Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/344

314 particular towns. Nor are there wanting indications of active resistance, especially to the limitation of the franchise which seems to have been everywhere required, even in states nominally free. For instance, an inscription exists giving a copy of a despatch from the proconsul of Macedonia to the magistrates and people of Dyme in Achaia condemning to death two men who had tried to abolish this property qualification, and, in order to secure that end, had set fire to the public records and registers. But such outbreaks were rare; there was doubtless a period of peace such as the country had not known before. Even those states which were numerically free could only use troops in the service of Rome or subject to an appeal to Rome. Thus a few years before (B.C. 152) the Athenians had ventured to make a raid on the territory of Oropus. The people of Oropus promptly appealed to the Roman Senate, and the Senate commissioned the government of Sicyon to assess the damages, and when the amount assessed proved to be beyond their means, the Athenians had to send commissioners to plead before the Senate for its reduction. It was on this occasion that they were represented by the heads of the three chief philosophical schools, Carneades of the new Academy, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Diogenes the Stoic—a significant fact as showing the importance of the literary class in the city.

But though there was peace, it was in many cases the quiet of decay. Population, as already remarked, was dwindling, cities sank into villages, and poverty