of the providential dispensation by which the course of events is ordered, that the kings of Macedonia and Syria reserved their attacks till Rome could deal with them singly. At length, when Antiochus the Great was on the point of engaging in his war with Rome, the Anti-Barcine faction at Carthage denounced Hannibal as an abettor of the Syrian king. Cn. Servilius was sent as ambassador to Carthage, openly to demand an explanation, but secretly to obtain the surrender of Hannibal, or even, as is alleged by some, his assassination. Hannibal remained all day at his post in the Senate and Forum and took part in the discussion, but at nightfall he rode off to his marine villa, where in a hidden bay he had ships always ready to put to sea, and left the ambassador to carry back to Rome the alarming news of his escape. He was received with open arms by Antiochus at Ephesus (B.c. 195), and arranged a plan of campaign, in which his military genius and his steadfast enmity to Rome were equally conspicuous; but, as we shall see in the following chapter, only so much of it was adopted as involved Hannibal in his last defeat, fighting at sea against Rome aided by the ships of Carthage. When the rejection of his advice produced the foreseen result, and Antiochus was overthrown by the Scipios at Magnesia (B.c. 190), the surrender of Hannibal was made one of the conditions of peace. Once more he fled to the court of Prusias of Bithynia; but the Romans could feel no security while their dreaded enemy still lived, and T. Quinctius Flamininus was sent to demand his surrender or death. Hannibal's house was beset by assassins, and he chose death by taking poison. "He had long been prepared to do so," adds a Roman, "for he knew the Romans and the faith of kings. The year of his death is uncertain; probably he died in the latter half of B.C. 183, at the age of 76. When he was born, Rome was contending with doubtful success for the possession of Sicily; he had lived long enough to see the West wholly subdued, and to fight his own last battle with the Romans against the vessels of his native city, which had itself become Roman; and he was constrained at last to remain a mere spectator, while Rome overpowered the East as the tempest overpowers the ship that has no one at the helm, and to feel that he alone was the pilot that could have weathered the storm. There was left to him no further hope to be disappointed when he died; but he had honestly, through fifty years of struggle, kept the oath he had sworn when a boy."* His great adversary Scipio died, probably in the same year, in voluntary exile. * Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. ii. p. 282. B. C. 201.] CONDITION OF ITALY. 479 At Rome the peace was celebrated with rejoicings not yet free from the dash of bitterness infused by the survival of their great enemy, whose supreme personal influence in the contest their own writers justly mark by calling it the Hannibalic, as well as the Second Punic War. Its result was to make the great rival of Rome her vassal, and the warlike Africans, who had formed the chief military strength of Carthage, her allies;-to transfer from the Phoenician to the Latin republic the dominion of the seas and the empire of the West, where Spain and the islands were provinces of Rome and Massilia her close ally ;-and to foreshadow the great conflict with the East, of which a beginning had been made in the fitful hostilities with Macedonia. Meanwhile much had still to be done in Italy itself. The tribes of Cisalpine Gaul had to be reduced to a state which should make it impossible for them to assist another invader, and the Sabellian and Greek states, which had for a time been seduced to the side of Hannibal, had to be Latinized more and more by the confiscation of their lands, the imposition of Latin customs, and the foundation of Latin colonies. In the ten years following the second Punic war, colonies were planted at Venusia, Narnia, Cosa, Sipontum, Croton, Salernum, and other places; and some of the maritime cities of the south received Latin names; thus, Thurii became Copia, and Vibo Valentia. It was slower work to restore the ruined cities and to fill up the blanks in the population and in the culture of the land, caused by the fifteen years during which Italy had been the theatre of the war. The extent to which the country suffered from its inveterate sore of brigandage is attested by the condemnation in one year of 7000 robbers in Apulia alone. Finally, the old simple habits of the Latin rural population and of the yeomen burgesses of Rome had been completely undermined. But time was required to decide how far these evils would affect the stability of the republic, and what would be the issue of the brilliant prospect of foreign conquest opened by the victory over Carthage. For the present there was enough to fill the minds of men, from the highest to the lowest, as they shared or witnessed the triumphal procession of the young conqueror to the Capitol, to thank the gods to whom he never ceased to give the glory of his exploits. CHAPTER XXVII. THE MACEDONIAN AND ASIATIC WARS. "After this shall he [the king of the north] turn his face unto the Isles, and shall take many but a prince for his own behalf shall cause the reproach offered by him to cease; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him. Then he shall turn his face toward the fort of his own land: but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found."-Daniel xi. 18, 19. ACCESSION OF PHILIP V.-STATE OF MACEDONIA AND GREECE-PHILIP'S FART IN THE SOCIAL WAR HIS ALLIANCE WITH CARTHAGE-FIRST MACEDONIAN WAR-ANTIMACEDONIAN LEAGUE-ATTALUS AND THE RHODIANS-AFFAIRS OF EGYPT-PEACE WITH PHILIP-RENEWED MACEDONIAN INTRIGUES-ALLIANCE OF PHILIP AND ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT-VIEWS OF ROME REGARDING THE EAST-EMBASSY TO EGYPT, ANTIOCHUS, AND PHILIP THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR-TITUS QUINCTIUS FLAMININUS-PHILIP LOSES NORTHERN GREECE-THE ACHEAN LEAGUE JOINS THE ROMANS -PROPOSALS FOR PEACE-BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALE-PEACE WITH PHILIP-THE FREEDOM OF GREECE PROCLAIMED BY FLAMININUS-HIS TRIUMPH-DISCONTENT OF THE ETOLIANS-THEIR INTRIGUES WITH ANTIOCHUS-REVIEW OF THE SYRIAN KINGDOM-WARS WITH EGYIT FOR CLE-SYRIA AND PALESTINE-INVASION OF AND WARS WITH THE PARTHIANS AFFAIRS OF ASIA MINOR-ACCESSION OF ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT HIS WARLIKE VIGOUR-REVOLT OF MEDIA AND PERSIA SUPPRESSEDHIS WAR WITH EGYPT AND DEFEAT AT RAPHIA-WARS IN ASIA MINOR AND WITH THE PARTHIANS-DEATH OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR-ALLIANCE OF ANTIOCHUS AND PHILIP CONQUEST OF CILICIA, CŒLE-SYRIA, AND PALESTINE-ATTACK ON ATTALUS, THE RHODIANS, AND THE GREEK CITIES OF ASIA MINOR-SUCCESSES OF ANTIOCHUS ON THE HELLESPONT-HE CROSSES OVER INTO EUROPE AND OCCUPIES THRACE-PROTESTS OF THE ROMANS-FLIGHT OF HANNIBAL TO ANTIOCHUS-HE PREPARES FOR WAR-THE ATOLIANS SEIZE DEMETRIAS AND DECLARE WAR WITH ROME-ANTIOCHUS LANDS IN GREECE-BEGINNING OF THE ASIATIC WAR-ATTITUDE OF MACEDONIA AND THE GREEKS-DEFEAT OF ANTIOCHUS AT THERMOFYLÆ-GREECE AGAIN SUBJECT TO ROME-REDUCTION OF THE ETOLIANS-MARITIME CAMPAIGN-ROMAN EXPEDITION TO ASIA-BATTLE OF MAGNESIA-FALL OF THE STRIAN EMPIRE-WAR WITH GALATIANS THE KINGDOM OF PERGAMUS-SETTLEMENT OF ASIA AND GREECE ETOLIANS AGAIN SUBDUED-PHILIP AND THE ACHEANS-DEATH OF ANTIOCHUS. THE THE peace with Carthage had scarcely lasted for a year, when the consul, P. Sulpicius Galba, on behalf of the Senate, moved in the assembly of the centuries a declaration of war against Philip V. of Macedonia, on account of his attacks upon the allies of Rome in the East. Under this able prince, who had ascended the throne in B.C. 220, at the age of seventeen, Macedonia had acquired a position which marked her as the one among all the Hellenistic states best fitted to set bounds to the advance of Rome towards the East. Alone of all the kingdoms which had arisen out of the disruption of Alexander's empire, she had preserved much of the native Macedonian vigour and of the compact military organization by which that empire had been acquired; and the establishment of her monarchy on a more despotic basis, at the B.C. 200.] STATE OF MACEDONIA. 481 expense of the great chieftains, had helped to consolidate her power for war. By the vigour of Antigonus Gonatas and his successors, the country had recovered surprisingly from the effect of the great Gallic invasion, and the garrisons on the frontier were strong enough to protect her from the Celtic and Illyrian barbarians. In Greece, though no longer wielding the supremacy she had possessed before the rise of the Etolian and Achæan Leagues, she held the balance between those confederacies, and had still a dominion of her own over large portions of the peninsula. Thessaly and Magnesia were entirely hers, with the central states of Locris, Phocis, and Doris; and among other positions elsewhere, she held the three great fortresses of Corinth, Chalcis in Euboea, and Demetrias in Magnesia, which were known as "the three fetters of the Greeks." While Sparta had fallen under the yoke of tyrants, and Athens was content to barter freedom for the enjoyments of literature and philosophy, the remnants of Hellenic vigour were found chiefly among the northern states, most of which were subject to Macedonia. However inferior in magnitude and external splendour to the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt, she surpassed the former in the compactness of her strength, while she was as much above the latter in force as below it in. devotion to literature and science. The Macedonian monarchy, in short, had more of the vigour of the Roman republic than all the Oriental kingdoms put together; and, if Philip could have obtained the position of his great namesake, as the head of a united Hellas, or even if he had made the timely decision to give an energetic support to Hannibal, it would seem as if the course of history might have been changed. How little such a change would have benefited the world, must at once be felt by any one who considers the absence of all congenial elements between Macedonia and Carthage, and the evil effects of destroying the Latinism now established in Italy. But The course pursued by Philip from the beginning of his reign precluded any such disastrous experiment. A Macedonian alliance had long been a cherished scheme of the Barcine family; and, had Antigonus Doson lived, it might probably have been made in time to turn the fortune of the Second Punic War. Philip's attention was diverted from the West by the prospect of becoming the arbiter of Greece. The great defeat of Aratus and the Achæans by the Etolians led the former to seek his aid, and for three years he was so entirely occupied by the Social War,* as See p. 117. VOL. II. I I not to interfere even when the Romans conquered and expelled his ally Demetrius of Pharos.* But that active chieftain, finding refuge at the Macedonian court, used all his influence to induce Philip to begin war with the Romans; and the king's disposition to the enterprise appears to have been a motive for the peace which he concluded with the Etolians (B.C. 217). There was wanting, however, the mutual confidence, which would have placed Philip in the position of general of the Greeks for the war with Rome. He knew not how to solve the problem of transforming himself from the oppressor into the champion of Greece. When at length the news of Cannæ decided him to form an alliance with Carthage, and he promised to make a descent on the castern coast of Italy, his first enterprise, against Apollonia, was abandoned with a ridiculous precipitancy, on a false alarm of the approach of the Roman fleet (B.c. 216). A reason, or excuse, for further delay arose out of the capture by the Roman fleet of the envoys he sent into Italy to ratify the treaty with Hannibal, and the Romans used the interval in strengthening Brundisium, as the key of the Adriatic (B.c. 215). Fearing to encounter their fleet with his light Illyrian transports, Philip at length preferred his own immediate interest to keeping faith with Hannibal, and renewed the attack on the Roman possessions in Epirus. This was the signal for the FIRST MACEDONIAN WAR (B.C. 214). The Senate met the provocation by assuming the offensive; and a fleet despatched from Brundisium recaptured Oricum, reinforced Apollonia, and stormed the camp of Philip, who thereupon suspended active measures. But it was not the policy of Rome to suffer him to rest. The capture of Tarentum by Hannibal created a fresh necessity for providing against an invasion from Macedonia; and the odium created by Philip's arbitrary conduct, and especially by his murder of Aratus, gave the opportunity for consolidating a new league against him (B.c. 213). It was now that the Romans chose their part between the two great Hellenic confederacies, on the application of the Etolians for aid against Philip. Lævinus, the admiral of the Adriatic fleet, appeared at the assembly of the Ætolians, and promised them the long-coveted possession of Acarnania as the price of their alliance with Rome. The league was joined by all the states not united with the Achæans,-Athens, Sparta, Messene, Elis; and for the first time the Romans came into contact with the Asiatic kingdoms by the accession of See p. 420. |