Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/303

Rh invading Celts. In one quarter—once the least considered in Greece—freedom had never been lost. The Ætolians—a rugged people living in open villages in a mountainous country—had repelled invasions of Athenians during the Peloponnesian war and of the Macedonians both in the time of Philip and Alexander, and in that of his successors. They had taken the chief part in the repulse of the Celts, and were gradually forming a league of cities outside their own borders, in the Peloponnese, Thessaly, and the Islands. They were, as a nation, much addicted to plundering and piracy, and their acknowledged principle was that where spoils were going they would take a share without any declaration of war. Their yearly elected Strategus seems, to have had the right to go to war on his own authority, and their constant raids upon Elis, above all, are attested by many writers. They were, however, making a great position for themselves in Greece. About B.C. 240 they appear to have got the management of the Temple at Delphi into their hands, monopolising the Amphictyonic Assembly, and excluding for a time the deputies from other places, thus making themselves, in a way, the mouthpiece of Greece and the arbiters in questions as to the laws of war. However, it seems to have been thought by certain states that an union with the Ætolian League was advantageous, while in other cases their adhesion was more or less compulsory. The terms on which they joined survive in an inscription containing their treaty with the island of Ceos, which had some traditional connection with them as