Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/505

 <!JIAP. n. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 499 As soon as the Romans apj^eared in Greece, the aristocracy surrendered to them. Hardly anybody thought then that they were choosing between inde- pendence and subjection ; for most men the question was only between aristocracy and the popular party. In all the cities the latter was for Philip, Antiochus, or Perseus, and the former for Rome. We may see in Polybins and Livy that when Argos opened her gates, in B. C. 198, to the Macedonians, the people had the swaj' there ; that the next year, it was the party of the rich that gave up Opuntil to the Romans ; that, among the Acarnanians, the aristocracy made a treaty of alliance with Rome, and that in the following year this treaty was broken, because, in the interval, the people had recovered the ascendency ; that Thebes was allied with Philip so long as the popular party had the power, and sided with Rome the moment the aristoc- racy became the masters ; that at Athens, at Deme- trias, and at Phocasa the populace were hostile to the Romans ; that Nabis, the democratic tyrant, made war upon them ; that the Achtean leaguej as long as it was governed by the aristocracy, was favorable to them; that men like Philopoemen and Polybius desired na- tional independence, but preferred Roman rule to democracy; that in the Achaean league itself there came a moment when the pojjular party rose in its turn, and from that moment the league was the enemy of Rome; that Diajus and Critolaus were at the same time the chiefs of the popular faction and the gencrala of the league against the Romans, and that they foughi bravely at Scarphea and at Leucopetra, less perliaps for the independence of Greece than for the triumph of democracy. Such facts show clearly enough how Rome, without