he received from his neighbors. Opposing the unaided force of Macedon to their furious onset, lie was completely defeated in a great battle, B.C. 279, 1111d, failing into the hands of his enemies, was barbarously put to death. The Gauls then ravaged Macedonia far and wide; nor was it till B.C. 277 that Macedonia once more obtained a settled government.
On the retirement of the Gauls, Antipater, the nephew of Cassander, came forward for the second time, and was accepted as king by a portion, at any rate, of the Macedonians. But a new pretender soon appeared upon the scene. Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who had maintained himself since that monarch's captivity as an independent prince in Central or Southern Hellas, claimed the throne once filled by his father, and, having taken into his service a body of Gallic mercenaries, defeated Antipater and made himself master of Macedonia. His pretensions being disputed by Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus, who had succeeded to the throne of Syria, lie engaged in war with that prince, crossing into Asia and uniting his forces with those of Nicomedes, the Bithynian king, whom Antiochus was endeavoring to conquer. To this combination Antiochus was forced to yield; relinquishing his claims, he gave his sister, Phila, in marriage to Antigonus, and recognized him as king of Macedonia. Antigonus upon this fully established his power, repulsing a fresh attack of the Gatils, and recovering Cassandreia from the cruel tyrant, Apollodorus.
But he was not long left in repose. In B.C. 274, Pyrrhus finally quitted Italy, having failed in all his schemes, but having made himself a great reputation. Landing in Epirus with a scanty force, lie found the condition of Macedonia and of Greece favorable to his ambition. Antigonus had no hold on the affections of his subjects, whose recollections of his father, Demetrius, were unpleasing. The Greek cities were, sonic of them, tinder tyrants, others occupied against their will by Macedonian garrisons. Above all, Greece and Macedonia were full of military adventurers, ready to flock to any standard which offered them a fair prospect of plunder. Pyrrhus, therefore, taken a body of Celts into his pay, declared war against Antigonus, B.C. 273, and suddenly invaded Macedonia. Antigonus gave him battle, but was worsted owing to the disaffection of his soldiers, and, being twice defeated, became a fugitive and a wanderer.
The victories of Pyrrhus, and his son Ptolemy, placed the Macedonian crown upon the brow of the former, who might not improbably have become the founder of a great power, if he could have turned his attention to consolidation, instead of looking out for fresh conquests. But the arts and employment of peace had no charm for the Epirotic knight-errant. Hardly was he settled in his seat, when, upon the invitation of Cleonymus of Sparta, he led an expedition into the Peloponnese, and attempted the conquest of that rough and difficult region. Repulsed from Sparta, which lie had hoped to surprise, he sought to cover his disappointment by the capture of Argos; but here he was still more unsuccessful. Antigonus, now once more at the head of an army, watched the city, prepared to dispute its occupation, while the lately threatened Spartans hung upon the invader's rear. In a desperate attempt to seize the place by night, the adventurous Epirote was first wounded by a soldier and then slain by ' the blow of a tile, thrown from a house-top by an Argive woman, B.C. 271.
On the death of Pyrrhus the Macedonian throne was recovered by Antigonus, who commenced his second reign by establishing his influence over most of the Peloponnese, after which he was engaged in a long war with the Athenians (B.C. 268 to 263), who were supported by Sparta and by Egypt. These allies rendered, however, but little help; and Athens must have soon succumbed, had not Antigonus been called away to Macedonia by the invasion of Alexander, son of Pyrrhus. This enterprising prince carried, at first, all before him, and was even acknowledged as Macedonian king; but ere long, Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, having defeated Alexander near Derdia, re-established his father's dominion over Macedon, and, invading Epirus, succeeded in driving the Epirotic monarch out of his paternal kingdom. The Epirots soon restored him; but from this time he remained at peace with Antigonus, who was able once more to devote his undivided attention to the subjugation of the Greeks. In B.C. 263, he took Athens, and recovered himself complete master of Attica; and, in B.C. 244, nineteen years afterwards, he contrived by a treacherous stratagem to obtain possession of Corinth. But at this point his successes ceased. A power had been quietly growing up in a corner of the Peloponnese which was to become a counterpoise to Macedonia, and to give to the closing scenes of Grecian history an interest little inferior to that which had belonged to its earlier pages. The Achaean League, resuscitated from its ashes about the time of the invasion of the Gauls, B.C. 280, had acquired in the space of thirty-seven years sufficient strength and consistency to venture on defying the puissant king of Macedon and braving his extreme displeasure. In B.C. 243, Aratus, the general of the League and in a certain sense its founder, by a sudden and well-planned attack surprised and took Corinth; which immediately joined the League, whereto it owed its freedom. This success was followed by others. Megara, Troezen, and Epidaurus threw off their allegiance to Antigonus and attached themselves to the League in the course of the same year. Athens and Argos were threatened; and the League assumed an attitude of unmistakable antagonism to the power and pretensions of Macedon. Antigonus, grown timorous in his old age, met the bold aggressions of the League with no overt acts of hostility. Contenting himself with inciting the Aetolians to attack the new power, lie remained wholly on the defensive, neither attempting to recover the lost towns, nor to retaliate by any invasion of Achaea.
Antigonus Gonatas died B.C. 239, at the age of eighty, having reigned in all thirty-seven years. He left his crown to his son, Demetrius II., who inherited his ambition without his talents. The first acts of Demetrius were to form a close alliance with Epirus, now tinder the rule of Olympias, Alexander's widow; to accept the hand of her daughter Phthia, whereby he offended his queen, Stratonice, and through her Seleucus, the Syrian king; and to break with the Aetolians, who were seeking at this time to deprive Olympias of a portion of her dominions. The Aetolians, alarmed, sought the alliance of the Achaean League; and in the war which followed, Demetrius was opposed by both these important powers. He contrived, however, to defeat Aratus in Thessaly, to reduce Boeotia, anti to re-establish Macedonian ascendancy as far as the Isthmus. But this was all that he could effect. No impression was made by his arms on either of the great Leagues. No aid was given to Epirus, where the royal family was shortly afterwards exterminated. Demetrius was perhaps recalled to Macedonia by the aggressive attitude of the Dardanians, who certainly attacked him in his later years, and gave him a severe defeat. It is thought by some that he perished in tile battle. But this is uncertain.
The most important fact of this period was the interference, now for the first time, of the Romans in tile affairs of Greece. The embassy to the Aetolians, warning them against interference with Acarnania, belongs probably to the year B.C. 238; that to the Aetolians and Achaeans announcing the success of the Roman arms against the Illyrians, belongs certainly to B.C. 228 In the same year, or the year preceding, Corcyra, Apollonia, and Epidamnus became Roman dependencies. Demetrius left an only son, Philip, who was but eight years old at his decease. He was at once acknowledged king; but owing to his tender age, his guardianship was undertaken by his kinsman, Antigonus, the son of his father's first cousin, Demetrius, " the Handsome." It was, consequently, this prince who directed the policy of Macedonia during the period which immediately followed on the death of Demetrius II -who, in fact, ruled Macedonia for nine years, from B.C. 229 to 220. The events of this period are of first-rate interest, including, as they do, the last display of patriotism and vigor at Sparta, and the remarkable turn of affairs whereby Macedonia, from being the deadly foe of the Achaean League, became its friend, ally, and protector.
The other wars of Antigonus Doson were comparatively unimportant. He repulsed an attack of the Dardanians, who had defeated his predecessor, suppressed an insurrection in Thessaly, and made an expedition by sea against South-western Asia Minor, which is said to have resulted in the conquest of Caria. It was impossible, however, that he should long hold this distant dependency, which shortly reverted to Egypt, the chief maritime power of this period. Soon after his return from Greece, Antigonus, died of disease, having held the sovereignty for the space of nine years. He was succeeded by the rightful heir to the throne, Philip, the son of Demetrius II, in whose name lie had carried on the government.
Philip, who was still no more than seventeen years old, was left by his kinsman to tile care of tutors and guardians. He seemed to ascend the throne at a favorable moment, when Macedonia, at very little expenditure of either men or money, had recovered Greece, had repulsed her Illyrian adversaries, and was released, by the death of Ptolemy Euergetes, from her most formidable enemy among the successors of Alexander. But all these advantages were neutralized by the rash conduct of the king himself, who first allied himself with Hannibal against Rome, and then with Antiochus against Egypt. No doubt Philip saw, more clearly than most of his contemporaries, the dangerously aggressive character of the Roman power; nor can we blame him for seeking to form coalitions against the conquering republic. But, before venturing to make Rome his enemy, he should have consolidated his power at home; and, when he made the venture, he should have been content with no half measures, but should have thrown himself, heart and soul, into the quarrel.
The first war in which the young prince engaged was one that had broken out between the Achaeans and Aetolians. The 2F-tolians, who now for the first time show themselves a really first-rate Greek power, had been gradually growing in importance, from the time when they provoked the special anger of Antipater in the Lamian War, and were threatened with transplantation into Asia. Somewhat earlier than this they had organized themselves into a Federal Republic, and had thus set the example which the Achaeans followed half a century afterwards. Some account of their institutions, and of the extent of their power, is requisite for the proper understanding both of their strength and of their weakness.
The war of the Aetolians and Achaeans was provoked by the former, who thought they saw in the accession of so young a prince as Philip to the throne of Macedon a favorable opportunity for advancing their interests after their own peculiar method. It commenced with the invasion of Messenia, and would probably have been ruinous to Achaea, had Philip allowed himself to be detained in Macedonia by apprehensions of danger from his Illyrian neighbors, or had he shown less vigor and ability in his proceedings after he entered Greece. Though thwarted by the treachery of his minister and guardian, Apelles, who was jealous of the influence of Aratus, and but little aided by any of his Greek allies, he gained a series of brilliant successes, overrunning most of Aetolia, capturing Thermon, the capital, detaching from the League Phigaleia in Arcadia and the Phthian Thebes, and showing himself in all respects a worthy successor of the old Macedonian conquerors. But after four years of this successful warfare, lie allowed himself to be diverted from what should have been his first object, the complete reduction of Greece, by tile prospect which opened upon him after Hannibal's victory at Lake Thrasiniene. At the instance of Demetrius of Pharos lie concluded a peace with the Aetolians on the principle of udi possedetis, and, retiring into Macedonia, entered upon those negotiations which involved him shortly afterwards in a -war with Rome.
The negotiations opened by Philip with Hannibal, B.C. 216, interrupted by tile capture of his ambassadors, were brought to a successful issue in B.C. 215; and in the ensuing year Philip began his first war with Rome by the siege of Apollonia, the chief Roman port in Illyricum. By securing this place, he expected to facilitate the invasion of Italy on which he was bent, and to prepare the way for that complete expulsion of the Romans from the eastern coast of the gulf, which was one of the objects he had most at heart. But he soon learned that the Romans were an enemy with whom, under any circumstances whatever, it was dangerous to contend. Defeated by M. Valerius, who surprised his camp at night, he was obliged to burn his ships and make a hasty retreat. His schemes of invasion were rudely overthrown; and, three years later, B.C. 211, the Romans, by concluding a treaty with Aetolia and her allies (Elis, Sparta, the Illyrian chief, Scerdilaidas, and Attalus, king of Pergamus), gave the war a new character, transferring it into Philip's own dominions, and so occupying him there that he was forced to implore aid front Carthage instead of bringing succor to Hannibal. After many changes of fortune, the Macedonian monarch, having by tile hands of his ally, Philopoemen, defeated the Spartans at Mantineia, induced the Aetolians to conclude a separate peace; after which the Romans, anxious to concentrate all their energies on the war with Carthage, consented to a treaty on terms not dishonorable to either party.
Philip had now a breathing-space, and might have employed it to consolidate his power in Macedonia and Greece, before the storm broke upon him which was manifestly impending. But his ambition was too great, and his views were too grand, to allow of his engaging in a work so humble and unexciting as consolidation. The Macedonian monarch had by this time disappointed all his earlier promise of virtue and moderation. lie had grown profligate in morals, criminal in his acts, both public and private, and strangely reckless in his policy. Grasping after a vast empire, he neglected to secure what he already possessed, and, while enlarging the bounds, he diminished the real strength of his kingdom. It became now his object to extend his dominion on the side of Asia, and with this view he first (about B.C. 205) concluded a treaty with Antiochus the Great for the partition of the territories of Egypt, and then (B.C. 203) plunged into a war with Attalus and the Rhodians. His own share of the Egyptian spoils was to comprise Lysimacheia and the adjoining parts of Thrace, Samos, Ephesus, Caria, and perhaps other portions of Asia Minor. He began at once to take possession of these places. A war with Attalus and Rhodes was almost the necessary result of such proceedings, since their existence depended on the maintenance of a balance of power ill these parts, and the instinct of self-preservation naturally threw them oil the Egyptian side. Philip, moreover, took no steps to disarm their hostility: oil the contrary, before war was declared, lie burnt the arsenal of the Rhodians by the hands of an emissary; and in the war itself, one of his opening acts was to strengthen Prusias, the enemy of Attalus, by making over to him the Aetolian dependency' Cius. The main event of the war was the great defeat of his fleet by the combined squadrons of the two powers off Chios, B.C. 201, a defeat ill compensated by the subsequent victory of Ladi. Still Philip was, on the whole, successful, and accomplished the main objects which he had in view, making himself master of Thasos, Samos, Chios, of Caria, and of many places in Ionia. Unassisted by Egypt, the allies were too weak to protect her territory, and Philip obtained the extension of dominion which he had desired, but at the cost of provoking the intense hostility of two powerful naval states, and the ill-will of Aeolia, which he had injured by his conquest of Cius.
These proceedings of Philip in the Aegean had, moreover, been well calculated to bring about a rupture of the peace with Rome. Friendly relations had existed between tile Romans and Egypt from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and even from an earlier date Rhodes and Rome had been oil terms of intimacy. Attalus was an actual ally of Rome, and had been included in the late treaty. It is therefore not surprising that in B.C. 200 Rome remonstrated, and, when Philip rejected every demand, declared the peace at all end and renewed the war.
The Second War of Philip with Rome is the turning-point in the history of Ancient Europe, deciding, as it did, the question whether Macedon and Rome should continue two parallel forces, dividing between them the general direction of European affairs, or whether the power of the former should be completely swept away, and the dominion of the latter over the civilized West finally and firmly established. It is perhaps doubtful what the result would have been, if Philip had guided his conduct by the commonest rules of prudence ; if, aware of the nature of the conflict into which he was about to be plunged, he had conciliated instead of alienating his natural supports, and had so been able to meet Rome at the head of a general confederacy of the Hellenes. As it was, Greece was at first divided, the Rhodians, Athenians, and Athamanians siding with Rome ; Aetolia, Epirus, Achaea, and Sparta being neutral; and Thessaly, Boeotia, Acarnania, Megalopolis, and Argos supporting Philip; while in the latter part of the war, after Flamininus had proclaimed himself the champion of Grecian freedom, almost the entire force of Hellas was thrown oil the side of the Romans. Rome had also the alliance of the Illyrian tribes, always hostile to their Macedonian neighbors, and of Attalus, king of Pergamus. Philip was left at last without a friend or ally, excepting Acarnania, which exhibited the unusual spectacle of a grateful nation firmly adhering to its benefactor in his adversity.
The terms of peace agreed to by Philip after the battle of Cynocephalae were the following: -He was to evacuate all the Greek cities which he held, whether in Europe or Asia, some immediately, the others within a given time. He was to surrender his state-galley and all his navy except five light ships. He was to restore all the Roman prisoners and deserters; and lie was to pay to the Romans 1000 talents, 500 at once, the rest in ten annual installments. He was also to abstain from all aggressive war, and to surrender any claim to his revolted province, Orestis. These terms, though hard, were as favorable as he had any right to expect. Had the Aetolians been allowed to have their way, he would have been far more severely treated.
The policy of Rome in proclaiming freedom to the Greeks, and even withdrawing her garrisons from the great fortresses of Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth-the " fetters of Greece " -was undoubtedly sound. Greek freedom could not be maintained excepting under her protection; and, by undertaking the protectorate, she attached the bulk of the Greek people to her cause. At the same time, the establishment of universal freedom prevented any state from having much power; and in the quarrels that were sure to ensue Rome would find her advantage.
War broke out in Greece in the very year of Flamininus' departure, B.C. 194, by the intrigues of the Aetolians, who encouraged Nabis to attack the Achaeans, then murdered Nabis, and finally invited Antiochus over from Asia. The defeat of Antiochus at Thermopylae, B.C. 191, left the Aetolians to bear the brunt of the war which they had provoked, and after the battle of Magnesia, B.C. i0o, there was nothing left for them but complete submission. Rome curtailed their territory, and made them subject-allies, but forbore to crush them utterly, since they might still be useful against Macedonia.
The degradation of Aetolia was favorable to the growth and advancement of the Achaean League, which at one and the same time was patronized by Rome, and seemed to patriotic Greeks the only remaining rallying-point for a national party. The League at this time was under the guidance of the able and honest Philopoemen, whose efforts for its extension were crowned with remarkable success. After the murder of Nabis by the Aetolians, Sparta was induced to join the League, B.C. 192; and, a year later, the last of the Peloponnesian states which had remained separate, Mess6n6 and Elis, came in. The League now reached its wildest territorial extent, comprising all the Peloponnese, together with Megara and other places beyond its limits.
After the conclusion of his peace with Rome, Philip for some years remained quiet. But having assisted the Romans in their struggle with Antiochus and the Aetolians, lie was allowed to extend his dominions by wars not only with Thrace, but also with the Dolopians, Athananians, and even the Thessalians and Magnesians. When, however, his assistance was no longer needed, Rome required him to give up all his conquests and retire within the limit of Macedonia. Prolonged negotiations followed, until at last (B.C. 183) the Senate was induced to relax in their demands by the mediation of Demetrius, Philip's second son, long a hostage at Rome, for whom they professed to have a warm regard. The favor openly shown towards this prince by the Roman government was not perhaps intended to injure him ; but it naturally had that result. It aroused the suspicion of his father and the jealousy of his elder brother, Perseus, and led to the series of accusations against the innocent youth, which at length induced his father to consent to his death, B.C. 18r. It may have been remorse for his hasty act which brought Philip himself to the grave within two years of his son's decease, at the age of fifty-eight.
It is said that Philip had intended, on discovering the innocence of Demetrius, and the guilt of his false accuser, Perseus, to debar the latter from the succession. He brought forward into public life a certain Antigonus, a nephew of Antigonus Doson, and would, it is believed, have made him his heir, had he not died both prematurely and suddenly. Antigonus being absent from the court. Perseus mounted the throne without opposition; but lie took care to secure himself in its possession by soon afterwards murdering his rival.
It had been the aim of Philip, ever since the battle of Cynocephalae, and it continued to be the aim of Perseus, to maintain the peace with Rome as long as might be feasible, but at the same time to invigorate and strengthen Macedonia in every possible way, and so to prepare her for a second struggle, which it was hoped might terminate differently from the first. Philip repopulated his exhausted provinces by transplantations of Thracians and others, recruited his finances by careful working of the mineral treasures in which Macedonia abounded raised and disciplined a large military force, and entered into alliances with several of the Northern nations, Illyrian, Celtic, and perhaps even German, whom he hoped to launch against Rome, when the proper time should arrive. Perseus, inheriting this policy, pursued it diligently for eight years, allying himself by intermarriages with Prusias of Bithynia and Seleucus of Syria, winning to his cause Cotys the Odrysian, Gentius the Illyrian, the Scordisci, the Bastarnae, and others. Even in Greece he had a considerable party, who thought his yoke would be more tolerable than that of Rome. Boeotia actually entered into his alliance; and the other states mostly wavered and might have been won, had proper measures been taken. But as the danger of a rupture drew near, Perseus' good genius seemed to forsake him. lie continued to pursue the policy of procrastination long after the time bad arrived for vigorous and prompt action. He allowed Rome to crush his friends in Greece without reaching out a hand to their assistance. Above all, by a foolish and ill-timed niggardliness, lie lost the advantage of almost all the alliances which lie had contracted, disgusting and alienating his allies, one after another, by the refusal of his subsidies which they required before setting their troops in motion. He thus derived no benefit from his well-filled treasury, which simply went to swell the Roman gains at the end of the war.
The Romans landed in Epirus in the spring of B.C. 171, and employed themselves for some months in detaching from Perseus his allies, and in putting down his party in the Greek states. They dissolved the Boeotian League, secured the election of their partisans in various places, and obtained promises of aid from Achaea and Thessaly. Perseus allowed himself to be entrapped into making a truce during these months, and the Romans were thus able to complete their preparations at their leisure. At length, towards autumn, both armies took the field-Perseus with 39,000 foot and 4000 horse, the Romans with an equal number of horse, but with foot not much exceeding 30,000. In the first battle, which was fought in Thessaly, Perseus was victorious; but he made no use of his victory, except to sue for peace, which was denied him. The war then languished for two years; but in B.C. 168, the command being taken by L. Aemilius Paullus, Perseus was forced to an engagement near Pydna (June 22), which decided the fate of the monarchy. The defeated prince fled to Samothrace, carrying with him 6ooo talents-a sum the judicious expenditure of which might have turned the scale against the Romans. Here lie was shortly afterwards captured by the praetor Octavius, and, being carried to Rome by the victorious consul, was led in triumph, and within a few years killed by, ill usage, about B.C. 166.
The conquered kingdom of Macedonia was not at once reduced into the form of a Roman province, but was divided up into four distinct states, each of them, it would seem, a kind of federal republic, which were expressly forbidden to have any dealings one with another. Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, and Pelagonia were made the capitals of the four states. To prevent any outburst of discontent at the loss of political status, the burdens hitherto laid upon the people were lightened. Rome was content to receive in tribute from the Macedonians one-half the amount which they had been in the habit of paying to their kings.
In Greece, the immediate effect of the last Macedonian War was the disappearance of four out of the five Federal Unions, which had recently divided almost the whole of the Hellenic soil among them. The allegiance of Aetolia had wavered (luring the struggle; and at its close the Romans either formally dissolved the League, or made it simply municipal. Acarnania, which went over to Rome in the course of the war, was nominally allowed to continue it confederacy, but practically vanishes from Grecian history from this moment. Boeotia having submitted, B.C. 171, was formally broken up into distinct cities. Epirus was punished for deserting the Roman side by desolation and depopulation, the remnant of her people being handed over to the rule of a tyrant. The only power remaining in Greece which possessed at once some strength and a remnant of independence, was Achaea, whose fidelity to Rome (luring the whole course of the war made it impossible even for the Roman Senate to proceed at once to treat her as an enemy.
Achaea, nevertheless, was doomed from the moment that Macedonia fell. The policy of Rome was at this time not guided by a sense of honor, but wholly by a regard for her own interests. Having crushed Macedonia and mastered all Greece except Achaea, she required for the completion of her work in this quarter that Achaea should either become wholly submissive to her will, or be conquered. It was at once to test the submissiveness of the Achaean people, and to obtain hostages for their continued good behavior, that Rome, in B.C. 167, required by her ambassadors the trial of above a thousand of the chief Achaeans on the charge of having secretly aided Perseus; and, when the Achaean Assembly did not dare to refuse, carried off to Italy the whole of the accused persons. All the more moderate and independent of the Achaeans were thus deported, and the strong partisans of Rome, Callicrates and his friends, were left in sole possession of the government. For seventeen years the accused persons were kept in prison in Etruscan towns without a hearing. Then, when their number had dwindled to three hundred, and their unjust detention had so exasperated them that a rash and reckless policy might be expected from their return to power, Rome suddenly released the remnant and sent them back to their country.
The natural consequences followed. Power fell into the hands of Diaeus, Critolaus, and Damocritus, three of the exiles who were most bitterly enraged against Rome; and these persons played into the hands of their hated enemies by exciting troubles intended to annoy the Romans, but which really gave them the pretext-which was exactly what they wanted for an armed interference. The rebellion of Andriscus, a pretended son of Perseus, in Macedonia (B.C. 149 to 148), caused a brief delay ; but in B.C. 146, four years after the return of the exiles, war was actually declared. Metellus first, and then Mummius, defeated the forces of the League; Critolaus fell in battle; Diaeus slew himself; Corinth, where the remnant of the Achaean army had taken refuge, was taken and sacked, and the last faint spark of Grecian independence was extinguished. Achaea was not, indeed, at once reduced into a province; and, though the League was formally dissolved, yet, after an interval, its nominal revival was permitted; but the substance of liberty had vanished at the battle of Leucopetra, and the image of it which Polybius was allowed to restore was a mere shadow, known by both parties to be illusory. Before many years were past, Achaea received, like the other provinces, her proconsul, and became an integral part of the great empire against which she had found it vain to attempt to struggle.
George Rawlinson M.A, Canon of Canterbury and Camden Professor of Ancient history at the University of Oxford
Ancient History of Chaldaea, Assyria, Media, Babylonia, Lydia, Phoenicia, Syria, Judaea, Egypt, Carthage, Persia, Greece, Macedonia, Parthia, and Rome., The Colonial Press, New York, 1899.
PART III (B.C. 323 to 146)
History of Macedonia, and of Greece, from the Death of Alexander to the Roman Conquest
Grecian history had been suspended during the time of Alexander's career of conquest. A slight disturbance of the general tranquillity had indeed occurred, when Alexander plunged into the unknown countries beyond the Zagros range, by the movement against Antipater, which the Spartan king, Agis, originated in B.C. 330. But the disturbance was soon quelled. Agis was defeated and slain; and from this time the whole of Greece remained perfectly tranquil until the news came of Alexander's premature demise during the summer of B.C. 323. Then, indeed, hope rose high; and a great effort was made to burst the chains which bound Greece to the footstool of the Macedonian kings, Athens, under Demosthenes and Hyperides, taking, as was natural, the lead in the struggle for freedom. A large confederacy was formed; and the Lamian War was entered upon in the confident expectation that the effect would be the liberation of Greece from the yoke of her oppressor. But the result disappointed these hopes. After a bright gleam of success, the confederate Greeks were completely defeated at Crannon, B.C. 322, and the yoke of Macedonia was riveted upon them more firmly than ever.
The position of Antipater, as supreme ruler of Macedonia, was far from being safe and assured. The female members of the Macedonian royal family-Olympias, the widow of Philip; Cleopatra, her daughter; Cynane, daughter of Philip by an Illyrian mother; and Eurydice, daughter of Cynane by her husband Amyntas (himself a first cousin of Alexander) -were, one and all, persons of ability and ambition, who saw with extreme dissatisfaction the aggrandizement of the generals of Alexander and the low condition into which the royal power had fallen, shared between an infant and an imbecile. Dissatisfied, moreover, with their own positions and prospects, they commenced intrigues for the purpose of improving them. Olympias first offered the hand of Cleopatra to Leonnatus, who was to have turned against Antipater, if he had been successful in his Grecian expedition. When the death of, Leonnatus frustrated this scheme, Olympias cast her eyes farther abroad, and fixed on Perdiccas as the chief to whom she would betroth her daughter. Meanwhile, Cynan6 boldly crossed over to Asia with Eurydic6, and offered her in marriage to Philip Arrhidaeus, the nominal king. To gratify Olympias, who hated these members of the royal house, Perdiccas put Cynan6 to death; and he would probably have likewise removed Eurydic6, had not the soldiers, exasperated at the mother's murder, compelled him to allow the marriage of the daughter with Philip. Meanwhile, he consented to Olympias' schemes, prepared to repudiate his wife, Nicaea, the daughter of Antipater, and hoped with the aid of his friend, Eumenes, to make himself master of the whole of Alexander's empire. (See Second Period.)
The designs of Perdiccas, and his intrigues with Olympias, having been discovered by Antigonus, and the life of that chief being in danger from Perdiccas in consequence, he fled to Europe in the course of B.C. 322, and informed Antipater and Craterus of their peril. Fully appreciating the importance of the intelligence, those leaders at once concluded a league with Ptolemy, and in the spring of B.C. 321 invaded Asia for the purpose of attacking their rival. Here they found Eumenes prepared to resist them; and so great was the ability of that general, that, though Perdiccas had led the greater portion of his forces against Egypt, be maintained the war successfully, defeating and killing Craterus, and holding Antipater in check. But the murder of Perdiccas by his troops, and their fraternization with their opponents, changed the whole face of affairs. Antipater found himself, without an effort, master of the situation. Proclaimed sole regent by the soldiers, lie took the custody of the royal persons, re-distributed the satrapies (see Second Period), and, returning into Macedonia, held for about two years the first position in the empire. He was now, however, an old man, and his late campaigns had probably shaken him; at any rate, soon after his return to Europe, he died, B.C. 318, leaving the regency to his brother officer, the aged Polyperchon.
The disappointment of Cassander, the elder of the two surviving sons of Antipater, produced the second great war between the generals of Alexander. Cassander, having begun to intrigue against Polyperchon was driven from Macedonia by the regent, and, flying to Antigonus, induced him to embrace his cause. The league followed between Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Cassander on the one hand, and Polyperchon and Eumenes on the other (see Second Period), Antigonus undertaking to contend with Eumenes in Asia, while Cassander afforded employment to Polyperchon in Europe.
In the war which ensued between Cassander and Polyperchon, the former proved eventually superior. Polyperchon had on his side the influence of Olympias, which was great; and his proclamation of freedom to the Greeks was a judicious step, from which he derived considerable advantage. But neither as a soldier nor as a statesman was he Cassander's equal. He lost Athens by an imprudent delay, and failed against Megalopolis through want of military ability. His policy in allowing Olympias to gratify her hatreds without let or hindrance was ruinous to his cause, by thoroughly alienating the Macedonians. Cassander's triumph in B.C. 316 reduced him to a secondary position, transferring the supreme authority in Macedonia to his rival.
The reign of Cassander over Macedonia, which now commenced, lasted from B.C. 316 to 296, a period of twenty years. The talents of this prince are unquestionable, but his moral conduct fell below that of even the majority of his contemporaries, which was sufficiently reprehensible. His bad faith towards Olympias was followed, within a few years, by the murders of Roxana and the infant Alexander, by complicity in the murder of Hercules, the illegitimate son of Alexander the Great, and by treachery towards Polysperclion, who was first seduced into crime and then defrauded of his reward. Cassander, however, was a clever statesman, a good general, and a brave soldier. His first step on obtaining possession of Macedonia was to marry Thessalonice, the sister of Alexander the Great, and thus to connect himself with the family of the conqueror. Next, fearing the ambition of Antigonus, who, after his victory over Eumenes, aspired to rule the whole empire (see Second Period), he entered into the league of the satraps against that powerful commander, and bore his part in the great war, which, commencing B.C. 315, on the return of Antigonus from the East, terminated B.C. 301, at the battle of Ipsus. In this war Cassander, though he displayed unceasing activity, and much ability for intrigue, was on the whole unsuccessful; and he would probably have lost Greece and Macedonia to his powerful adversary, had not the advance of Seleucus from Babylon and the defeat of Antigonus at Ipsus saved him.
Cassander did not live long to enjoy the tranquillity which the defeat and death of Antigonus at Ipsus brought him. He died B.C. 298, three years after Ipsus, leaving the crown to the eldest of his three sons by Thessalonice, Philip. This prince was carried off by sickness before lie had reigned a year; and the Macedonian dominions at his death fell to Tliessalonic6, his mother, who made a division of them between her two surviving sons, Antipater and Alexander, assigning to the latter Western, and to the former Eastern Macedonia.
Antipater, who regarded himself as wronged in the partition, having wreaked his vengeance on his mother by causing her to be assassinated, applied for aid to his wife's father, Lysimachus; while Alexander, fearing his brother's designs, called in the help of Pyrrhus the Epirote and of Demetrius, B.C. 297. Demetrius, after the defeat of Ipsus, had still contrived to maintain the position of a sovereign. Rejected at first by Athens, he had besieged and taken that city, had recovered possession of Attica, the Megarid, and great portions of the Peloponnese, and had thus possessed himself of a considerable power. Appealed to by Alexander, he professed to embrace his cause; but ere long he took advantage of his position to murder the young prince, and possess himself of his kingdom. Antipater was about the same time put it) death by Lysimachus, B.C. 294.
The kingdom of Demetrius comprised, not only Macedonia, but Thessaly, Attica, Megaris, and the greater part of the Peloponnese. Had he been content with these territories, he might have remained quietly in the possession of them, for the families of Alexander the Great and of Antipater were extinct, and the connection of Demetrius with Seleucus, who had married his daughter (see Third Period, Part 1.), would have rendered his neighbors cautious of meddling with him. But the ambition of Demetrius was insatiate, and his self-confidence unbounded. After establishing his authority in Central Greece and twice taking Thebes, he made an unprovoked attack upon Pyrrhus, B.C. 290, from whom he desired to wrest some provinces ceded to him by the late king, Alexander. In this attempt he completely failed, whereupon he formed a new project. Collecting a vast army, he let it be understood that he claimed the entire dominion of his father, Antigonus, and was about to proceed to its recovery, B.C. 288. Seleucus and Lysimachus, whom this project threatened, were induced, in consequence, to encourage Pyrrhus to carry his arms into Macedonia on the one side, while Lysimachus himself invaded it on the other. Placed thus between two fires and finding at the same time that his soldiers were not to be depended upon, Demetrius, in B.C. 287, relinquished the Macedonian throne, and escaped secretly to Demetrias, the city which he had built on the Pagasean Gulf and had made a sort of capital. From hence lie proceeded on the expedition, which cost him his liberty, against Asia. (See Third Period, Part I)
On the flight of Demetrius, Pyrrhus of Epirus became king of the greater part of Macedonia; but a share of the spoil was at once claimed by Lysimachus, who received the tract adjoining his own territories. A mere share, however, did not long satisfy the Macedonian chieftain. Finding that the rule of an Epirotic prince was distasteful to the Macedonians, lie contrived after a little while to pick a quarrel with his recent ally, and having invaded his Macedonian territories, forced him to' relinquish them and retire to his own country, after a reign which lasted less than a year.
By the success of Lysimachus, Macedonia became a mere appendage to a large kingdom, which reached from the Halys to the Pindus range, its centre being Thrace, and its capital Lysimachea in the Chersonese. These circumstances might not by themselves have alienated the Macedonians, though they could scarcely have failed after a time to arouse discontent; but when Lysimachus, after suffering jealousy and dissension to carry ruin into his own family, proceeded to acts of tyranny and violence towards his nobles and other subjects, these last called on Seleucus Nicator to interfere for their preservation; and that monarch, having invaded the territories of his neighbor, defeated him in the battle of Corupedion, where Lysimachus, fighting with his usual gallantry, was not only beaten but slain.
By the victory of Corupedion, Seleucus Nicator became master of the entire kingdom of Lysimachus, and, with the exception of Egypt, appeared to have reunited almost the whole of the dominions of Alexander. But this union was short lived. Within a few weeks of his victory, Seleucus was murdered by Ptolemy Ceraunus, the Egyptian refugee whom lie had protected; and the Macedonians, indifferent by whom they were ruled, accepted the Egyptian prince without a murmur.
The short reign of Ptolemy Ceraunus (B.C. 281 to 279) was stained by crimes and marked by many imprudences. Regarding the two sons of Lysimachus by Arsinoë, his half-sister, as possible rivals, he persuaded her into a marriage, in order to get her children into his power; and, having prevailed with the credulous princess, first murdered her sons before her eyes, and then banished her to Samothrace. Escaping to Egypt, she became the wife of her brother, Philadelphus, and would probably have induced him to avenge her wrongs, had not the crime of Ceraunus received its just punishment in another way. A great invasion of the Gauls-one of those vast waves of migration which from time to time sweep over the world-occurring just as Ceraunus felt himself in secure possession of his kingdom, disturbed his ease, and called for wise and vigorous measures of resistance. Ceraunus met the crisis with sufficient courage, but with a complete absence of prudent counsel. Instead of organizing a united resistance to a common enemy, or conciliating it for whom he was too weak to oppose singly, he both exasperated the Gauls by a contemptuous message and refused the proffers of assistance which he received from his neighbors. Opposing the unaided force of Macedon to their furious onset, lie was completely defeated in a great battle, B.C. 279, 1111d, failing into the hands of his enemies, was barbarously put to death. The Gauls then ravaged Macedonia far and wide; nor was it till B.C. 277 that Macedonia once more obtained a settled government.
On the retirement of the Gauls, Antipater, the nephew of Cassander, came forward for the second time, and was accepted as king by a portion, at any rate, of the Macedonians. But a new pretender soon appeared upon the scene. Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who had maintained himself since that monarch's captivity as an independent prince in Central or Southern Hellas, claimed the throne once filled by his father, and, having taken into his service a body of Gallic mercenaries, defeated Antipater and made himself master of Macedonia. His pretensions being disputed by Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus, who had succeeded to the throne of Syria, lie engaged in war with that prince, crossing into Asia and uniting his forces with those of Nicomedes, the Bithynian king, whom Antiochus was endeavoring to conquer. To this combination Antiochus was forced to yield; relinquishing his claims, he gave his sister, Phila, in marriage to Antigonus, and recognized him as king of Macedonia. Antigonus upon this fully established his power, repulsing a fresh attack of the Gatils, and recovering Cassandreia from the cruel tyrant, Apollodorus.
But he was not long left in repose. In B.C. 274, Pyrrhus finally quitted Italy, having failed in all his schemes, but having made himself a great reputation. Landing in Epirus with a scanty force, lie found the condition of Macedonia and of Greece favorable to his ambition. Antigonus had no hold on the affections of his subjects, whose recollections of his father, Demetrius, were unpleasing. The Greek cities were, sonic of them, tinder tyrants, others occupied against their will by Macedonian garrisons. Above all, Greece and Macedonia were full of military adventurers, ready to flock to any standard which offered them a fair prospect of plunder. Pyrrhus, therefore, taken a body of Celts into his pay, declared war against Antigonus, B.C. 273, and suddenly invaded Macedonia. Antigonus gave him battle, but was worsted owing to the disaffection of his soldiers, and, being twice defeated, became a fugitive and a wanderer.
The victories of Pyrrhus, and his son Ptolemy, placed the Macedonian crown upon the brow of the former, who might not improbably have become the founder of a great power, if he could have turned his attention to consolidation, instead of looking out for fresh conquests. But the arts and employment of peace had no charm for the Epirotic knight-errant. Hardly was he settled in his seat, when, upon the invitation of Cleonymus of Sparta, he led an expedition into the Peloponnese, and attempted the conquest of that rough and difficult region. Repulsed from Sparta, which lie had hoped to surprise, he sought to cover his disappointment by the capture of Argos; but here he was still more unsuccessful. Antigonus, now once more at the head of an army, watched the city, prepared to dispute its occupation, while the lately threatened Spartans hung upon the invader's rear. In a desperate attempt to seize the place by night, the adventurous Epirote was first wounded by a soldier and then slain by ' the blow of a tile, thrown from a house-top by an Argive woman, B.C. 271.
On the death of Pyrrhus the Macedonian throne was recovered by Antigonus, who commenced his second reign by establishing his influence over most of the Peloponnese, after which he was engaged in a long war with the Athenians (B.C. 268 to 263), who were supported by Sparta and by Egypt. These allies rendered, however, but little help; and Athens must have soon succumbed, had not Antigonus been called away to Macedonia by the invasion of Alexander, son of Pyrrhus. This enterprising prince carried, at first, all before him, and was even acknowledged as Macedonian king; but ere long, Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, having defeated Alexander near Derdia, re-established his father's dominion over Macedon, and, invading Epirus, succeeded in driving the Epirotic monarch out of his paternal kingdom. The Epirots soon restored him; but from this time he remained at peace with Antigonus, who was able once more to devote his undivided attention to the subjugation of the Greeks. In B.C. 263, he took Athens, and recovered himself complete master of Attica; and, in B.C. 244, nineteen years afterwards, he contrived by a treacherous stratagem to obtain possession of Corinth. But at this point his successes ceased. A power had been quietly growing up in a corner of the Peloponnese which was to become a counterpoise to Macedonia, and to give to the closing scenes of Grecian history an interest little inferior to that which had belonged to its earlier pages. The Achaean League, resuscitated from its ashes about the time of the invasion of the Gauls, B.C. 280, had acquired in the space of thirty-seven years sufficient strength and consistency to venture on defying the puissant king of Macedon and braving his extreme displeasure. In B.C. 243, Aratus, the general of the League and in a certain sense its founder, by a sudden and well-planned attack surprised and took Corinth; which immediately joined the League, whereto it owed its freedom. This success was followed by others. Megara, Troezen, and Epidaurus threw off their allegiance to Antigonus and attached themselves to the League in the course of the same year. Athens and Argos were threatened; and the League assumed an attitude of unmistakable antagonism to the power and pretensions of Macedon. Antigonus, grown timorous in his old age, met the bold aggressions of the League with no overt acts of hostility. Contenting himself with inciting the Aetolians to attack the new power, lie remained wholly on the defensive, neither attempting to recover the lost towns, nor to retaliate by any invasion of Achaea.
Antigonus Gonatas died B.C. 239, at the age of eighty, having reigned in all thirty-seven years. He left his crown to his son, Demetrius II., who inherited his ambition without his talents. The first acts of Demetrius were to form a close alliance with Epirus, now tinder the rule of Olympias, Alexander's widow; to accept the hand of her daughter Phthia, whereby he offended his queen, Stratonice, and through her Seleucus, the Syrian king; and to break with the Aetolians, who were seeking at this time to deprive Olympias of a portion of her dominions. The Aetolians, alarmed, sought the alliance of the Achaean League; and in the war which followed, Demetrius was opposed by both these important powers. He contrived, however, to defeat Aratus in Thessaly, to reduce Boeotia, anti to re-establish Macedonian ascendancy as far as the Isthmus. But this was all that he could effect. No impression was made by his arms on either of the great Leagues. No aid was given to Epirus, where the royal family was shortly afterwards exterminated. Demetrius was perhaps recalled to Macedonia by the aggressive attitude of the Dardanians, who certainly attacked him in his later years, and gave him a severe defeat. It is thought by some that he perished in tile battle. But this is uncertain.
The most important fact of this period was the interference, now for the first time, of the Romans in tile affairs of Greece. The embassy to the Aetolians, warning them against interference with Acarnania, belongs probably to the year B.C. 238; that to the Aetolians and Achaeans announcing the success of the Roman arms against the Illyrians, belongs certainly to B.C. 228 In the same year, or the year preceding, Corcyra, Apollonia, and Epidamnus became Roman dependencies. Demetrius left an only son, Philip, who was but eight years old at his decease. He was at once acknowledged king; but owing to his tender age, his guardianship was undertaken by his kinsman, Antigonus, the son of his father's first cousin, Demetrius, " the Handsome." It was, consequently, this prince who directed the policy of Macedonia during the period which immediately followed on the death of Demetrius II -who, in fact, ruled Macedonia for nine years, from B.C. 229 to 220. The events of this period are of first-rate interest, including, as they do, the last display of patriotism and vigor at Sparta, and the remarkable turn of affairs whereby Macedonia, from being the deadly foe of the Achaean League, became its friend, ally, and protector.
The other wars of Antigonus Doson were comparatively unimportant. He repulsed an attack of the Dardanians, who had defeated his predecessor, suppressed an insurrection in Thessaly, and made an expedition by sea against South-western Asia Minor, which is said to have resulted in the conquest of Caria. It was impossible, however, that he should long hold this distant dependency, which shortly reverted to Egypt, the chief maritime power of this period. Soon after his return from Greece, Antigonus, died of disease, having held the sovereignty for the space of nine years. He was succeeded by the rightful heir to the throne, Philip, the son of Demetrius II, in whose name lie had carried on the government.
Philip, who was still no more than seventeen years old, was left by his kinsman to tile care of tutors and guardians. He seemed to ascend the throne at a favorable moment, when Macedonia, at very little expenditure of either men or money, had recovered Greece, had repulsed her Illyrian adversaries, and was released, by the death of Ptolemy Euergetes, from her most formidable enemy among the successors of Alexander. But all these advantages were neutralized by the rash conduct of the king himself, who first allied himself with Hannibal against Rome, and then with Antiochus against Egypt. No doubt Philip saw, more clearly than most of his contemporaries, the dangerously aggressive character of the Roman power; nor can we blame him for seeking to form coalitions against the conquering republic. But, before venturing to make Rome his enemy, he should have consolidated his power at home; and, when he made the venture, he should have been content with no half measures, but should have thrown himself, heart and soul, into the quarrel.
The first war in which the young prince engaged was one that had broken out between the Achaeans and Aetolians. The 2F-tolians, who now for the first time show themselves a really first-rate Greek power, had been gradually growing in importance, from the time when they provoked the special anger of Antipater in the Lamian War, and were threatened with transplantation into Asia. Somewhat earlier than this they had organized themselves into a Federal Republic, and had thus set the example which the Achaeans followed half a century afterwards. Some account of their institutions, and of the extent of their power, is requisite for the proper understanding both of their strength and of their weakness.
The war of the Aetolians and Achaeans was provoked by the former, who thought they saw in the accession of so young a prince as Philip to the throne of Macedon a favorable opportunity for advancing their interests after their own peculiar method. It commenced with the invasion of Messenia, and would probably have been ruinous to Achaea, had Philip allowed himself to be detained in Macedonia by apprehensions of danger from his Illyrian neighbors, or had he shown less vigor and ability in his proceedings after he entered Greece. Though thwarted by the treachery of his minister and guardian, Apelles, who was jealous of the influence of Aratus, and but little aided by any of his Greek allies, he gained a series of brilliant successes, overrunning most of Aetolia, capturing Thermon, the capital, detaching from the League Phigaleia in Arcadia and the Phthian Thebes, and showing himself in all respects a worthy successor of the old Macedonian conquerors. But after four years of this successful warfare, lie allowed himself to be diverted from what should have been his first object, the complete reduction of Greece, by tile prospect which opened upon him after Hannibal's victory at Lake Thrasiniene. At the instance of Demetrius of Pharos lie concluded a peace with the Aetolians on the principle of udi possedetis, and, retiring into Macedonia, entered upon those negotiations which involved him shortly afterwards in a -war with Rome.
The negotiations opened by Philip with Hannibal, B.C. 216, interrupted by tile capture of his ambassadors, were brought to a successful issue in B.C. 215; and in the ensuing year Philip began his first war with Rome by the siege of Apollonia, the chief Roman port in Illyricum. By securing this place, he expected to facilitate the invasion of Italy on which he was bent, and to prepare the way for that complete expulsion of the Romans from the eastern coast of the gulf, which was one of the objects he had most at heart. But he soon learned that the Romans were an enemy with whom, under any circumstances whatever, it was dangerous to contend. Defeated by M. Valerius, who surprised his camp at night, he was obliged to burn his ships and make a hasty retreat. His schemes of invasion were rudely overthrown; and, three years later, B.C. 211, the Romans, by concluding a treaty with Aetolia and her allies (Elis, Sparta, the Illyrian chief, Scerdilaidas, and Attalus, king of Pergamus), gave the war a new character, transferring it into Philip's own dominions, and so occupying him there that he was forced to implore aid front Carthage instead of bringing succor to Hannibal. After many changes of fortune, the Macedonian monarch, having by tile hands of his ally, Philopoemen, defeated the Spartans at Mantineia, induced the Aetolians to conclude a separate peace; after which the Romans, anxious to concentrate all their energies on the war with Carthage, consented to a treaty on terms not dishonorable to either party.
Philip had now a breathing-space, and might have employed it to consolidate his power in Macedonia and Greece, before the storm broke upon him which was manifestly impending. But his ambition was too great, and his views were too grand, to allow of his engaging in a work so humble and unexciting as consolidation. The Macedonian monarch had by this time disappointed all his earlier promise of virtue and moderation. lie had grown profligate in morals, criminal in his acts, both public and private, and strangely reckless in his policy. Grasping after a vast empire, he neglected to secure what he already possessed, and, while enlarging the bounds, he diminished the real strength of his kingdom. It became now his object to extend his dominion on the side of Asia, and with this view he first (about B.C. 205) concluded a treaty with Antiochus the Great for the partition of the territories of Egypt, and then (B.C. 203) plunged into a war with Attalus and the Rhodians. His own share of the Egyptian spoils was to comprise Lysimacheia and the adjoining parts of Thrace, Samos, Ephesus, Caria, and perhaps other portions of Asia Minor. He began at once to take possession of these places. A war with Attalus and Rhodes was almost the necessary result of such proceedings, since their existence depended on the maintenance of a balance of power ill these parts, and the instinct of self-preservation naturally threw them oil the Egyptian side. Philip, moreover, took no steps to disarm their hostility: oil the contrary, before war was declared, lie burnt the arsenal of the Rhodians by the hands of an emissary; and in the war itself, one of his opening acts was to strengthen Prusias, the enemy of Attalus, by making over to him the Aetolian dependency' Cius. The main event of the war was the great defeat of his fleet by the combined squadrons of the two powers off Chios, B.C. 201, a defeat ill compensated by the subsequent victory of Ladi. Still Philip was, on the whole, successful, and accomplished the main objects which he had in view, making himself master of Thasos, Samos, Chios, of Caria, and of many places in Ionia. Unassisted by Egypt, the allies were too weak to protect her territory, and Philip obtained the extension of dominion which he had desired, but at the cost of provoking the intense hostility of two powerful naval states, and the ill-will of Aeolia, which he had injured by his conquest of Cius.
These proceedings of Philip in the Aegean had, moreover, been well calculated to bring about a rupture of the peace with Rome. Friendly relations had existed between tile Romans and Egypt from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and even from an earlier date Rhodes and Rome had been oil terms of intimacy. Attalus was an actual ally of Rome, and had been included in the late treaty. It is therefore not surprising that in B.C. 200 Rome remonstrated, and, when Philip rejected every demand, declared the peace at all end and renewed the war.
The Second War of Philip with Rome is the turning-point in the history of Ancient Europe, deciding, as it did, the question whether Macedon and Rome should continue two parallel forces, dividing between them the general direction of European affairs, or whether the power of the former should be completely swept away, and the dominion of the latter over the civilized West finally and firmly established. It is perhaps doubtful what the result would have been, if Philip had guided his conduct by the commonest rules of prudence ; if, aware of the nature of the conflict into which he was about to be plunged, he had conciliated instead of alienating his natural supports, and had so been able to meet Rome at the head of a general confederacy of the Hellenes. As it was, Greece was at first divided, the Rhodians, Athenians, and Athamanians siding with Rome ; Aetolia, Epirus, Achaea, and Sparta being neutral; and Thessaly, Boeotia, Acarnania, Megalopolis, and Argos supporting Philip; while in the latter part of the war, after Flamininus had proclaimed himself the champion of Grecian freedom, almost the entire force of Hellas was thrown oil the side of the Romans. Rome had also the alliance of the Illyrian tribes, always hostile to their Macedonian neighbors, and of Attalus, king of Pergamus. Philip was left at last without a friend or ally, excepting Acarnania, which exhibited the unusual spectacle of a grateful nation firmly adhering to its benefactor in his adversity.
The terms of peace agreed to by Philip after the battle of Cynocephalae were the following: -He was to evacuate all the Greek cities which he held, whether in Europe or Asia, some immediately, the others within a given time. He was to surrender his state-galley and all his navy except five light ships. He was to restore all the Roman prisoners and deserters; and lie was to pay to the Romans 1000 talents, 500 at once, the rest in ten annual installments. He was also to abstain from all aggressive war, and to surrender any claim to his revolted province, Orestis. These terms, though hard, were as favorable as he had any right to expect. Had the Aetolians been allowed to have their way, he would have been far more severely treated.
The policy of Rome in proclaiming freedom to the Greeks, and even withdrawing her garrisons from the great fortresses of Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth-the " fetters of Greece " -was undoubtedly sound. Greek freedom could not be maintained excepting under her protection; and, by undertaking the protectorate, she attached the bulk of the Greek people to her cause. At the same time, the establishment of universal freedom prevented any state from having much power; and in the quarrels that were sure to ensue Rome would find her advantage.
War broke out in Greece in the very year of Flamininus' departure, B.C. 194, by the intrigues of the Aetolians, who encouraged Nabis to attack the Achaeans, then murdered Nabis, and finally invited Antiochus over from Asia. The defeat of Antiochus at Thermopylae, B.C. 191, left the Aetolians to bear the brunt of the war which they had provoked, and after the battle of Magnesia, B.C. i0o, there was nothing left for them but complete submission. Rome curtailed their territory, and made them subject-allies, but forbore to crush them utterly, since they might still be useful against Macedonia.
The degradation of Aetolia was favorable to the growth and advancement of the Achaean League, which at one and the same time was patronized by Rome, and seemed to patriotic Greeks the only remaining rallying-point for a national party. The League at this time was under the guidance of the able and honest Philopoemen, whose efforts for its extension were crowned with remarkable success. After the murder of Nabis by the Aetolians, Sparta was induced to join the League, B.C. 192; and, a year later, the last of the Peloponnesian states which had remained separate, Mess6n6 and Elis, came in. The League now reached its wildest territorial extent, comprising all the Peloponnese, together with Megara and other places beyond its limits.
After the conclusion of his peace with Rome, Philip for some years remained quiet. But having assisted the Romans in their struggle with Antiochus and the Aetolians, lie was allowed to extend his dominions by wars not only with Thrace, but also with the Dolopians, Athananians, and even the Thessalians and Magnesians. When, however, his assistance was no longer needed, Rome required him to give up all his conquests and retire within the limit of Macedonia. Prolonged negotiations followed, until at last (B.C. 183) the Senate was induced to relax in their demands by the mediation of Demetrius, Philip's second son, long a hostage at Rome, for whom they professed to have a warm regard. The favor openly shown towards this prince by the Roman government was not perhaps intended to injure him ; but it naturally had that result. It aroused the suspicion of his father and the jealousy of his elder brother, Perseus, and led to the series of accusations against the innocent youth, which at length induced his father to consent to his death, B.C. 18r. It may have been remorse for his hasty act which brought Philip himself to the grave within two years of his son's decease, at the age of fifty-eight.
It is said that Philip had intended, on discovering the innocence of Demetrius, and the guilt of his false accuser, Perseus, to debar the latter from the succession. He brought forward into public life a certain Antigonus, a nephew of Antigonus Doson, and would, it is believed, have made him his heir, had he not died both prematurely and suddenly. Antigonus being absent from the court. Perseus mounted the throne without opposition; but lie took care to secure himself in its possession by soon afterwards murdering his rival.
It had been the aim of Philip, ever since the battle of Cynocephalae, and it continued to be the aim of Perseus, to maintain the peace with Rome as long as might be feasible, but at the same time to invigorate and strengthen Macedonia in every possible way, and so to prepare her for a second struggle, which it was hoped might terminate differently from the first. Philip repopulated his exhausted provinces by transplantations of Thracians and others, recruited his finances by careful working of the mineral treasures in which Macedonia abounded raised and disciplined a large military force, and entered into alliances with several of the Northern nations, Illyrian, Celtic, and perhaps even German, whom he hoped to launch against Rome, when the proper time should arrive. Perseus, inheriting this policy, pursued it diligently for eight years, allying himself by intermarriages with Prusias of Bithynia and Seleucus of Syria, winning to his cause Cotys the Odrysian, Gentius the Illyrian, the Scordisci, the Bastarnae, and others. Even in Greece he had a considerable party, who thought his yoke would be more tolerable than that of Rome. Boeotia actually entered into his alliance; and the other states mostly wavered and might have been won, had proper measures been taken. But as the danger of a rupture drew near, Perseus' good genius seemed to forsake him. lie continued to pursue the policy of procrastination long after the time bad arrived for vigorous and prompt action. He allowed Rome to crush his friends in Greece without reaching out a hand to their assistance. Above all, by a foolish and ill-timed niggardliness, lie lost the advantage of almost all the alliances which lie had contracted, disgusting and alienating his allies, one after another, by the refusal of his subsidies which they required before setting their troops in motion. He thus derived no benefit from his well-filled treasury, which simply went to swell the Roman gains at the end of the war.
The Romans landed in Epirus in the spring of B.C. 171, and employed themselves for some months in detaching from Perseus his allies, and in putting down his party in the Greek states. They dissolved the Boeotian League, secured the election of their partisans in various places, and obtained promises of aid from Achaea and Thessaly. Perseus allowed himself to be entrapped into making a truce during these months, and the Romans were thus able to complete their preparations at their leisure. At length, towards autumn, both armies took the field-Perseus with 39,000 foot and 4000 horse, the Romans with an equal number of horse, but with foot not much exceeding 30,000. In the first battle, which was fought in Thessaly, Perseus was victorious; but he made no use of his victory, except to sue for peace, which was denied him. The war then languished for two years; but in B.C. 168, the command being taken by L. Aemilius Paullus, Perseus was forced to an engagement near Pydna (June 22), which decided the fate of the monarchy. The defeated prince fled to Samothrace, carrying with him 6ooo talents-a sum the judicious expenditure of which might have turned the scale against the Romans. Here lie was shortly afterwards captured by the praetor Octavius, and, being carried to Rome by the victorious consul, was led in triumph, and within a few years killed by, ill usage, about B.C. 166.
The conquered kingdom of Macedonia was not at once reduced into the form of a Roman province, but was divided up into four distinct states, each of them, it would seem, a kind of federal republic, which were expressly forbidden to have any dealings one with another. Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, and Pelagonia were made the capitals of the four states. To prevent any outburst of discontent at the loss of political status, the burdens hitherto laid upon the people were lightened. Rome was content to receive in tribute from the Macedonians one-half the amount which they had been in the habit of paying to their kings.
In Greece, the immediate effect of the last Macedonian War was the disappearance of four out of the five Federal Unions, which had recently divided almost the whole of the Hellenic soil among them. The allegiance of Aetolia had wavered (luring the struggle; and at its close the Romans either formally dissolved the League, or made it simply municipal. Acarnania, which went over to Rome in the course of the war, was nominally allowed to continue it confederacy, but practically vanishes from Grecian history from this moment. Boeotia having submitted, B.C. 171, was formally broken up into distinct cities. Epirus was punished for deserting the Roman side by desolation and depopulation, the remnant of her people being handed over to the rule of a tyrant. The only power remaining in Greece which possessed at once some strength and a remnant of independence, was Achaea, whose fidelity to Rome (luring the whole course of the war made it impossible even for the Roman Senate to proceed at once to treat her as an enemy.
Achaea, nevertheless, was doomed from the moment that Macedonia fell. The policy of Rome was at this time not guided by a sense of honor, but wholly by a regard for her own interests. Having crushed Macedonia and mastered all Greece except Achaea, she required for the completion of her work in this quarter that Achaea should either become wholly submissive to her will, or be conquered. It was at once to test the submissiveness of the Achaean people, and to obtain hostages for their continued good behavior, that Rome, in B.C. 167, required by her ambassadors the trial of above a thousand of the chief Achaeans on the charge of having secretly aided Perseus; and, when the Achaean Assembly did not dare to refuse, carried off to Italy the whole of the accused persons. All the more moderate and independent of the Achaeans were thus deported, and the strong partisans of Rome, Callicrates and his friends, were left in sole possession of the government. For seventeen years the accused persons were kept in prison in Etruscan towns without a hearing. Then, when their number had dwindled to three hundred, and their unjust detention had so exasperated them that a rash and reckless policy might be expected from their return to power, Rome suddenly released the remnant and sent them back to their country.
The natural consequences followed. Power fell into the hands of Diaeus, Critolaus, and Damocritus, three of the exiles who were most bitterly enraged against Rome; and these persons played into the hands of their hated enemies by exciting troubles intended to annoy the Romans, but which really gave them the pretext-which was exactly what they wanted for an armed interference. The rebellion of Andriscus, a pretended son of Perseus, in Macedonia (B.C. 149 to 148), caused a brief delay ; but in B.C. 146, four years after the return of the exiles, war was actually declared. Metellus first, and then Mummius, defeated the forces of the League; Critolaus fell in battle; Diaeus slew himself; Corinth, where the remnant of the Achaean army had taken refuge, was taken and sacked, and the last faint spark of Grecian independence was extinguished. Achaea was not, indeed, at once reduced into a province; and, though the League was formally dissolved, yet, after an interval, its nominal revival was permitted; but the substance of liberty had vanished at the battle of Leucopetra, and the image of it which Polybius was allowed to restore was a mere shadow, known by both parties to be illusory. Before many years were past, Achaea received, like the other provinces, her proconsul, and became an integral part of the great empire against which she had found it vain to attempt to struggle.
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