Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/422

 390 HISTORY OF GREECE. donia by the temporary combination of Lysimachus ^vith Pjr. rhus, and afterwards remained (until his death in 283 n. c.) a captive in the hands of Seleukus. After a brief possession of the crown of Macedonia successively by Seleukus, Ptolemy, Keraunus, Meleagei*, Antipater, and Sosthenes — Antigonus Gonatas regained it in 277 B. c. His descendants the Antigo- nid kings maintained it until the battle of Pydna in 1 08 b. c. ; when Perseus, the last of them, was overthrown, and his king- dom incorporated with the Roman conquests.* Of Greece during this period we can give no account, except that the greater number of its cities Avere in dependence upon Demeti'ius and his son Antigonus ; either under occupation by Macedonian garrisons, or ruled by local despots who leaned on foreign mercenaries and Macedoiiian support. The spirit of the Gi'eeks was broken, and their habits of combined sentiment and action had disappeared. The invasion of the Gauls indeed awakened them into a temporary union for the defence of Ther- mopylaj in 279 B. c. So intolerable was the cruelty and spolia- tion of those barbarian invaders, that the cities as well as Anti- gonus wei'e driven by fear to the efforts necessary for repelling them.^ A gallant army of Hellenic confederates was mustered. In the mountains of ^tolia and in the neighborhood of Delphi, most of the Gallic horde with their king Brennus perished. But this burst of spirit did not interrupt the continuance of the Macedonian dominion in Greece, which Antigonus Gonatus con- tinued to hold throughout most of a long reign. He greatly ex- tended the system begun by his predecessors, of isolating each Grecian city from alliances with other cities in its neighborhood — planting in most of them local despots — and compressing the most important by means of garrisons.3 Among all Greeks, the ' See Mr. Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, Append. 4. p. 236-239. iZTOv Tu ^povrjfxara, to 61 iaxvpbv tov deifiarog 7rp07/yev e( uvuyKijv ry 'E>1- ?.a6i u/ivveiv iupuv Se tov te ev tu napovTL iiyiJva, ova v~£p E?.ev^Epiac ysvTjaofiEvov, Kif&a etzI tov M^6ov ttote ug ovv uizo'XidTi.ivai diov fj kiri- KpaTEOTepovg livai, /car' uvSpa te Idia kol ai noXEig 6iekelvto ev koivCj. (On the approach of the invading Gauls.) ' Polyb. ii. 40, 41. nXEiarovg yap 6ij /lovapxovg ovrog ( An'igonus Gona- tas) k/KpvTEi'^ai 60KE1. Tolg 'EXXr/ffiv. Justin, xxvi. 1.
 * Pausanias, i. 4, 1 ; x. 20, 1 . Totf (5e ye "E/iXriai KaTEneTrTLJicei. fiev ic