Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/332

302 restlessness. In Thessaly Philip's hold on certain cities, connived at by Rome, was being resisted. In Boeotia, as in Sparta, there were disputes about the recall of exiles and signs that the Boeotian League preferred Macedonia to Rome. In the East the Lycians resented being subjects, when they believed that they were meant by the Roman award to be allies, of Rhodes, and were more than once in armed rebellion. These troubles led to constant and wearisome appeals to the Roman Senate, and eventually the renewal of war with Macedonia put an end to the farce of Greek independence, with its endless bickerings. This war had become inevitable. King Philip was extending his power in Thrace, sometimes by acts of great cruelty, thus coming into collision with the King of Pergamus, who governed the Thracian Chersonese; he was interfering in the affairs of the Illyrian princes, and was endeavouring once more to make a party for himself in Greece. These proceedings were jealously watched in Rome, and the king was irritated by frequent commissioners that visited Macedonia or parts of Greece and Thrace, where he was believed to be intriguing. His younger son Demetrius, who had visited Rome as his father's agent, was so ostentatiously patronised by them that Perseus was able, by false representations, so to inflame his father's suspicions that he at last consented to his death. The unhappy man never held up his head again; and though he continued working against the Roman influence, he died in B.C. 179, before an outbreak actually occurred. But his son Perseus succeeded to his policy as well as to the