Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/776

Rh 752 ROME [HISTORY. neighbour, he would, if allowed to become supreme in the ^Egean, prove as dangerous to her interests in the East as Carthage had been in the West ; nor, lastly, could Rome, in honour, look quietly on at the ill-treatment of states which, as Greeks and as allies of her own, had a double claim on her protection. To cripple or at least to stay the growth of Philip's power was in the eyes of the senate a necessity, but it was only by representing a Macedonian invasion of Italy as imminent that they persuaded the assembly, which was longing for peace, to pass a declara- tion of war l (200), an ostensible pretext for which was found in the invasion by Macedonian troops of the terri- tory of Rome's ally, Athens. The war commenced in the summer of 200 B.C., and, though the landing of the Roman legions in Epirus was not followed, as had been hoped, by any general rising , against Philip, yet the latter had soon to discover that, if they were not enthusiastic for Rome, they were still less inclined actively to assist himself. Neither by force nor diplomacy could he make any progress south of Boeotia. The fleets of Pergamum and Rhodes, now the zealous allies of Rome, protected Attica and watched the eastern coasts. The Achaeans and Nabis of Sparta were obstin- ately neutral, while nearer home in the north the Epirots and ^Etolians threatened Thessaly and Macedonia. His own resources both in men and in money had been severely strained by his constant wars, 2 and the only ally who could have given him effective assistance, Antiochus, was fully occupied with the conquest of Coele-Syria. It is no wonder then that, in spite of his dashing generalship and high courage, he made but a brief stand. T. Quinctius Flamininus (consul 198), in his first year of command, defeated him on the Aous, drove him back to the pass of Tempe, and in the next year utterly routed him at Cynos- cephalse. Almost at the same moment the Achaeans, who had now joined Rome, took Corinth, and the Rhodians defeated his troops in Caria. 3 Further resistance was impossible ; Philip submitted, and early the next year a Roman commission reached Greece with instructions to arrange terms of peace. These were such as effectually secured Rome's main object in the war, the removal of all danger to herself and her allies from Macedonian aggres- sion. 4 Philip was left in possession of his kingdom, but was degraded to the rank of a second-rate power, deprived of all possessions in Greece, Thrace, and Asia Minor, and forbidden, as Carthage had been in 201, to wage war without the consent of Rome, whose ally and friend he now became. Macedon thus weakened could no longer be formidable, but might yet be useful, not only as a barrier against Thracians and Celts, 5 but as a check upon anti-Roman intrigues in Greece. The second point in the settlement now effected by Rome was the liberation of the Greeks. The " freedom of Greece " was proclaimed at the Isthmian games amid a scene of wild enthusiasm, 6 which reached its height when two years later (194) Flamininus withdrew his troops even from the " three fetters of Greece " Chalcis, l)emetrias, and Corinth. 7 There is no reason to doubt that, in acting thus, not only Flamininus himself, but the senate and people at home were influenced, partly at any rate, by feelings of genuine sympathy with the Greeks and rever- ence for their past. It is equally clear that no other course was open to them. For Rome to have annexed Greece, as she had annexed Sicily and Spain, would have been a flagrant violation of the pledges she had repeatedly given both before and during the war ; the attempt would have excited the fiercest opposition, 1 Livy, xxxi. 6, 7. 2 Livy, xxxiii. 3. 3 Ib., 17. 4 Polyb., xviii. 44-47 ; Livy, xxxiii. 30-34. 8 Polyb., xviii. 37. 6 Livy, xxxiii. 32, 33. 7 Livy, xxxiv. 48-52. and would probably have thrown the Asiatic as well as the European Greeks into the arms of Antiochus. But a friendly and independent Greece would be at once a check on Macedon, a barrier against aggression from the East, and a promising field for Roman commerce. Nor while liberating the Greeks did Rome abstain from such arrange- ments as seemed necessary to secure the predominance of her own influence. In the Peloponnese, for instance, the Achaeans were rewarded by considerable accessions of territory; and it is possible that the Greek states, as allies of Rome, were expected to refrain from war upon each other without her consent. The failure of the policy, after all, was due to the impracticability of the Greeks, and the intensity of their civic and tribal feuds. To sup- pose as some have done that Rome intended it to fail is to attribute to the statesmen of the generation of Scipio and Flamininus even more than the cynicism of the time of L. Mummius. 8 Antiochus III. of Syria, Philip's accomplice in the pro- Wan posed partition of the dominions of their common rival, Antic Egypt, returned from the conquest of Coele-Syria (198) to J^ learn first of all that Philip was hard pressed by the "* Romans, and shortly afterwards that he had been deci- sively beaten at Cynoscephalae. It was already too late to assist his former ally, but Antiochus resolved at any rate to lose no time in securing for himself the possessions of the Ptolemies in Asia Minor and in eastern Thrace, which Philip had claimed, and which Rome now pro- nounced free and independent. In 197-196 he overran 5i Asia Minor and crossed into Thrace. 9 But Antiochus was pleasure-loving, irresolute, and above all no general, and it was not until 192 that the urgent entreaties of the 562. .^Etolians, and the withdrawal of the Roman troops from Greece, nerved him to the decisive step of crossing the ^Egean ; and even then the force he took with him was so small as to show that he completely failed to appreciate the nature of the task before him. 10 At Rome the prospect of a conflict with Antiochus excited great anxiety, and it was not until every resource of diplomacy had been exhausted that war was declared. 11 At a dis- tance, indeed, Antiochus, the great king, the lord of all the forces of Asia, seemed an infinitely more formidable opponent than their better known neighbour Philip, and a war against the vaguely known powers of the East a far more serious matter than a campaign in Thessaly. War, however, was unavoidable, unless Rome was to desert her Greek allies, and allow Antiochus to advance unopposed to the coasts of the Adriatic. And the war had no sooner commenced than the real weakness which lay behind the magnificent pretensions of the "king of kings" was revealed. Had Antiochus acted with energy when in 192 he landed in Greece, he might have won the day before the Roman legions appeared. As it was, in spite of the warnings of Hannibal, 12 who was now in his camp, and of the yEtolians, he frittered away valuable time between his pleasures at Chalcis and useless attacks on petty Thessalian towns. In 191 Glabrio landed at the head of an impos-563 ing force ; and a single battle at Thermopylae broke the courage of Antiochus, .who hastily recrossed the sea to Ephesus, leaving his ^Etolian allies to their fate. But Rome could not pause here. The safety of her faithful allies, the Pergamenes and Rhodians, and of the Greek cities in Asia Minor, as well as the necessity of chastising Antiochus, demanded an invasion of Asia. A Roman fleet 8 For the conflicting views of moderns on the action of Rome, see Mommsen, R. O., i. 718, and on the other side Ihne, R. G., iii. 62- 63, and C. Peter, Studien zur R(im. Gesch., Halle, 1863, pp. 158 sq. 9 Livy, xxxiii. 38 ; Polyb., xviii. 50. L0 Livy, xxxv. 43. 11 Livy, xxxv. 20, xxxvi. i. 12 Livy, xxxvi. 11.