Sketch of the situation of Spartan affairs at this period: the ancient constitution still continued to exist in form; but the plunder of foreign countries, and particularly the permission to transfer landed estates, obtained by Epitadeus, had produced great inequality of property. The restoration of Lycurgus's constitution had, therefore, a twofold object; to favour the poor by a new agrarian law and release from debts, and to increase the power of the kings by repressing that of the ephori.—First attempt at reform 244, by king Agis III; attended in the beginning with partial success, but eventually frustrated by the other king, Leonidas, and terminating in the extinction of Agis and his family, 241. Leonidas, however, was succeeded, 236, by his son Cleomenes, who victoriously defeated the plans of Aratus to force Sparta to accede to the Achæan league, 227; this king, by a forcible revolution, overthrew the ephori, and accomplished the project of Agis, at the same time increasing the Spartans by the admission of a number of periæci; and enforcing the laws of Lycurgus referring to private life; but as in a small republic a revolution cannot be confirmed without some external war, he attacked the Achæans as early as 224; these being defeated, implored, through Aratus, the help of Antigonus; Cleomenes in consequence was, at the battle of Sellasia, 222, obliged to yield to superior force, and with difficulty escaped over to Egypt; while Sparta was compelled to acknowledge her independence as a gift at the hands of Antigonus. Such was the miserable success of this attempt made by a few great men on a nation already degenerate. The quarrels between the ephori and king Lycurgus and his successor Machanidas, placed Sparta in a state of anarchy, which ended, 207, in the usurpation of the sovereign power by one Nabis, who destroyed the ancient form of government. Let him who would study great revolutions commence with that just described; insignificant as it is, none perhaps furnishes more instructive lessons.
Plutarchi Agis et Cleomenes. The information in which is principally drawn from the Commentaries of Aratus.
Philip II. 221—179.
15. Philip II. son of Demetrius. He ascended the throne at the early age of sixteen, endowed with many qualities, such as might, under favourable circumstances, have formed a great prince. Macedonia had recruited her strength during a long peace; and her grand political aim, the supremacy of Greece, secured by the connection of Antigonus with the Achæans, and by the victory of Sellasia, seemed to be already within her grasp. But Philip lived in a time when Rome was pursuing her formidable plans of aggrandizement: the more vigorous and prompt his efforts were to withstand that power, the more deeply was he entangled in the new maze of events, which embittered the rest of his life, and at last brought him to the grave with a broken heart, converted by misfortune into a despot.
War of the two leagues,
221—217.
16. The first five years of Philip were occupied by his participation in the war between the Achæans and Ætolians, called the war of the two leagues; notwithstanding the treachery of his minister Apellas and his dependents, the prince was enabled to dictate the conditions of peace, according to which both parties were to remain in possession of what they then had. The conclusion of this peace was hastened by the news of Hannibal's victory at Thrasymenus, Philip being then instigated to form more extensive projects by Demetrius of Pharus, who had fled before the Romans, and soon acquired unlimited influence with the Macedonian king.
The war of the two leagues arose out of the piracies of the Ætolians on the Messenians, the latter of whom the Achæans undertook to protect, 221. The errors committed by Aratus compelled the Achæans to have recourse to Philip, 220; whose progress, however, was for a long time impeded by the artifices of Apellas's faction, who wished to overthrow Aratus. The Acarnanians, Epirots, Messenians, and Scerdilaidas of Illyria, (who, however, soon after declared against Macedonia,) combined with Philip and the Achæans; the Ætolians, on the other hand, commanded by their own general, Scopas, had for their allies the Spartans and Eleans.—The most important consequence of this war for Macedonia was, that she began again to be a naval power.—About the same time a war broke out between the two trading republics of Byzantium and Rhodes (the latter supported by Prusias I. of Bithynia) insignificant in itself, but which, as a commercial war, originating in the duties imposed by the Byzantines, was the only one of its kind in this age, 222. The Rhodians, so powerful in those days by sea, compelled their adversaries to submit.
Negotiations between Philip and Hannibal, 214.
17. The negotiations between Philip and Hannibal concluded with an alliance, in which reciprocal help was promised towards annihilating Rome. But Rome contrived to excite so many foes against Philip on the borders of his own kingdom, and availed herself so skilfully of her naval power, that the execution of this plan was prevented until it became possible to attack the Macedonian king in Greece; where he had made himself many enemies, by the domineering tone he had assumed towards his allies at the time that, sensible of his power, he was about to enter upon a wider sphere of action.
Commencement of hostilities by Rome, against Philip: immediately that the alliance of Philip and Hannibal was known, a squadron with troops on board was stationed off the coast of Macedonia, by which the king himself was defeated at Apollonia, 214.—Alliance of Rome with the Ætolians, joined likewise by Sparta and Elis, Attalus king of Pergamus, and Scerdilaidas and Pleuratus, kings of Illyria, 211. On Philip's side were the Achæans, with whom Philopœmen more than supplied the loss of Aratus, occasioned, 213, by the Macedonian king; to them were joined the Acarnanians and Bæotians.—Attacked on every side, Philip successfully extricated himself from his difficulties; in the first place, he compelled the Ætolians, who had been abandoned by Attalus and Rome, to accept separate terms, which, shortly after, Rome, consulting her own convenience, converted into a general peace, inclusive of the allies on either side, 204.