No More Learning

Nevertheless ships with pro visions still ran into the harbour, partly bold merchantmen allured by the great gain, partly vessels of Bithyas, who availed himself of every favourable wind to convey supplies to the city from Nepheris at the end of the lake of Tunes ; whatever might now be the sufferings of the citizens, the garrison was still sufficiently provided for. Scipio therefore constructed a stone mole, 96 feet broad, running from the tongue of land between the lake and gulf into the latter, so as thus to close the mouth of the harbour. The city seemed lost, when the success of this undertaking, which was at first ridiculed by the Carthaginians as impracticable, became evident. But one surprise was balanced by another. While the Roman labourers were constructing the mole, work was going forward night and day for two months in the Carthaginian harbour, without even the deserters
being able to tell what were the designs of the besieged. All of a sudden, just as the Romans had completed the bar across
the entrance to the harbour, fifty Carthaginian triremes and a number of boats and skiffs sailed forth from that same
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 255
harbour into the gulf—while the enemy were closing the old mouth of the harbour towards the south, the Cartha ginians had by means of a canal formed in an easterly direction procured for themselves a new outlet, which owing to the depth of the sea at that spot could not possibly be closed. Had the Carthaginians, instead of resting content with a mere demonstration, thrown themselves at once and resolutely on the half-dismantled and wholly unprepared Roman fleet, it must have been lost ; when they returned on the third day to give the naval battle, they found the Romans in readiness. The conflict came off without deci sive result ; but on their return the Carthaginian vessels so ran foul of each other in and before the entrance of the harbour, that the damage thus occasioned was equivalent to a defeat Scipio now directed his attacks against the outer quay, which lay outside of the city walls and was only protected for the exigency by an earthen rampart of recent construction. The machines were stationed on the tongue of land, and a breach was easily made ; but with unexam pled intrepidity the Carthaginians, wading through the shallows, assailed the besieging implements, chased away the covering force which ran off in such a manner that Scipio was obliged to make his own troopers cut them down, and destroyed the machines. In this way they gained time to close the breach. Scipio, however, again established the machines and set on fire the wooden towers of the enemy ; by which means he obtained possession of the quay and of the outer harbour along with A rampart equal ling the city wall in height was here constructed, and the town was now at length completely blockaded land and sea, for the inner harbour could only be reached through the outer. To ensure the completeness of the blockade, Scipio ordered Gaius Laelius to attack the camp at Nepheris, where Diogenes now held the command was captured
fortunate stratagem, and the whole countless multitude
by a
; it
by
it.
Capture of *'
a56 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
assembled there were put to death or taken prisoners. Winter had now arrived and Scipio suspended his opera tions, leaving famine and pestilence to complete what he had begun.
How fearfully these mighty agencies had laboured in the work of destruction during the interval while Hasdrubal continued to vaunt and to gormandize, appeared so soon as
146. the Roman army proceeded in the spring of 608 to attack the inner towa Hasdrubal gave orders to set fire to the outer harbour and made himself ready to repel the ex pected assault on the Cothon ; but Laelius succeeded in scaling the wall, hardly longer defended by the famished garrison, at a point farther up and thus penetrated into the inner harbour. The city was captured, but the struggle was still by no means at an end. The assailants occupied the market-place contiguous to the small harbour, and slowly pushed their way along the three narrow streets leading from this to the citadel — slowly, for the huge
houses of six stories in height had to be taken one by one ; on the roofs or on beams laid over the street the soldiers penetrated from one of these fortress-like buildings to that which was adjoining or opposite, and cut down whatever they encountered there. Thus six days elapsed, terrible for the inhabitants of the city and full of difficulty and danger also for the assailants ; at length they arrived in front of the steep citadel-rock, whither Hasdrubal and the force still surviving had retreated. To procure a wider approach, Scipio gave orders to set fire to the captured streets and to level the ruins ; on which occasion a number
of persons unable to fight, who were concealed in the houses, miserably perished. Then at last the remnant of the population, crowded together in the citadel, besought for mercy. Bare life was conceded to them, and they appeared before the victor, 30,000 men and 25,000 women, not the tenth part of the former population. The Roman
chap, 1 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES »57
deserters alone, 900 in number, and the general Hasdrubal with his wife and his two children had thrown themselves into the temple of the God of Healing ; for them — for soldiers who had deserted their posts, and for the murderer of the Roman prisoners — there were no terms. But when, yielding to famine, the most resolute of them set fire to the temple, Hasdrubal could not endure to face death; alone he ran forth to the victor and falling upon his knees pleaded for his life. It was granted ; but, when his wife who with her children was among the rest on the roof of the temple saw him at the feet of Scipio, her proud heart swelled at this disgrace brought on her dear perishing home, and, with bitter words bidding her husband be careful to save his life, she plunged first her sons and then herself into the flames. The struggle was at an end. The joy in the camp and at Rome was boundless ; the noblest of the people alone were in secret ashamed of the most recent grand achievement of the nation. The prisoners were mostly sold as slaves ; several were allowed to languish in prison ; the most notable, Hasdrubal and Bithyas, were sent to the interior of Italy as Roman state-prisoners and tolerably treated. The moveable property, with the excep tion of gold, silver, and votive gifts, was abandoned to the pillage of the soldiers. As to the temple treasures, the booty that had been in better times carried off by the Carthaginians from the Sicilian towns was restored to them ; the bull of Phalaris, for example, was returned to the Agrigentines ; the rest fell to the Roman state.
But by far the larger portion of the city still remained Destruc-
standing. We may believe that Scipio desired its preserva- tion ; at least he addressed a special inquiry to the senate on the subject Scipio Nasica once more attempted to gain a hearing for the demands of reason and honour ; but in vain. The senate ordered the general to level the city of Carthage and the suburb of Magalia with the ground,
VOL III 82
c^L_
Province of Africa.
358 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
and to do the same with all the townships which had held by Carthage to the last ; and thereafter to pass the plough over the site of Carthage so as to put an end in legal form to the existence of the city, and to cur. se the soil and site for ever, that neither house nor cornfield might ever re appear on the spot. The command was punctually obeyed. The ruins burned for seventeen days : recently, when the remains of the Carthaginian city wall were excavated, they were found to be covered with a layer of ashes from four to five feet deep, filled with half-charred pieces of wood, fragments of iron, and projectiles. Where the industrious Phoenicians had bustled and trafficked for five hundred years, Roman slaves henceforth pastured the herds of their distant masters. Scipio, however, whom nature had destined for a nobler part than that of an executioner, gazed with horror on his own work ; and, instead of the joy of victory, the victor himself was haunted by a presentiment of the retribution that would inevitably follow such a
misdeed.
There remained the work of arranging the future
organization of the country. The earlier plan of investing the allies of Rome with the transmarine possessions that she acquired was no longer viewed with favour. Micipsa and Ins brothers retained in substance their former territory, including the districts recently wrested from the Cartha ginians on the Bagradas and in Emporia ; their long- cherished hope of obtaining Carthage as a capital was for ever frustrated ; the senate presented them instead with the Carthaginian libraries. The Carthaginian territory as possessed by the city in its last days — viz. the narrow border of the African coast lying immediately opposite to Sicily, from the river Tusca (near Thabraca) to Thaenae (opposite to the island of Karkenah) — became a Roman
In the interior, where the constant encroach ments of Massinissa had more and more narrowed the
province.
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a59
Carthaginian dominions and Bulla, Zama, and Aquae already belonged to the kings, the Numidians retained what they possessed. But the careful regulation of the boundary between the Roman province and the Numidian kingdom, which enclosed it on three sides, showed that Rome would by no means tolerate in reference to herself what she had permitted in reference to Carthage ; while the name of the new province, Africa, on the other hand appeared to indicate that Rome did not at all regard the boundary now marked off as a definitive one. The supreme administra tion of the new province was entrusted to a Roman governor, who had his seat at Utica. Its frontier did not need any regular defence, as the allied Numidian kingdom everywhere separated it from the inhabitants of the desert. In the matter of taxes Rome dealt on the whole with moderation. Those communities which from the beginning of the war had taken part with Rome —viz. only the maritime towns of Utica, Hadrumetum, Little Leptis, Thapsus, Achulla, and Usalis, and the inland town of Theudalis — retained their territory and became free cities ; which was also the case with the newly-founded community of deserters. The territory of the city of Carthage —with the exception of a tract presented to Utica—and that of the other destroyed townships became Roman domain-land, which was let on lease. The remaining townships likewise forfeited in law their property in the soil and their municipal liberties; but their land and their constitution were for the time being, and until further orders from the Roman government, left to them as a possession liable to be recalled, and the communities paid annually to Rome for the use of their soil which had become Roman a once- for-all fixed tribute (slipendium), which they in their turn collected by means of a property-tax levied from the in dividuals liable. The real gainers, however, by this destruction of the first commercial city of the west were
Philip,
26o THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
( the Roman merchants, who, as soon as Carthage lay in ) ashes, flocked in troops to Utica, and from this as their , head-quarters began to turn to profitable account not only
the Roman province, but also the Numidian and Gaetulian regions which had hitherto been closed to them.
Macedonia also disappeared about the same time as Carthage from the ranks of the nations. The four small confederacies, into which the wisdom of the Roman senate had parcelled out the ancient kingdom, could not live at peace either internally or one with another. How matters stood in the country appears from a single accidentally mentioned occurrence at Phacus, where the whole govern ing council of one of these confederacies were murdered on the instigation of one Damasippus. Neither the com-
184. missions sent by the senate (590), nor the foreign arbiters, 151. such as Scipio Aemilianus (603) called in after the Greek
fashion by the Macedonians, were able to establish tolerable order. Suddenly there appeared in Thrace a young man, who called himself Philip the son of king Perseus, whom he strikingly resembled, and of the Syrian Laodice. He had passed his youth in the Mysian town of Adramytium ; there he asserted that he had preserved the sure proofs of his illustrious descent. With these he had, after a vain attempt to obtain recognition in his native country, resorted to Demetrius Soter, king of Syria, his mother's brother. There were in fact some who believed the Adramytene or professed to believe him, and urged the king either to reinstate the prince in his hereditary kingdom or to cede to him the crown of Syria ; whereupon Demetrius, to put an end to the foolish proceedings,
/ arrested the pretender and sent him to the Romans. But the senate attached so little importance to the man, that it confined him in an Italian town without taking steps to have him even seriously guarded. Thus he had escaped to Miletus, where the civic authorities once more seized
any
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a6i
him and asked the Roman commissioners what they should do with the prisoner. The latter advised them to let him go ; and they did so. He now tried his fortune further in Thrace; and, singularly enough, he obtained recognition and support there not only from Teres the chief of the Thracian barbarians, the husband of his father's sister, and Barsabas, but also from the prudent Byzantines. With Thracian support the so-called Philip invaded Macedonia, and, although he was defeated at first, he soon gained one victory over the Macedonian militia in the district of Odomantice beyond the Strymon, followed by a second on the west side of the river, which gave him possession of all Macedonia. Apocryphal as his story sounded, and
as it was established that the real Philip, the son of Perseus, had died when eighteen years of age at Alba, and that this man, so far from being a Macedonian
was Andriscus a fuller of Adramytium, yet the Macedonians were too much accustomed to the rule of a king not to be readily satisfied on the point of legitimacy
and to return with pleasure into the old track. Messengers arrived from the Thessalians, announcing that the pretender
had advanced into their territory; the Roman commis sioner Nasica, who, in the expectation that a word of earnest remonstrance would put an end to the foolish enterprise, had been sent by the senate to Macedonia without soldiers, was obliged to call out the Achaean and Pergamene troops and to protect Thessaly against the superior force by means of the Achaeans, as far as was practicable, till (605 ? ) the praetor Juventius appeared with 149. a legion. The latter attacked the Macedonians with his small force; but he himself fell, his army was almost wholly destroyed, and the greater part of Thessaly fell into
the power of the pseudo-Philip, who conducted his govern ment there and in Macedonia with cruelty and arrogance.
At length a stronger Roman army under Quintus Caecilius
decidedly
prince,
262 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it victory of Metellus appeared on the scene of conflict, and, supported
MetenB*'
by the Pergamene fleet, advanced into Macedonia. In the first cavalry combat the Macedonians retained the superiority; but soon dissensions and desertions occurred in the Macedonian army, and the blunder of the pretender in dividing his army and detaching half of it to Thessaly procured for the Romans an easy and decisive victory
148. (606). Philip fled to the chieftain Byzes in Thrace, whither Metellus followed him and after a second victory obtained his surrender.
Province donia.
The four Macedonian confederacies had not voluntarily submitted to the pretender, but had simply yielded to force. According to the policy hitherto pursued there was therefore no reason for depriving the Macedonians of the shadow of independence which the battle of Pydna had still left to them; nevertheless the kingdom of Alex ander was now, by order of the senate, converted Metellus into a Roman province. This case
by clearly showed that the Roman government had changed its
system, and had resolved to substitute for the relation of clientship that of simple subjects ; and accordingly the suppression of the four Macedonian confederacies was felt throughout the whole range of the client-states as a blow directed against all. The possessions in Epirus which were formerly after the first Roman victories de tached from Macedonia —the Ionian islands and the ports of Apollonia and Epidamnus 218, 477), that had hitherto been under the jurisdiction of the Italian magistrates — were now reunited with Macedonia, so that the latter, probably as early as this period, reached on the north-west to point beyond Scodra, where Illyria began. The pro tectorate which Rome claimed over Greece proper like wise devolved, of itself, on the new governor of Macedonia. Thus Macedonia recovered its unity and nearly the same limits which had in its most flourishing times. had
it
It
a
(iL
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 363
no longer, however, the unity of a kingdom, but that of a province, retaining its communal and even, as it would seem, its district organization, but placed under an Italian governor and quaestor, whose names make their appear ance on the native coins along with the name of the country. As tribute, there was retained the old moderate land-tax, as Paullus had arranged it (ii. 509) —a sum of 100 talents (^24,000) which was allocated in fixed pro portions on the several communities. Yet the land could not forget its old glorious dynasty. A few years after the subjugation of the pseudo- Philip another pretended son of Perseus, Alexander, raised the banner of insurrection on the Nestus (Karasu), and had in a short time collected 1600 men; but the quaestor Lucius Tremellius mastered the insurrection without difficulty and pursued the fugitive
as far as Dardania (612). This was the last 143. movement of the proud national spirit of Macedonia, which two hundred years before had accomplished so great things in Hellas and Asia. Henceforward there is scarcely anything else to be told of the Macedonians, save that they continued to reckon their inglorious years from the date at which the country received its definitive provincial organization (608). 148,
Thenceforth the defence of the northern and eastern frontiers of Macedonia or, in other words, of the frontier of Hellenic civilization against the barbarians devolved on the Romans. It was conducted by them with inadequate forces and not, on the whole, with befitting energy; but with a primary view to this military object the great Egnatian highway was constructed, which as early as the time of Polybius ran from Apollonia and
the two chief ports on the west coast, across the interior to Thessalonica, and was afterwards prolonged to the Hebrus
pretender
The new province became the natural basis, 1 This road was known already by the author of the pseudo-Aristotelian
(Maritza). 1
Dyrrhachium,
Breeeo.
364 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
on the one hand for the movements against the turbulent Dalmatians, and on the other hand for the numerous ex peditions against the Illyrian, Celtic, and Thracian tribes settled to the north of the Grecian peninsula, which we shall afterwards have to exhibit in their historical con nection.
Greece proper had greater occasion than Macedonia to congratulate herself on the favour of the ruling power; and the Philhellenes of Rome might well be of opinion that the calamitous effects of the war with Perseus were disappearing, and that the state of things in general was improving there. The bitterest abettors of the now domi nant party, Lyciscus the Aetolian, Mnasippus the Boeotian, Chrematas the Acarnanian, the infamous Epirot Charops whom honourable Romans forbade even to enter their houses, descended one after another to the grave ; another generation grew up, in which the old recollections and the old antagonisms had faded. The Roman senate thought that the time for general forgiveness and oblivion had
160. come, and in 604 released the survivors of those Achaean
who had been confined for seventeen years in Italy, and whose liberation the Achaean diet had never ceased to demand. Nevertheless they were mistaken. How little the Romans with all their Philhellenism had been successful in heartily conciliating Hellenic patriotism, was nowhere more clearly apparent than in the attitude of the Greeks towards the Attalids. King Eumenes IL had been, as a friend of the Romans, extremely hated in Greece 494) but scarcely had coldness arisen between him and the Romans, when he became suddenly popular
treatise De Miraiilibus as commercial route between the Adriatic and Black seas, viz. as that along which the wine jars from Corcyra met half way those from Thasos and Lesbos. Even now runs substantially in the same direction from Durazzo, cutting through the mountains of Ba gora (Candavian chain) near the lake of Ochrida (Lychnitis), by way of Monastir to Salonica.
patriots
it
a
(ii. ;
a
CHAP. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 265
in Greece, and the Hellenic hopefuls expected the deliverer from a foreign yoke to come now from Pergamus as formerly from Macedonia. Social disorganization more especially was visibly on the increase among the petty states of Hellas now left to themselves. The country became desolate not through war and pestilence, but through the daily increasing disinclination of the higher classes to trouble themselves with wife and children; on the other hand the criminal or the thoughtless flocked as hitherto chiefly to Greece, there to await the recruiting officer. The communities sank into daily deeper debt, and into financial dishonour and a corresponding want of credit : some cities, more especially Athens and Thebes, resorted in their financial distress to direct robbery, and plundered the neighbouring communities. The internal dissensions in the leagues also — e. g. between the voluntary and the compulsory members of the Achaean confederacy — were by no means composed. If the Romans, as seems to have been the case, believed what they wished and con fided in the calm which for the moment prevailed, they were soon to learn that the younger generation in Hellas was in no respect better or wiser than the older. The
Greeks directly sought an opportunity of picking a quarrel with the Romans.
In order to screen a foul transaction, Diaeus, the president of the Achaean league for the time being, about 605 threw out in the diet the assertion that the special privileges con ceded by the Achaean league to the Lacedaemonians as members—viz. their exemption from the Achaean criminal jurisdiction, and the right to send separate embassies to Rome—were not at all guaranteed to them by the Romans. It was an audacious falsehood ; but the diet naturally believed what it wished, and, when the Achaeans showed themselves ready to make good their assertions with arms in hand, the weaker Spartans yielded for the time, or, to
Achaean ""' t149,
266 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book nr
speak more correctly, those whose surrender was demanded
by the Achaeans left the city to appear as complainants before the Roman senate. The senate answered as usual that it would send a commission to investigate the matter ; but instead of reporting this reply the envoys stated in Achaia as well as in Sparta, and in both cases falsely, that the senate had decided in their favour. The Achaeans, who felt more than ever their equality with Rome as allies and their political importance on account of the aid which the league had just rendered in Thessaly against the pseudo-
148. Philip, advanced in 606 under their strategus Damocritus into Laconia : in vain a Roman embassy on its way to Asia, at the suggestion of Metellus, admonished them to keep the peace and to await the commissioners of the senate. A battle took place, in which nearly 1000 Spartans fell, and Sparta might have been taken if Damocritus had not been
equally incapable as an officer and as a statesman. He was superseded, and his successor Diaeus, the instigator of all this mischief, zealously continued the war, while at the same time he gave to the dreaded commandant of Macedonia assurances of the full loyalty of the Achaean league. There upon the long-expected Roman commission made its appear ance, with Aurelius Orestes at its head ; hostilities were now suspended, and the Achaean diet assembled at Corinth to receive its communications. They were of an unexpected and far from agreeable character. The Romans had resolved to cancel the unnatural and forced 478) inclusion of Sparta among the Achaean states, and generally to act with vigour
168. against the Achaeans. Some years before (591) these had been obliged to release from their league the Aetolian town of Pleuron 478) now they were directed to renounce all the acquisitions which they had made since the second Macedonian war—viz. Corinth, Orchomenus, Argos, Sparta in the Peloponnesus, and Heraclea near to Oeta — and to reduce their league to the condition in which stood at the
it
(ii. ;
(il
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 167
end of the Hannibalic war. When the Achaean deputies learned this, they rushed immediately to the market-place without even hearing the Romans to an end, and communi
cated the Roman demands to the multitude ; whereupon the governing and the governed rabble with one voice resolved
to arrest at once the whole Lacedaemonians present in Corinth, because Sparta forsooth had brought on them this misfortune. The arrest accordingly took place in the most tumultuary fashion, so that the possession of Laconian names
or Laconian shoes appeared sufficient ground for imprison
ment : in fact they even entered the dwellings of the Roman envoys to seize the Lacedaemonians who had taken shelter there, and hard words were uttered against the Romans, although they did not lay hands on their persons. The envoys returned home in indignation, and made bitter and even exaggerated complaints in the senate ; but the latter,
with the same moderation which marked all its measures against the Greeks, confined itself at first to representations.
In the mildest form, and hardly mentioning satisfaction for
the insults which they had endured, Sextus Julius Caesar repeated the commands of the Romans at the diet in Aegium (spring of 607). But the leaders of affairs in Achaia with 147. the new strategus Critolaus at their head (strategus from
May 607 to May 608), as men versed in state affairs and 147-148. familiar with political arts, merely drew from that fact the inference that the position of Rome with reference to Car
thage and Viriathus could not but be very unfavourable,
and continued at once to cheat and to affront the Romans. Caesar was requested to arrange a conference of deputies of the contending parties at Tegea for the settlement of the
He did so ; but, after Caesar and the Lacedae monian envoys had waited there long in vain for the Achaeans, Critolaus at last appeared alone and informed them that the general assembly of the Achaeans was solely competent in this matter, and that it could only be settled
question.
968 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
at the diet or, in other words, in six months. Caesar there upon returned to Rome ; and the next national assembly of the Achaeans on the proposal of Critolaus formally declared war against Sparta. Even now Metellus made an attempt amicably to settle the quarrel, and sent envoys to Corinth ; but the noisy ecclesia, consisting mostly of the populace of that wealthy commercial and manufacturing city, drowned the voice of the Roman envoys and compelled them to leave the platform. The declaration of Critolaus, that they wished the Romans to be their friends but not their masters, was received with inexpressible delight ; and, when the members of the diet wished to interpose, the mob protected the man after its own heart, and applauded the sarcasms as to the high treason of the rich and the need of a military dictator ship as well as the mysterious hints regarding an impending insurrection of countless peoples and kings against Rome.
The spirit animating the movement is shown by the two resolutions, that all clubs should be permanent and all actions for debt should be suspended till the restoration of peace.
The Achaeans thus had war; and they had even actual allies, namely the Thebans and Boeotians and also the 148. Chalcidians. At the beginning of 608 the Achaeans
advanced into Thessaly to reduce to obedience Heraclea near to Oeta, which, in accordance with the decree of the senate, had detached itself from the Achaean league. The consul Lucius Mummius, whom the senate had resolved to send to Greece, had not yet arrived ; accordingly Metellus undertook to protect Heraclea with the Macedonian legions. When the advance of the Romans was announced to the Achaeo-Theban army, there was no more talk of fighting ; they deliberated only how they might best succeed in reach ing once more the secure Peloponnesus ; in all haste the army made off, and did not even attempt to hold the
at Thermopylae. But Metellus quickened the
position
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 369
pursuit, and overtook and defeated the Greek army near Scarpheia in Locris. The loss in prisoners and dead was considerable ; Critolaus was never heard of after the battle. The remains of the defeated army wandered about Greece in single troops, and everywhere sought admission in vain ; the division of Patrae was destroyed in Phocis, the Arcadian select corps at Chaeronea ; all northern Greece was evacuated, and only a small portion of the Achaean army and of the citizens of Thebes, who fled in a body, reached the Peloponnesus. Metellus sought by the utmost modera tion to induce the Greeks to abandon their senseless resistance, and gave orders, for example, that all the Thebans with a single exception, should be allowed their liberty; his well-meant endeavours were thwarted not by the energy
of the people, but by the desperation of the leaders apprehensive for their own safety. Diaeus, who after the fall of Critolaus had resumed the chief command, summoned all men capable of bearing arms to the isthmus, and ordered
12,000 slaves, natives of Greece, to be enrolled in the army ; the rich were applied to for advances, and the ranks of the friends of peace, so far as they did not purchase their lives by bribing the ruling agents in this reign of terror, were thinned by bloody prosecutions. The war accordingly was continued, and after the same style. The Achaean vanguard, which, 4000 strong, was stationed under Alcamenes at Megara, dispersed as soon as it saw the Roman standards. Metellus was just about to order an attack upon the main force on the isthmus, when the consul Lucius Mummius with a few attendants arrived at the Roman head-quarters and took the command. Meanwhile the Achaeans, emboldened by a successful attack on the too incautious Roman outposts, offered battle to the Roman army, which was about twice as strong, at Leucopetra on the isthmus. The Romans were not slow to accept At the very first
the Achaean horsemen broke off en masse before the Roman
it.
Province of *'
a-jo THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
cavalry of six times their strength ; the hoplites withstood the enemy till a flank attack by the Roman select corps brought confusion also into their ranks. This terminated the resistance. Diaeus fled to his home, put his wife to death, and took poison himself. All the cities submitted without opposition ; and even the impregnable Corinth, into which Mummius for three days hesitated to enter because he feared an ambush, was occupied by the Romans without a blow.
The renewed regulation of the affairs of Greece was entrusted to a commission of ten senators in concert with the consul Mummius, who left behind him on the whole a blessed memory in the conquered country. Doubtless it was, to say the least, a foolish thing in him to assume the name of " Achaicus " on account of his feats of war and victory, and to build in the fulness of his gratitude a temple to Hercules Victor; but, as he had not been reared in aristocratic luxury and aristocratic corruption but was a " new man " and comparatively without means, he showed himself an upright and indulgent adminis trator. The statement, that none of the Achaeans per ished but Diaeus and none of the Boeotians but Pytheas, is a rhetorical exaggeration : in Chalcis especially sad outrages occurred; but yet on the whole modera tion was observed in the infliction of penalties. Mum mius rejected the proposal to throw down the statues of Philopoemen, the founder of the Achaean patriotic party; the fines imposed on the communities were destined not for the Roman exchequer, but for the in jured Greek cities, and were mostly remitted afterwards ; and the property of those traitors who had parents or children was not sold on public account, but handed over to their relatives. The works of art alone were carried away from Corinth, Thespiae, and other cities and
erected partly in the capital, partly in the country
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES *Jl
towns of Italy : * several pieces were also presented to the Isthmian, Delphic, and Olympic temples. In the definitive organization of the country also moderation was in general displayed. It is true that, as was implied in the very intro duction of the provincial constitution 210), the special confederacies, and the Achaean in particular, were as such dissolved the communities were isolated and intercourse between them was hampered the rule that no one might acquire landed property simultaneously in two communities. Moreover, as Flamininus had already attempted (ii. 441), the democratic constitutions of the towns were altogether set aside, and the government in each community was placed in the hands of council composed of the wealthy. A fixed land-tax to be paid to Rome was imposed on each community and they were all subordinated to the governor of Macedonia in such a manner that the latter, as supreme military chief, exercised superintendence over administra tion and justice, and could, for example, personally assume the decision of the more important " criminal processes. Yet the Greek communities retained freedom," that formal sovereignty —reduced, doubtless, by the Roman hegemony to name—which involved the property of the soil and the right to distinct administration and jurisdic tion of their own. * Some years later not only were the old
At Sabine townships, at Parma, and even at Italica in Spain (p. 214), several pediments marked with the name of Mummius have been brought to light, which once supported gifts forming part of the spoil.
The question whether Greece did or did not become a Roman
province in 608, virtually runs into dispute about words.
that the Greek communities throughout remained '' free (C.
15 Caesar, B. C. in. Appian, Mithr. 58 Zonar. ix. 31).
no less certain that Greece was then taken possession of " by the Romans (Tac. Ann. xiv. 31 Maccab. viii. 9, 10) that thenceforth each com munity paid a fixed tribute to Rome (Pausan. vii. 16, comp. Cic. Dt Prw. Com. 3, 5), the little island of Gyarus, for instance, paying 150 drachmae annually (Strabo, x.
485); that the "rods and axes" of the Roman governor thenceforth ruled in Greece Polyb. xxxviii. c. comp. Cic. Verr. ai, 55), and that he thenceforth exercised the superintend ence over the constitutions of the cities (C. Gr. 1543), as well as in certain cases the criminal jurisdiction (C. Gr. 1543 Pint, Cim. a), Just
certain 148.
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272 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES BOOK IV
confederacies again allowed to have a shadowy existence, but the oppressive restriction on the alienation of landed property was removed.
The communities of Thebes, Chalcis, and Corinth ex perienced a treatment more severe. There is no ground for censure in the fact that the two former were disarmed and converted by the demolition of their walls into open villages ; but the wholly uncalled-for destruction of the flourishing Corinth, the first commercial city in Greece, remains a dark stain on the annals of Rome. By express orders from the senate the Corinthian citizens were seized, and such as were not killed were sold into slavery ; the city itself was not only deprived of its walls and its citadel —a measure which,
as the senate had hitherto done ; and that, lastly, the Macedonian pro vincial era was also in use in Greece. Between these facts there is no inconsistency, or at any rate none further than is involved in the position of the free cities generally, which are spoken of sometimes as if excluded from the province (e. g. Sueton. Can. , 35 ; Colum. xL 3, 26), sometimes as assigned to it (e. g. Joseph. Ant. Jvd. xiv. 4, 4). The Roman domanial possessions in Greece were, no doubt, restricted to the territory of Corinth and possibly some portions of Euboea (6'. /. Gr. 5879), and there were no subjects in the strict sense there at all ; yet if we look to the relations practically subsisting between the Greek communities and the Macedonian governor, Greece may be reckoned as included in the province of Macedonia in the same manner as Massilia in the province of Narbo or Dyrrhachium in that of Macedonia. We find even cases that go much
89. further : Cisalpine Gaul consisted after 665 of mere burgess or Latin com munities and was yet made a province by Sulla, and in the time of Caesar we meet with regions which consisted exclusively of burgess-communities and yet by no means ceased to be provinces. In these cases the funda mental idea of the Roman provincia comes out very clearly ; it was primarily nothing but a "command," and all the administrative and
judicial functions of the commandant were originally collateral duties and corollaries of his military position.
On the other hand, if we look to the formal sovereignty of the free com munities, it must be granted that the position of Greece was not altered in 146. point of constitutional law by the events of 608. It was a difference de
facto rather than de jure, when instead of the Achaean league the indi vidual communities of Achaia now appeared by the side of Rome as tribu tary protected states, and when, after the erection of Macedonia as a separate Roman province, the latter relieved the authorities of the capital of the superintendence over the Greek client-states. Greece therefore may or may not be regarded as a part of the " command " of Macedonia, according as the practical or the formal point of view preponderates ; but the preponderance is justly conceded to the former.
CHAP. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES »73
if the Romans were not disposed permanently to garrison was certainly inevitable — but was levelled with the
ground, and all rebuilding on the desolate site was pro hibited in the usual forms of accursing part of its territory was given to Sicyon under the obligation that the latter should defray the costs of the Isthmian national festival in room of Corinth, but the greater portion was declared to be public land of Rome. Thus was extinguished " the eye of Hellas," the last precious ornament of the Grecian land, once so rich in cities. If, however, we review the whole catastrophe, the impartial historian must acknowledge — what the Greeks of this period themselves candidly confessed —that the Romans were not to blame for the war itself, but that on the contrary the foolish perfidy and the feeble temerity of the Greeks compelled the Roman intervention. The abolition of the mock sovereignty of the leagues and of all the vague and pernicious dreams connected with them was blessing for the country and the government of the Roman commander-in-chief of Macedonia, however much
fell short of what was to be wished, was yet far better than the previous confusion and misrule of Greek confeder acies and Roman commissions. The Peloponnesus ceased to be the great harbour of mercenaries affirmed, and may readily be believed, that with the direct government of Rome security and prosperity in some measure returned. The epigram of Themistocles, that ruin had averted ruin, was applied the Hellenes of that day not altogether without reason to the loss of Greek independence. The singular in dulgence, which Rome even now showed towards the Greeks, becomes fully apparent only when compared with the contem porary conduct of the same authorities towards the Spaniards and Phoenicians. To treat barbarians with cruelty seemed not unallowable, but the Romans of this period, like the emperor Trajan in later times, deemed "harsh and bar barous to deprive Athens and Sparta of the shadow of
VOL III
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freedom which they still retained. " All the more marked is the contrast between this general moderation and the revolting treatment of Corinth — a treatment disapproved by the orators who defended the destruction of Numantia and Carthage, and far from justified, even according to Roman international law, by the abusive language uttered against the Roman deputies in the streets of Corinth. And yet it by no means proceeded from the brutality of any tingle individual, least of all of Mummius, but was a measure deliberated and resolved on by the Roman senate. We shall not err, if we recognize it as the work of the mercantile party, which even thus early began to interfere in politics by the side of the aristocracy proper, and which in destroying Corinth got rid of a commercial rival. If the great merchants of Rome had anything to say in the regula tion of Greece, we can understand why Corinth was singled out for punishment, and why the Romans not only destroyed the city as it stood, but also prohibited any future settlement on a site so pre-eminently favourable for commerce. The Peloponnesian Argos thenceforth became the rendezvous for the Roman merchants, who were very numerous even in Greece. For the Roman wholesale traffic, however, Delos was
168. of greater importance ; a Roman free port as early as 586, it had attracted a great part of the business of Rhodes (ii. 5 1 5), and now in a similar way entered on the heritage of Corinth. This island remained for a considerable time the chief emporium for merchandise going from the east to the west. 1
In the third and more distant continent the Roman dominion exhibited a development more imperfect than in
1 A remarkable proof of this is found in the names employed to designate the fine bronze and copper wares of Greece, which in the time of Cicero were called indiscriminately ' ' Corinthian " or " Delian " copper. Their designation in Italy was naturally derived not from the places of manufacture but from those of export (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 2, 9) ; although, of course, we do not mean to deny that similar vases were manufactured in Corinth and Delos themselves.
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES «75
the African and Macedono-Hellenic countries, which were
separated from Italy only by narrow seas.
In Asia Minor, after the Seleucids were driven back, Kingdom
the kingdom of Pergamus had become the first power. Not led astray by the traditions of the Alexandrine monarchies, but sagacious and dispassionate enough to renounce what was impossible, the Attalids kept quiet; and endeavoured not to extend their bounds nor to with draw from the Roman hegemony, but to promote the prosperity of their empire, so far as the Romans allowed, and to foster the arts of peace. Nevertheless they did not escape the jealousy and suspicion of Rome. In possession of the European shore of the Propontis, of the west coast of Asia Minor, and of its interior as far as the Cappadocian and Cilician frontiers, and in close connection with the
Syrian kings —one of whom, Antiochus Epiphanes (f 590), 164. had ascended the throne by the aid of the Attalids—king Eumenes II. had by his power, which seemed still more considerable from the more and more deep decline of Macedonia and Syria, instilled apprehension in the minds
even of its founders. We have already related
how the senate sought to humble and weaken this ally after the third Macedonian war unbecoming diplomatic arts. The relations — perplexing from the very nature of the case —of the rulers of Pergamus towards the free or half-free commercial cities within their kingdom, and towards their barbarous neighbours on its borders, became complicated still more painfully by this ill humour on the part of their
As was not clear whether, according to the treaty of peace in 565, the heights of the Taurus in 189. Pamphylia and Pisidia belonged to the kingdom of Syria or
to that of Pergamus (ii 474), the brave Selgians, nominally recognizing, as would seem, the Syrian supremacy, made
prolonged and energetic resistance to the kings Eumenes II. and Attalus II. «a the hardly accessible mountains of
patrons.
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Pisidia. The Asiatic Celts also, who for a time with the permission of the Romans had yielded allegiance to Pergamus, revolted from Eumenes and, in concert with Prusias king of Bithynia the hereditary enemy of the
107. Attalids, suddenly began war against him about 587. The king had had no time to hire mercenary troops ; all his skill and valour could not prevent the Celts from defeating the Asiatic militia and overrunning his territory ; the peculiar mediation, to which the Romans condescended at the request of Eumenes, has already been mentioned
512) But, as soon as he had found time with the help of his well-
filled exchequer to raise an army capable of taking the field, he speedily drove the wild hordes back over the frontier and, although Galatia remained lost to him, and his obstinately-continued attempts to maintain his footing there were frustrated Roman influence,1 he yet, in spite of all the open attacks and secret machinations which his neighbours and the Romans directed against him, at his
Several letters recently brought to light (Mlinchener SUeungsberichte, i860, p. 180 et seq. ) from the kings Eumenes II. and Attains II. to the priest of Pessinus, who was uniformly called Attis (comp. Polyb. xxii. 20), very clearly illustrate these relations. The earliest of these and the only one with a date, written in the 34th year of the reign of Eumenes on the
164-168. 7th day before the end of Gorpiaeus, and therefore in 590-1 u. C offers to the priest military aid in order to wrest from the Pesongi (not otherwise known) temple-land occupied by them. The following, likewise from Eumenes, exhibits the king as a party in the feud between the priest of Pessinus and his brother Aiorix. Beyond doubt both acts of Eumenes were included among those which were reported at Rome in 590 et teq. as attempts on his part to interfere further in Gallic affairs, and to support his partisans in that quarter Polyb. xxxi. xxxii. 3,5). On the other hand plain from one of the letters of his successor Attalus that the times had changed and his wishes had lowered their tone. The priest Attis appears to have at a conference at Apamea obtained once more from Attalus the promise of armed assistance but afterwards the king writes to him that in state council held for the purpose, at which Athenaeus (certainly the ! *iown brother of the king), Sosander, Menogenes, Chlorus, and other relatives (ivayKcuoi) had been present, after long hesitation the majority had at length acceded to the opinion of Chlorus that nothing should be done without previously consulting the Romans for, even a success were obtained, they would expose themselves to its being lost
161.
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death (about 595) left his kingdom in standing un- 159. diminished. His brother Attalus II. Philadelphia (t 616) 138. with Roman aid repelled the attempt of Pharnaces king of Pontus to seize the guardianship of Eumenes' son who was
a minor, and reigned in the room of his nephew, like Antigonus Doson, as guardian for life. Adroit, able, pliant,
a genuine Attalid, he had the art to convince the suspicious
senate that the apprehensions which it had formerly cherished were baseless. The anti-Roman party accused
him of having to do with keeping the land for the Romans,
and of acquiescing in every insult and exaction at their
hands; but, sure of Roman protection, he was able to interfere decisively in the disputes as to the succession to
the throne in Syria, Cappadocia, and Bithynia. Even from
the dangerous Bithynian war, which king Prusias II. , surnamed the Hunter (S72? -6o5), a ruler who combined 182-149. in his own person all the vices of barbarism and of civiliza
tion, began against him, Roman intervention saved him — although not until he had been himself besieged in his
capital, and a first warning given by the Romans had remained unattended to, and had even been scoffed at, by
Prusias (598—600). But, when his ward Attalus III. 156-154. Philometor ascended the throne (616-621), the peaceful 138-133. and moderate rule of the citizen kings was replaced by the
tyranny of an Asiatic sultan ; under which for instance, the king, with a view to rid himself of the inconvenient counsel of his father's friends, assembled them in the palace, and ordered his mercenaries to put to death first them, and then their wives and children. Along with such recreations he wrote treatises on gardening, reared poisonous plants, and prepared wax models, till a sudden death carried him off.
With him the house of the Attalids became extinct. In Province of such an event, according to the constitutional law which ****"
held good at least for the client-states of Rome, the last
War JJrijjJ^
«78 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
ruler might dispose of the succession
Whether it was the insane rancour against his subjects
which had tormented the last Attalid during life that now suggested to him the thought of bequeathing his kingdom by will to the Romans, or whether his doing so was merely a further recognition of the practical supremacy of Rome, cannot be determined. The testament was made;1 the Romans accepted the bequest, and the question as to the
land and the treasure of the Attalids threw a new apple of contention among the conflicting political parties in Rome. In Asia also this royal testament kindled a civil war.
Relying on the aversion of the Asiatics to the foreign rule which awaited them, Aristonicus, a natural son of Eumenes II. , made his appearance in Leucae, a small seaport between Smyrna and Phocaea, as a pretender to the crown. Phocaea and other towns joined him, but he was defeated at sea off Cyme by the Ephesians —who saw that a steady adherence to Rome was the only possible way of preserving their privileges—and was obliged to flee into the interior. The movement was believed to have died away when he suddenly reappeared at the head of the new "citizens of the city of the sun," 2 in other words, of the slaves whom he
by testament
1 In the same testament the king gave to his city Pergamus " freedom," that is the b-qnoKparia. urban self-government. According to the tenor of • remarkable document that has recently been found there (Staatsrtcht, in*, p. 726) after the testament was opened, but before its confirmation by the Romans, the Demos thus constituted resolved to confer urban burgess- rights on the classes of the population hitherto excluded from them, especially on the paroeci entered in the census and on the soldiers dwelling in town and country, including the Macedonians, in order thus to bring about a good understanding among the whole population. Evidently the burgesses, in confronting the Romans with this comprehensive reconcilia tion as an accomplished fact, desired, before the Roman rule was properly introduced, to prepare themselves against it and to take away from the foreign rulers the possibility of using the differences of rights within the population for breaking up its municipal freedom.
1 These strange " Heliopolites " may, according to the probable opinion which a friend has expressed to me, be accounted for by supposing that the liberated slaves constituted themselves citizens of a town Heliopolis —not otherwise mentioned or perhaps having an existence merely in imagination
CHAp. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 279
had called to freedom en masse, mastered the Lydian towns
of Thyatira and Apollonis as well as a portion of the Attalic townships, and summoned bands of Thracian free-lances to
join his standard. The struggle was serious. There were
no Roman troops in Asia ; the Asiatic free cities and the contingents of the client-princes of Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia, could not withstand the pretender ; he penetrated by force of arms into Colophon, Samos, and Myndus, and already ruled over almost all his father's kingdom, when at the close of 623 a Roman army 181 landed in Asia. Its commander, the consul and pontifex maxim us Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus, one of the wealthiest and at the same time one of the most cultivated
men in Rome, equally distinguished as an orator and as a jurist, was about to besiege the pretender in Leucae, but during his preparations for that purpose allowed himself to be surprised and defeated by his too -much -underrated opponent, and was made a prisoner in person by a Thracian band. But he did not allow such an enemy the triumph of exhibiting the Roman commander-in-chief as a captive ; he provoked the barbarians, who had captured him without knowing who he was, to put him to death (beginning of
624), and the consular was only recognised when a corpse. 180b With him, as it would seem, fell Ariarathes king of Cappadocia. But not long after this victory Aristonicus
was attacked by Marcus Perpenna, the successor of Crassus ; his army was dispersed, he himself was besieged
and taken prisoner in Stratonicea, and was soon afterwards executed in Rome. The subjugation of the last towns that
still offered resistance and the definitive regulation of the country were committed, after the sudden death of Perpenna, to Manius Aquillius (625). The same policy 12*. was followed as in the case of the Carthaginian
for the moment —which derived its name from the God of the Sun so highly honoured in Syria.
territory.
Western sa*
2&> THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
The eastern portion of the kingdom of the Attalids was assigned to the client kings, so as to release the Romans from the protection of the frontier and thereby from the necessity of maintaining a standing force in Asia ; Telmissus (ii. 474) went to the Lycian confederacy; the European possessions in Thrace were annexed to the province of Macedonia ; the rest of the territory was organized as a new Roman province, which like that of Carthage was, not without design, designated by the name of the continent in which it lay. The land was released from the taxes which had been paid to Pergamus ; and it was treated with the same moderation as Hellas and Macedonia. Thus the most considerable state in Asia Minor became a Roman province.
The numerous other small states and cities of western Asia—the kingdom of Bithynia, the Paphlagonian and Gallic principalities, the Lycian and Pamphylian confeder acies, the free cities of Cyzicus and Rhodes —continued in their former circumscribed relations.
Beyond the Halys Cappadocia —after king Ariarathes V. 163-180. Philopator (591-624) had, chiefly by the aid of the Attalids,
held his ground against his brother and rival Holophernes who was supported by Syria — followed substantially the Pergamene policy, as respected both absolute devotion to Rome and the tendency to adopt Hellenic culture. He was the means of introducing that culture into the hitherto almost barbarous Cappadocia, and along with it its extrava gancies also, such as the worship of Bacchus and the dissolute practices of the bands of wandering actors—the " artists " as they were called. In reward for the fidelity to Rome, which had cost this prince his life in the struggle with the Pergamene pretender, his youthful heir Ariarathes VI. was not only protected by the Romans against the usurpation attempted by the king of Pontus, but received also the south-eastern part of the kingdom of the Attalids,
Cappa-
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 281
Lycaonia, along with the district bordering on it to the eastward reckoned in earlier times as part of Cilicia.
In the remote north-east of Asia Minor " Cappadocia on Pontus. the sea," or more briefly the " sea-state," Pontus, increased
in extent and importance. Not long after the battle of Magnesia king Pharnaces I. had extended his dominion
far beyond the Halys to Tius on the frontier of Bithynia,
and in particular had possessed himself of the rich Sinope,
which was converted from a Greek free city into the residence of the kings of Pontus. It is true that the neighbouring states endangered by these encroachments,
with king Eumenes II. at their head, had on that account
waged war against him (571—575), and under Roman 183-179. mediation had exacted from him a promise to evacuate
Galatia and Paphlagonia ; but the course of events shows
that Pharnaces as well as his successor Mithradates V. Euergetes (598 ? —634), faithful allies of Rome in the third 156-120. Punic war as well as in the struggle with Aristonicus, not
only remained in possession beyond the Halys, but also
in substance retained the protectorate over the Paphlago-
nian and Galatian dynasts. It is only on this hypothesis
that we can explain how Mithradates, ostensibly for
his brave deeds in the war against Aristonicus, but in
reality for considerable sums paid to the Roman general,
could receive Great Phrygia from the latter after the dis solution of the Attalid kingdom. How far on the other hand the kingdom of Pontus about this time extended in the direction of the Caucasus and the sources of the Euphrates, cannot be precisely determined ; but it seems to have embraced the western part of Armenia about Enderes and Divirigi, or what was called Lesser Armenia, as a dependent satrapy, while the Greater Armenia and Sophene formed distinct and independent kingdoms.
Syrlm ue stantially conducted the government and, although much ^Jrpt
While in the peninsula of Asia Minor Rome thus sub-
282 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
was done without or in opposition to her wishes, yet deter mined on the whole the state of possession, the wide tracts on the other hand beyond the Taurus and the Upper Euphrates as far down as the valley of the Nile continued to be mainly left to themselves. No doubt the principle which
189. formed the basis of the regulation of Oriental affairs in 565, viz. that the Halys should form the eastern boundary of the Roman client-states (ii. 475), was not adhered to by the senate and was in its very nature untenable. The political horizon is a self-deception as well as the physical ; if the state of Syria had the number of ships of war and war- elephants allowed to it prescribed in the treaty of peace
and the Syrian army at the bidding of the
47
Roman senate evacuated Egypt when half-won
516), these things implied complete recognition of hegemony and of clientship. Accordingly the disputes as to the
throne in Syria and in Egypt were referred for settlement to
the Roman government. In the former after the death of 164. Antiochus Epiphanes (590) Demetrius afterwards named
Soter, the son of Seleucus IV. , living as hostage at Rome, and Antiochus Eupator, minor, the son of the last king Antiochus Epiphanes, contended for the crown; in the
111-146. latter Ptolemy Philometor (573-608), the elder of the two 170. brothers who had reigned jointly since 584, had been driven 164. from the country (590) by the younger Ptolemy Euergetes 117. II. or the Fat 637), and had appeared in person at
Rome to procure his restoration. Both affairs were arranged the senate entirely through diplomatic agency, and substantially in accordance with Roman advantage. In Syria Demetrius, who had the better title, was set aside, and Antiochus Eupator was recognized as king while the guardianship of the royal boy was entrusted the senate to the Roman senator Gnaeus Octavius, who, as was to be expected, governed thoroughly in the interest of Rome, reduced the war-marine and the army of elephants agree
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ably to the treaty of 565, and was in the fair way of com- 189. pleting the military ruin of the country. In Egypt not
only was the restoration of Philometor accomplished, but —partly in order to put an end to the quarrel between the brothers, partly in order to weaken the still considerable power of Egypt—Cyrene was separated from"that kingdom
and assigned as a provision for Euergetes. The Romans make kings of those whom they wish," a Jew wrote not long after this, " and those whom they do not wish they chase away from land and people. " But this was the last occasion —
for a long time—on which the Roman senate came forward
in the affairs of the east with that ability and energy, which
it had uniformly displayed in the complications with Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus. Though the internal decline of
the government was late in affecting the treatment of foreign affairs, yet it did affect them at length. The govern ment became unsteady and vacillating; they allowed the reins which they had just grasped to slacken and almost to
slip from their hands. The guardian-regent of Syria was murdered at Laodicea ; the rejected pretender Demetrius escaped from Rome and, setting aside the youthful prince, seized the government of his ancestral kingdom under the bold pretext that the Roman senate had fully empowered
him to do so (592).