THE PSEUDO-PHILIP. THE ACHÆAN WAR. DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH.
When Carthage was overpowered, the Macedonian war was already ended, and Corinth near its downfall. The Macedonian war of Andriscus is a striking example of the way in which the whole of a people may be taken in. The false Demetrius, as he was called, was in the opinion of those who knew history well, by no means an impostor: but he had been brought up in Poland, had gone over to the Roman catholic religion, and had adopted European manners; whence the mistrust which he met with in Russia. There is a very strong likelihood that one of the Sebastians in Portugal, was the true king: (Lessing, in the “Literatur briefe,” has also written a masterly article on this subject, though it was one which was out of his beat.) But Andriscus was really an impostor, most likely a Thracian gladiator; heaven knows how he could have dreamed of the venturesome idea of giving himself out as the son of Perseus: perhaps he bore some likeness to him. Such personifications are not unseldom attempted in the East; in Europe, some instances of the kind are met with in the middle ages. The war had already broken out when Scipio became consul, perhaps even a year before: (the destruction of Carthage was in the time of his proconsulship.)
Perseus and his sons were, after the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, sent as prisoners to Alba on the lake Fucinus, where they were treated in a way which clearly showed that their extinction was determined on. The king did not outlive this cruel usage more than two years; he had so childishly clung to life, that he would not listen to the hints of Æmilius Paullus, to take it himself: they probably killed him by constantly disturbing his sleep. His eldest son died in the same manner; the youngest lived in the most abject degradation. Being clever, he learnt the Latin language, and earned his daily bread as clerk to the municipal council of Alba: beyond this, we have no further trace of him.
During the Carthaginian war, Andriscus now set forth that he was a son of Perseus, and he found a party in Macedonia; being, however, unable to stand his ground, he went to Demetrius in Syria, and was by him given up to the Romans. Such an act is just what one would have expected from Demetrius, who had every reason to do his best to regain his footing with the Romans, now that he had only just escaped being punished by them. He had fled indeed from Rome after the death of his brother Antiochus Epiphanes, to secure the throne; and the Romans had sent commissioners to Syria, on hearing that the Syrians, contrary to the existing treaties, were keeping elephants, and had moreover built a greater number of ships than they were allowed. One of these commissioners was slain in a riot at Laodicea, and Demetrius, with great difficulty, turned aside the vengeance of the Romans, by yielding up the murderers and killing the elephants. Under these circumstances, it was but natural that Andriscus was given up. At Rome, this man was, as an adventurer, held in such contempt, that he was not properly guarded; and he again made his escape. He came to Thrace, where the Romans were already feared and hated; all sorts of people flocked to him there, and he made an inroad into Macedon. A war in that country was very inconvenient to the Romans, who were engaged in their enterprise against Carthage, and had no troops in the north of Greece. To the amazement of every body, Andriscus routed the Macedonians on the eastern bank of the Strymon; he then crossed the river, and beat them once more, whereupon they all joined him. His success was quite wonderful; he put on the diadem under the name of Philip. Things must at that time have been in a very dismal state in Macedon. The Romans had brought in the wretched republican constitution, and the most eminent men had been led away to Italy; so that the people, who from the earliest times had been accustomed to kingly rule, eagerly caught at this hope of bettering its lot. In Thessaly also, he found partizans. Nasica, who happened to be there, got together the contingents of the Greeks, and with their aid repulsed Philip when he invaded it: at that time, therefore, the Greeks were still faithful. Andriscus was a tyrannical fellow at bottom: Polybius calls him στυγνὸς ἀνήρ. Yet he knew how to make himself respected: his armaments were on an extraordinary scale, and he ventured to wage war even against the Roman prætor, P. Juventius Thalna; after having beaten him, he marched once more into Thessaly. Matters looked serious enough: Q. Metellus, the prætor, was obliged to go with a large army to Greece, where he landed on the coast, which could not have been easily defended; in the meanwhile, the Achæans already showed themselves very mutinous, and the war, if it lasted, could not but lead to a rising. Metellus drove the king from Thessaly, who, like Perseus, fell back upon Pydna, followed by the Romans. The Macedonians, who were superior in numbers, divided their forces for a foray; and Metellus took advantage of this, and attacked and utterly routed them. The conquest of Macedonia in this insurrection was not, however, so easy as the former one had been; for many places held out, expecting a worse fate. On this occasion Pella must have been destroyed: Dio Chrysostom, in the first century after the birth of Christ, speaks of it as a ruined city; it now lies buried under mounds of earth, and is only to be traced by the row of hills which marked its site. Undoubtedly the most interesting antiquities might be found there, especially works of art; but unfortunately, the present condition of European affairs gives little hope of any thorough researches being made there so very soon. Andriscus was taken prisoner in Thrace, and put to death: Macedon became a regular province, and from henceforth a governor seems to have been constantly sent thither; its few remaining privileges were taken away.
Had the Achæans known what they wanted, the revolt of the pseudo-Philip would have been the moment for them to act: but they allowed themselves to be beguiled into folly and absurdity. Although we cannot disguise from ourselves, that the causes which hastened on the fall of Achaia, were disgraceful to the Achæans, yet it is a fact that its ruin made the condition of the survivors not better but worse; and this awakens our sympathy for them. And moreover, this degenerate people still had among them many excellent men. The Romans had for a long time been bent on the destruction of Achaia, and by means of traitors, such as Callicrates and Andronidas, they ruled there with unlimited sway; hence causes for grievances arose, and when these fellows had once gained a settled position, they too were no longer as ready to do the dirty work as before. The catastrophe was wholly brought on by one unhappy violent act of the otherwise excellent Philopœmen, a man who was justly called the last of the Greeks. He entertained from his very childhood a deadly hatred against Sparta, since Cleomenes had destroyed his native town of Megalopolis; and to bring down Sparta, was what he ever had most at heart. He took advantage of Rome’s being entangled in the war of Antiochus, to compel Sparta to join the Achæan league, and to adopt its customs and forms; for among the Achæans, unlike the other confederacies of the same kind in the ancient world, such a fusion existed. Achaia then comprised the whole of the Peloponnesus: that strange federal system was full as mischievous as that of our unfortunate German confederacy, in which the least of the petty princes has just as good a vote as he on whom the safety of the country hinges;—or as the state of things in America before the constitution of Washington, when Delaware with seventy thousand inhabitants, had an equal vote with Virginia, the population of which amounted to half a million; or as in the republics of the Netherlands, where Zeeland, which paid three per cent. of the taxes, had by its votes as much weight as Holland which paid fifty-eight per cent. This absurdity was the ruin of the Achæan league. Elis was a large town and country, while Lacedæmon, even after the sea-coast had been already severed from it, was yet greater than all Achaia; nevertheless, each of the twelve little Achæan townships, many of which were not larger than some of our German villages,[59] had just as many votes as Lacedæmon. But the second article was the most galling of all. Even as Sicyon had adopted the Achæan νόμιμα, which was all very well, so was Sparta likewise to do away with the laws of Lycurgus, to which it had clung with so much pride, and to put up with those of the Achæans: this was done some years before the war with Perseus. Spartiates, in the true sense of the word, there were none at that time, but only Lacedæmonians; the former had died away, and since the days of Cleomenes, the population of the town, which consisted of descendants of the Periœcians and Neodamodes, under the name of Lacedæmonians, stepped into the full rights of citizens. But as these Lacedæmonians had adopted the laws and the ἀγωγή of Lycurgus, and prided themselves in them, it was a great piece of cruelty in Philopœmen to force them to drop them again: for this was a change which was felt throughout the whole business of every day life. Moreover, there is not much to be said in praise of the Achæan forms, and however little good there may have been in the Spartan system, if it did nothing else, it made good soldiers. For these reasons, the Lacedæmonians strove to rid themselves of this hateful alliance, and there were long negotiations in consequence: yet it was still binding on them in the beginning of the seventh century, when even a Lacedæmonian, Menalcidas, was the general of the Achæan league.
About this time, some unlucky quarrels having arisen between the Oropians and Athenians, the former bribed Menalcidas with ten talents to help them. The assistance, however, came too late; notwithstanding which he exacted the money from them, and though he had previously promised part of it to Callicrates, he kept the whole for himself. From the charge which the latter brought against him, sprang all the woes which befell Achaia. Menalcidas did his utmost to sever Lacedæmon from the league, and he succeeded. At the time of the negotiations which took place about it at Rome, both Menalcidas and the Achæan ambassador deceived the people who had sent them: each of them carried home a false decision. It was just then the most unfortunate period of the third Punic war. Lacedæmon now severed itself, and a war broke out between the Achæans and Lacedæmonians, in which the latter had the worst of it: for Menalcidas was a wretched general, and they were so hard pressed that they had to consent to an agreement by which the Achæans got every thing that they wanted. Menalcidas laid hands upon his own life, and the Lacedæmonians again joined the Achæan league.
When the Romans, in the year 605, now saw that they were about to overthrow Carthage, they also took a different tone towards Achaia. The Achæans had acted in direct disobedience to them, and had thus drawn down their vengeance upon themselves, although they had remained faithful during the revolt of the pseudo-Philip, and had given them their aid. But the very prosperity of Achaia may have led the Romans to break it up. Its extent in those times cannot be stated with exactness: it very likely took in the whole of Peloponnesus and Megara, and although Attica, Phocis, and Locris did not belong to it, several places yet farther off, by having isopolity, were in the league; for instance, Heraclea, by mount Oeta, Pleuron, in Ætolia. The Roman commissioners, C. Aurelius Orestes and his colleagues, appeared at Corinth, and announced it to be the will of the Roman senate, that Lacedæmon should be declared independent; and that all the places, which, at the time of the alliance with Philip, had not belonged to Achaia, but had been under Philip’s sway, should be separated from it: these were Corinth, Orchomenus in Arcadia, Heraclea, Pleuron. (Whether Elis and Messene belonged to the same category, is more than we know, as Appian’s notices are so scanty: the excerpta of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus will very likely still bring to light a great deal more of this period.) This was about the half of the Peloponnesus, and the most distinguished of their towns. The Achæan council, then assembled in Corinth, would not listen to the end of this message; they ordered the doors to be thrown open, and the people to be called together to hear the insolence of the Romans. The rage of the people was beyond all bounds: the Romans returned to their lodgings, without having gotten an answer; the citizens spread themselves about the town and fell upon the Lacedæmonians; everywhere the houses were searched to see whether any Lacedæmonian had hidden himself within, and not even that of the Roman ambassadors was spared. The first of these, Aurelius Orestes, was bent upon revenge; but the Roman senate was not yet inclined to inflict immediate punishment. We find it often stated that Corinth had been destroyed ob pulsatos legatos; this is not to be understood literally of personal violence, pulsare being the technical expression for every violation of the law of nations. Even a derogatory appellatio of the ambassador, by which his dignity was insulted, was termed pulsatio.
The Roman senate did not trust its allies, and again sent commissioners; so that the Achæans might have easily saved themselves by submission. The demand of the Romans was a most glaring injustice; but unhappily there is henceforward in all the dealings of the Roman people with foreign nations, nothing but insolence and unrighteousness. And yet, now that the moral interest of the Roman history is quite at an end, a new one begins: the history of Rome becomes neither more nor less than the general history of those ages, and the events in the latter which find no place in the former, are so insignificant that they cannot be made into an independent history. Now though the Achæans could hardly have succeeded in getting the Romans to desist from their demands, they ought at all events to have submitted to their will: it was madness to kick against it. But it was with them as with the ill-fated Jews, in that last struggle with the Romans of which we read the history in Josephus; those who had the language of freedom on their lips, were the fiercest tyrants of the nation. He who votes for yielding to necessity, is often held to be a vile traitor; the man, on the contrary, who is for risking everything, is looked up to as a lover of his country. The prophet Jeremy already had good reason to complain of the false prophets who beguiled the people to mad undertakings. Just so it was with the Achæans. Those among them who talked the most loudly of freedom, were by no means its best friends; the true patriots indeed were those who gave their advice for peace. The Romans were now still waiting for more favourable circumstances, as they were not in a condition to take the field, on account of the Macedonian and Punic wars: embassies therefore went backwards and forwards on both sides. Achaia had formerly been under the lead of Callicrates, one of its citizens, who had sold himself to the Romans; and it was now under the influence of a couple of madmen, Critolaus and Diæus, his most violent foes, who were for resistance, even to the last gasp. Critolaus amused the Roman ambassadors. As the Achæans only met twice a-year, he now sent to call one of these meetings, and promised to introduce the Roman ambassadors; but he secretly warned all the members not to come, and then declared that, according to the laws, a new assembly could not be held for six months.
The Achæans now armed themselves. Yet one can hardly conceive how so small and insignificant a people could have the madness even to dream of being able to stand against the Romans. During the fifty years which had elapsed since they had been under their protection, they had been quite inactive: they had only carried on petty and trifling wars, and as they had ceased to have a standing army, they had nothing but militia, which was still to be properly trained. They had spent their time, while they were well off, in sensual indulgence, and had neglected everything which they ought to have done for their armament; so that they were not prepared for the chance of a danger which might try their utmost strength, as may be seen from the newly discovered fragments of Polybius. A wanton luxury and moral degeneracy, the contemplation of which awakens most dismal thoughts, was now rife among them. They came, as we have said, to the resolution of waging war; and they were joined by the Bœotians and Chalcidians, the latter of whom may have feared for their newly recovered freedom. These transactions are, however, very obscure. The Ætolians did not take part with them, perhaps from revenge and a malignant joy at seeing the downfall of their rivals. Critolaus led a small army to Thessaly, in all likelihood with the hope that the false Philip would still be able to hold out, and that the Romans would thus be placed between two fires: for it was thought that the Macedonians would go on with the war, and that the Thessalians perhaps would rise in a body. But in Macedon all was over. Heraclea, which before had sided with the Achæans, was in fact separated from them by the Romans: an Achæan detachment, which had already penetrated through Thermopylæ, and was besieging Heraclea, quickly fled at the approach of Metellus and the Romans to the main army, and joined Critolaus, who had not yet reached Thermopylæ. Experience indeed had shown that this pass could be turned; yet the very place ought surely to have called upon the Greeks to die a glorious death: but they did the very worst thing that they could have done; for they made off in all haste for the Isthmus, and when near Scarphea,[60] Metellus came up with their rear-guard, being seized by a sudden panic, they were scattered like chaff before the wind. Critolaus disappeared: the most likely supposition is that he sank with his horse in the marshes on the sea-shore, though it is possible that they who told this, may also have meant by this mysterious account to designate him as the evil genius of Greece. The Romans now entered Bœotia, and fell in at Chæronea with the Arcadian contingent of one thousand men, which, at the tidings of the battle, was trying to retreat. The misery of Greece is described by Polybius, and we then see how unjust it was to this great man to have looked upon him as having no feeling for the fate of his native country. Metellus advanced towards the Isthmus. The whole population of Thebes had left it, and had fled for refuge to Cithæron and Helicon; Metellus took the town, and treated it with much forbearance: he wished to end the war, and to deal mildly with the Greeks. But that he could not do; for which the Greeks themselves, as well as their stars, are to be blamed. In almost all the towns it was the same as in Thebes; no one thought of making a stand. At the same time, a Roman fleet went to Peloponnesus, and, landing on the coast of Elis, barbarously ravaged the country, the Achæans not being able anywhere to protect their shores: the contingent belonging to those parts did not now go to the Isthmus; it tried to defend its own towns, but in vain. Diæus, who, on the death of Critolaus, had seized upon the office of strategus, and had posted himself near Megara, at the approach of Metellus, retreated to the Isthmus. Now indeed the Achæans might have made peace; for Metellus was a great soul, and had the safety of Greece at heart. He offered to negotiate; but Diæus, whose faction had the upperhand at Corinth, thought that he was able to maintain the Isthmus: reckless as he was, he scouted every proffer like a madman. How lucky it would have been if, like Papius Brutulus, he had thought of opening, by his own death, to his country, the prospect of tranquillity! It would then have been an easy thing for the Achæans to have gotten a peace, in which the existence of the single states would have been maintained.
Before Metellus reached the Isthmus, Mummius hastened to take the command of the army. Mummius was not of so mild a disposition as Metellus; he sought laurels for himself, and booty for the Romans. He tried to come up before Metellus could have concluded a peace: for the latter, although a plebeian like Mummius, was of a family which had long been in possession of the curule dignities, and being a nobilis, he could easily have carried the peace in the senate; Mummius was a novus homo, and not one of the aristocracy. Diæus had enlisted all the slaves who were able to bear arms, and yet he had only got together an army of fourteen thousand men, though there had been more than half a century of peace: this, more than anything, shows in what a wretched moral and political condition the country was; for wealthy the Achæans undoubtedly were. These had their heads turned by an advantage which they won in a cavalry fight, and they provoked the Romans to a battle, which was soon so utterly lost as to leave no hope of safety. They ought to have defended the impregnable Acrocorinthus; but the whole population of Corinth fled into the Arcadian mountains, and the town and the citadel were abandoned, not a soul having remained behind. On the third day after the battle, Mummius, who would not believe it possible that they had given up every thought of defence, ordered the gates to be broken open, and convinced himself that the city was deserted. The pillage of Corinth; Mummius’ barbarian honesty; and the burning of the most wealthy commercial town then in Europe, are well known facts. The booty was immense: all the Corinthians were sold for slaves, and the most noble works of art were carried away. In the same manner, Thebes and Chalcis were destroyed: with regard to other towns, we have no distinct information. Thebes, in Pausanias’ times, was only a small village within the Cadmea. The inhabitants of the whole of the Peloponnesus would have been sold into slavery, had not Polybius, through his friend Scipio, managed to get some merciful decrees from the senate.
Greece was changed into a Roman province, a few places only, like Sparta and Athens, remaining liberæ civitates: the real province was Achaia, the prætor of which had the other Greek districts under his rule as dependencies. Phocis and Bœotia were to pay tribute, a thing which they had never done even in the days of the Macedonian sway. Moreover, they got a uniform constitution, which Polybius had a hand in bringing about, and which is said to have contributed greatly towards the reviving of the country. But the national strength was paralysed by the law, that no one should possess landed property in a state to which he did not politically belong; all the συστήματα of the peoples were done away with; all concilia, and most likely, all connubia and commercia were forbidden: the territory of Corinth was added to the ager publicus. Polybius now returned to the land of his fathers, to obtain for his unhappy countrymen as fair conditions as he could. But his lot was that of a physician who performs on his wife or his child the most painful and dangerous cure: it is his love which animates him in his task; and yet it is that very love which, in such an operation, rends his heart with thrice the agony that it does that of others. This courage is more than heroism: to bear up under such a trial, where once he had lived happily; not to despair amid the general dismay, and even then only to get the tyrants to keep within bounds; and after all to attain at last to a certain end, truly bespeaks a great soul. The author of a petulant essay on Polybius which was published a few years ago, has only exposed himself by his incapability of understanding the sterling greatness of the man. It was through Polybius that the statue of Philopœmen was restored; and all the concessions which were at all favourable to Greece, were owing to nothing but his endeavours alone.