Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/300

 288 FLA FLA extended for a second year. Flamininus, having thus secured his own object, showed no disposition to temporize with Philip, and the negotiations were abruptly broken off. The perfidy of Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, secured him a valuable ally and the help of Argos, which Philip had delivered over to Nabis to garrison. Thebes, and with it Boeotia, was gained over partly by persuasion and partly by stratagem, and in the ensuing spring, 197 B.C., Flamin inus took the field with nearly all Greece at his back. After a cavalry skirmish near Pheree, the main armies met at Cynoscephalae, a low range of hills so called from a fanciful resemblance to dogs heads. It was the first time that the Macedonian phalanx and the Koman legion had met in open fight, and the day decided which nation was to be master of Greece and perhaps of the world. It was a victory of in telligence over brute force, and, where numbers and courage were equally matched, the superior strategy aud presence of mind of the Roman general turned the scale. The left wing of the Roman army was retiring in hopeless confusion before the deep and serried ranks of the Macedonian right lad by Philip in person, when Flamininus, leaving them to their fate, boldly charged the left wing under Nicanor, vrhich was forming on the heights. The phalanx was like a steam hammer, irresistible if it hit its object, but moving only in one direction, and easily thrown out of gear. Before the left wing had time to form, Flamininus was upon them, and a massacre rather than a fight ensued. This defeat was turned into a general rout by a nameless tribune who collected twenty companies and charged in rear the victorious Macedonian phalanx, which in its pursuit had left the Roman right far behind. 8000 Macedonians were killed and 5000 taken prisoners, while the Romans lost only 700. Macedonia was now at the mercy of Rome, and Flamininus might have dictated what terms he liked, but he showed his usual moderation and farsightedness in disregarding the root-and-branch politics of his ^Etolian allies, whose heads were turned by the part they had taken in the victory, and contenting himself with his previous demands. Philip lost all his foreign possessions, but retained his Macedonian kingdom almost entire. Such a valuable bulwark against the outer world of Thracians and Celts was not lightly to be removed. Ten commis sioners arrived from Rome to regulate the final terms of peace, and at the Isthmian games which were celebrated at Corinth in the spring of 196 B.C. a herald proclaimed to the assembled crowds that &quot;the Roman people, and T. Quinctius their general, having conquered King Philip and the Macedonians, declare all the Greek states which had been subject to the king henceforward free and inde pendent.&quot; A shout of joy arose so loud that it was heard by the sailors in the harbour, and in Plutarch s time the legend told how birds flying over the course had dropped down stunned by the noise. The games were forgotten, and all crowded round the proconsul eager to kiss the hands of the liberator of Greece, who was almost smothered with chaplets and garlands. This day was indeed the climax of Flamininus s career, of which even the stately triumph that two years later he obtained at Rome must have seemed but a pale reflection. Of the rest of his public life, which was mainly occupied i:i consolidating the fruits of the victory of Cynoscephala3, we can only give the barest outline ; but we will first attempt to estimate his work, and discuss how far he merited the proud title of benefactor of Greece, which Greeks and Romans alike bestowed on him. That he was animated by an ardent love of the Greek name and race, as genuine as that of Byron, of Canning, or of Kanaris, admits of no reasonable doubt. To attribute to Flaminiuus a Macchiavel- lian policy, as if he could have foreseen Corinth overthrown and Achaia turned into a Roman province, is not only disingenuous but absurd. There is more force in the charge which Mommsen brings against him, that his Hellenic sympathies prevented him from seeing the innate weakness and mutual jealousies of the Greek states of that period, whose only hope of peace and safety lay in sub mitting to the protectorate of the Roman republic. But if the event proved that the liberation of Greece was a political mistake, it was a noble and generous mistake, and reflects nothing but honour on the name of Flamininus. The only military enterprise that remained after the conquest of Philip was to crush Nabis, who still held Argos, as well as his own tyranny of Sparta. In allowing the conquered tyrant to retain his native possessions, Flamininus was probably influenced by consideration for the Spartans, who would never, except under compulsion, have submitted to the Achaean league. His last act before returning home is characteristic of the man. Of the Achseans, who vied with one another in showering upon him honours and rewards, he asked but one personal favour, the redemption of the Italian captives who had been sold as slaves in Greece during the Hannibalic war. These to the number of 1200 were presented to him on the eve of his departure, and formed the chief ornament of his triumph. In 192 B.C., on the rupture between the Romans and Antiochus, Flamininus returned to Greece, this time as the civil representative of Rome. His personal influence and skilful diplomacy secured the wavering Achaean states, cemented the alliance with Philip, and contributed mainly to the Roman victory of Thermopylae. Chalcis and Naupactus, which had joined the enemy, owed their preser vation to his interposition with the consul Glabrio. In 189 B.C. he was made censor. In this office his fair fame was sullied by an unseemly quarrel with Cato. Brotherly affection tempted him to shield from just punishment a dissolute and brutal ruffian. In 183 B.C. he undertook an embassy to Prusias, to induce the king of Bithynia to de liver up Hannibal. Hannibal forestalled his fate by taking poison, and his dying words justly stigmatized this pitiful victory over a defenceless and destitute old man. The only excuse for his conduct is that it was prompted not by wanton cruelty or love of revenge, motives which were wholly alien to his character, but by restless ambition and an inordinate love of glory, the infirmities of a truly noble nature. The history of his later years is a blank, and we only learn from his biographer Plutarch that his end was peaceful and happy. (F. s.) FLAMINIUS, CAIUS, an eminent member of the plebeian gens Flaminia, who in the course of fifteen years of public life (232-217 B.C.) held successively the offices of tribune, praetor, and censor, and was twice advanced to the consular dignity. During his tribuneship (232 B.c.) he was success ful in carrying a measure for distributing viritim among the plebeians, in terms of the Licinian law, the ager Gallicus Picenus, an extensive tract of newly-acquired territory lying along the east coast of the peninsula to the south of Ariminum. This law was carried in face of the determined opposition of the entire senatorial party, who, according to Valerius Maximus (lib. v., c. 4, sec. 5), at one stage threatened to declare him a public enemy and raise an army against him should he persevere in his agitation. In 227 B.C. he was appointed praetor, Sicily being assigned to him as his province ; and there he so conducted himself as to win the. lasting gratitude of the people whom he governed. This they took occasion to show thirty years afterwards when his son was curule sedile. In 223 B.C. he was made consul, and, along with his colleague P. Furius Philus, hastened at once to the north to prosecute the Gallic war, which had been occasioned, it is said, by the operation of his own agrarian law, and which had been going on with