THE ACHÆAN WAR
This very unjust and insolent demand threw the Achæans into a state of frenzy; even before Orestes had finished his speech, the council hastened to the market-place, calling upon the people to assemble, and it cannot excite wonder, though it is a proof of the utter want of common sense among the Achæans, that they fell upon the Roman ambassadors, and insultingly drove them out of the theatre. All the Lacedæmonians who happened to be in the city were arrested. After this the Achæans again marched into Laconia, where Menalcidas had, in the meantime, made away with himself, because he had broken a truce which he had been ordered to observe by the Romans.
At this time the Macedonian insurrection was not yet quelled, and fortune was still undecided. Metellus had not yet come over. Simultaneously the Third Punic War was going on; the Spaniards and Iberians were stirring; Masinissa’s family was suspected, and in short the Romans were pressed on all sides. Their cunning policy therefore was mildness: they said that they were willing to pardon the Achæans, if they would but acknowledge their guilt, and apologise. But almost the whole nation was now in a state of intoxication, “according to the words of Scripture, that God makes the nations intoxicated for their own destruction.” Critolaus the strategus, played the part of a hero, and inflamed the minds of the people—especially of the populace, which was already in commotion at Corinth. When the Roman ambassadors commenced speaking no one listened to them; they were obliged to stop, and as the tumult became too great, they went away. Critolaus, and still more, Diæus, now goaded the Achæans into the madness of declaring war against the Romans, and marching towards Thermopylæ. The war was decreed nominally against the Lacedæmonians, but in reality against the Romans.
We have only very scanty information about the course of this war; but the Excerpts of Porphyrogenitus from Polybius[c] will throw light upon it. “Posterity can form no conception,” says Polybius, “of the madness with which the war was carried on; it was as if men rushed into it for the purpose of perishing.”
Critolaus assembled a considerable army. The Bœotians, headed by the Thebans under the wretched Pytheas, and the Chalcidians, were the only Greeks that sided with the Achæans; the Ætolians and the other nations were neutral; the Lacedæmonians, on the other hand, were hostile towards the Achæans, for which reason all of the Achæans could not leave their country. The allied army advanced as far as Heraclea near Mount Œta, and laid siege to that town in order to protect Thermopylæ. But everything was there managed so senselessly, that when Metellus, who on being informed of this, without waiting for orders, had broken in from Macedonia with the rapidity of lightning, came to its relief, the Achæans under Diæus and Critolaus hastily fled back through the pass of Thermopylæ.
Metellus overtook them near Scarphe, attacked and defeated them so completely that within a few hours the Achæan army was utterly annihilated; many were slain, many were taken prisoners, and many dispersed in flight. Diæus fled, Critolaus was not to be found, having perhaps perished in a marsh. The whole army was scattered. An Arcadian contingent of one thousand men, which arrived too late, was carried away by the flight of the others, and a few days later, in the neighbourhood of Chæronea, it was partly taken and partly cut to pieces by the Romans. The Achæans fled in disorder into Peloponnesus. In Bœotia all the people, quitting the towns, took refuge in the mountains; Thebes was deserted; many made away with themselves from despair, and many implored the Romans to kill them, declaring themselves to be the authors of all the misfortunes.
Diæus succeeded Critolaus in the command of the army; he was a person of the utmost incapacity, and formidable only to those who obeyed him. He had recourse to the most extreme measures; he decreed that all judicial trials for debts should be stopped, all imprisoned debtors should be set free, and that no debt should become due before the close of the war—a sad decree for the wealthy, but it made him popular among the rabble. Twelve thousand slaves were to be manumitted and armed (they are called παράτροφοι—i.e., milk-brothers, the children of female slaves or nurses); and heavy war contributions were levied. Four thousand men were sent to Megara to defend that place, and Diæus himself assembled the army on the isthmus. When Metellus appeared, those four thousand soon evacuated Megara, and all the forces were concentrated on the isthmus close to the walls of Corinth.
[146 B.C.]
Greek Water Vessel
(Berlin Museum)
Metellus now appeared before Corinth. Animated by a feeling of humanity he wished to spare the city; such a magnificent ancient city was indeed something venerable to many a Roman, and the idea of destroying it was terrible to Metellus. It is also possible that he grudged the consul Mummius, who was already advancing in quick marches, the honour of bringing the war to a close. Once more Metellus sent some Greeks to the Achæan army, according, according to Roman notions, fair terms, if they would but lay down their arms, and requesting them to put confidence in him. What else could he have done? But Diæus, who knew that his life was forfeited, goaded the poor people to madness. The Achæans, believing that Metellus had offered peace from a feeling of weakness, nearly killed the ambassadors, and Diæus did not set them free until a ransom of ten thousand drachmæ was paid; this is a characteristic feature of the man who showed his avarice to the very last minute. The hypostrategus, who was favourable to the Romans, was tortured.
In the meantime Mummius arrived and took the place of Metellus. He had no such feelings towards the Achæans as his predecessor, who returned to Rome. Mummius now had an army of twenty-three thousand foot and three thousand horse, while the Achæans had only fourteen thousand foot and a few hundred horse. The Achæans were encamped on the isthmus in a strong position, but this was of no avail. The Romans had a fleet furnished by their allies, while the Greeks had no ships, and the Roman fleet cruised along the whole coast of Peloponnesus, landing everywhere, and ravaging the country with the most fearful cruelty. What Themistocles had said to the Peloponnesians, when they wanted to fortify themselves on the isthmus, now came to pass; the contingents, especially those of the Eleans, dispersed in all directions in order to protect their own towns, without being able to do so.
A somewhat favourable engagement, in which they defeated a detachment of the Romans, which had ventured too far and was not duly supported, made the Achæans completely mad, and being thus encouraged they thoughtlessly attacked the Roman army. But their small advantage was immediately neutralised by a fatal blow; for in a great and decisive battle, the Achæans were so completely routed, that they were not even able to throw themselves into Corinth. The cavalry fled immediately; the infantry maintained its ground better, but in the end all fled in different directions into the mountains, and Diæus to Megalopolis, where he first murdered his wife and then took poison. All the population of Corinth deserted the city and took refuge in the mountains, as the Romans had done on the arrival of the Gauls, and were hunted by the Romans like wild beasts.[b]