25. According to the system at that period followed by Rome, the conquered kingdom of Macedonia was not immediately converted into a province; it was first deprived of all offensive power, by being republicanized and divided into four districts, wholly distinct from one another, and bound to pay Rome half the tribute they were before wont to furnish to their kings.
Fall of the Achæan league.
26. It was in the natural order of things that the independence of Greece, and more especially that of the Achæan league, should fall with Perseus. The political inquisition of the Roman commissaries not only visited with punishment the declared partizans of Macedonia; but even to have stood neutral was a crime that incurred suspicion. Rome, however, amid the rising hatred, did not deem herself secure until by one blow she had rid herself of all opponents of any importance. Above a thousand of the most eminent of the Achæans were summoned to Rome to justify themselves, and there detained seventeen years Callicrates, 167—150. in prison without a hearing. While at the head of the league, stood the man who had delivered them up, Callicrates, (d. 150.) a wretch who could, unmoved, hear "the very boys in the streets taunt him with treachery."—A more tranquil period, it is true, now ensued for Greece, but it was the result of very obvious causes.
Greece becomes a Roman province, 150—148.
27. The ultimate lot both of Macedon and was decided by the system now adopted at Rome, that of converting the previous dependence of nations into formal subjection. The insurrection of Andriscus in Macedonia, an individual who pretended to be the son of Perseus, was quelled by Metellus, the country being constituted a Roman province; two years afterwards, at the sack of Corinth, vanished the last glimmer of Grecian freedom.
The last war of the Achæans arose out of certain quarrels with Sparta, 150, fomented by Diæus, Critolaus, and Damocritus, who had returned bitterly enraged from the Roman prison; in these disputes Rome interfered, with the design of wholly dissolving the Achæan league. The first pretext that offered for executing this scheme was the ill-treatment of the Roman ambassadors at Corinth, 148; war, however, still raging with Carthage and Andriscus, the Romans preserved for the present a peaceful tone. But the party of Diæus and Critolaus would have war; the plenipotentiaries of Metellus were again insulted, and the Achæans declared war against Sparta and Rome. In the very same year they were routed by Metellus, and their leader Critolaus fell in the engagement; Metellus was replaced in the command by Mummius, who defeated Diæus the successor of Critolaus, took Corinth and razed it to the ground, 146. The consequence was, that Greece, under the name of Achaia, became a Roman province, although to a few cities, such as Athens, for instance, some shadow of freedom was still left.
IV. History of some smaller or more distant Kingdoms and States erected out of the Macedonian monarchy.
Sources. Besides the writers enumerated above, (see p. 232.) Memnon, an historian of Heraclea in Pontus, deserves particular mention in this place, (see p. 162): some extracts from his work have been preserved to us by Photius, Cod. 224. In some individual portions, as, for instance, in the Parthian history, Justin[a] is our main authority; as are likewise Ammianus Marcellinus, and the extracts from Arrian's Parthica, found in Photius. The coins of the kings are also of great importance; but unfortunately Vaillant's Essay shows, that even with their assistance the chronology still remains in a very unsettled state. For the Jewish history, Josephus (see p. 35.) is the grand writer: of the Books of the Old Testament, those of Ezra and Nehemiah, together with the Maccabees, although the last are not always to be depended upon.
The modern writers are enumerated below, under the heads of the different kingdoms. Much information is likewise scattered about in the works on ancient numismatics.