PERSEUS, KING OF MACEDONIA
[179-168 B.C.]
Perseus succeeded his father on the throne of Macedon, a hundred and seventy-nine years before the birth of Christ. The first measures of his government appeared equally gracious and political. He assumed an air of benignity and gentleness. He not only recalled all those whom fear or judicial condemnation had, in the course of the late reign, driven from their country; but he even ordered the income of their estates, during their exile, to be reimbursed. His deportment to all his subjects was happily composed of regal dignity and parental tenderness. The same temper which regulated his behaviour to his own subjects, he displayed in his conduct towards foreign states. He courted the affections of the Grecian states, and despatched ambassadors to request a confirmation of the treaties subsisting between Rome and Macedon. The senate acknowledged his title to the throne, and pronounced him the friend and ally of the Roman people. His insinuations and intrigues with his neighbours were the more effectual, that most of them began to presage what they had to expect, should the dominion of Rome be extended over all Greece; and looked upon Macedon as the bulwark of their freedom from the Roman yoke.
The only states that stood firm to the Roman cause, were Athens and Achaia. But in this all of them now agreed, that foreign aid was on all occasions necessary to prop the tottering remains of fallen liberty, which, by this time, was little else than a choice of masters. Besides all those advantages which Perseus might derive from the well-grounded jealousy of Roman ambition, he succeeded to all those mighty preparations which were made by his father. But all this strength came to nothing: it terminated in discomfiture, and the utter extinction of the royal family of Macedon. He lost all the advantages he enjoyed, through avarice, meanness of spirit, and want of real courage. The Romans, discovering or suspecting his ambitious designs, sought and found occasion of quarrelling with him. A Roman army passed into Greece. This army, for the space of three years, did nothing worthy of the Roman name; but Perseus, infatuated, or struck with a panic, neglected to improve the repeated opportunities which the incapacity or the corruption of the Roman commanders presented to him. Lucius Æmilius Paullus, elected consul, restored and improved the discipline of the Roman army, which, under the preceding commanders, had been greatly relaxed. He advanced against Perseus, drove him from his entrenchments on the banks of the river Enipeus, and engaged and defeated him under the walls of Pydna.
On the ruin of his army, Perseus fled to Pella. He gave vent to the distraction and ferocity of his mind, by murdering with his own hand two of his principal officers, who had ventured to blame some parts of his conduct. Alarmed at this act of barbarity, his other attendants refused to approach him; so that, being at a loss where to hide himself, or whom to trust, he returned from Pella, which he had reached only about midnight, before break of day. On the third day after the battle he fled to Amphipolis. Being driven by the inhabitants from thence, he hastened to the seaside, in order to pass over into Samothrace, hoping to find a secure asylum in the reputed holiness of that place. Having arrived thither, he took shelter in the temple of Castor and Pollux. Abandoned by all the world, his eldest son Philip only excepted, without a probability of escape, and even destitute of the means of subsistence, he surrendered to Octavius, the Roman prætor, who transported him to the Roman camp. Perseus approached the consul with the most abject servility, bowing his face to the earth, and endeavouring with his suppliant arms to grasp his knees. “Why, wretched man,” said the Roman, “why dost thou acquit Fortune of what might seem her crime, by a behaviour which evinces that thou deservest not her indignation? Why dost thou disgrace my laurels, by showing thyself an abject adversary, and unworthy of having a Roman to contend with?” He tempered, however, this humiliating address, by raising him from the ground, and encouraging him to hope for everything from the clemency of the Roman people. After being led in triumph through the streets of Rome, he was thrown into a dungeon, where he starved himself to death. His eldest son, Philip, and one of his younger sons, are supposed to have died before him. Another of his sons, Alexander, was employed by the chief magistrates of Rome in the office of a clerk.