Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Barthold Georg Niebuhr

Philip, after having concluded peace with the Romans, allied himself with Antiochus the Great against the infant Ptolemy Epiphanes, the child of the unworthy Ptolemy Philopator. The Egyptian kings since Philadelphus and Euergetes, were in possession of extensive districts and strongholds on the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, as far as the coast of Thrace: Lycia at least was subject to their supremacy. As under Ptolemy Philopator the empire had already fallen into utter decay, and his infant successor was growing up under the charge of an unworthy guardian, Antiochus and Philip took advantage of the moment. Egypt had since the rise of the Alexandrine empire been on friendly terms with Rhodes, and the Rhodians had a strong interest in being friends with Alexandria, as they had much more to fear from Macedon than from Egypt; they therefore defended Epiphanes. Yet their power was no match for that of Macedon and Syria; especially as the wretched Egyptian government hardly did anything, but on the contrary let the allies, among whom, besides Rhodes, there were also Byzantium, Chios, and Attalus of Pergamus, bear the whole brunt of the war. The two kings were therefore most successful. Philip conquered for himself the whole of the Thracian coast; Perinthus, Ephesus, and Lycia, fell to the lot of Syria, although the allies of the Egyptians had shortly before had some success in a sea-fight near Chios.

Philip had now reached the pinnacle of his greatness. Even from Crete, where Macedon had never before exercised any influence, he was applied to for his mediation.

The immediate cause, or at least the pretext for the second Macedonian war, was afforded to the Romans by the distress of Athens. That city was utterly impoverished and decayed; but it kept up a sort of independence, and as early as about twenty-five years after the first Illyrian war, it had made an alliance with the Romans, and had granted them isopolity.[32] Perhaps the Romans received the gift with a smile; yet such bright rays of her old departed glory still lingered upon Athens, that on her side at least, there was nothing ridiculous in the proffer. Pausanias tells us, that among the cenotaphs for those who had been slain, there were also some for the men belonging to three triremes, who had fallen in battle abroad as allies of the Romans; but he does not give the date. It is not likely that this was a figment of the Athenians; the time may have been that of the second Illyrian war, as they were keen enough to see that they might gain the Romans by sending them a few ships. During the first Macedonian war, they very wisely kept neutral; but in the last years of the war of Hannibal they got involved in hostilities with Philip. The murder of two young Acarnanians who had intruded when the Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated, led their countrymen to call upon Philip for help. He had long wished to get possession of Athens, and he now savagely devastated the whole of Attica to the very walls of the city: all the temples in the Athenian territory were pulled down, and even the tombs were demolished. The Athenians betook themselves to the Rhodians, to Attalus, and in general to all the allies of that suddenly decayed Alexandrine empire, which had once been so highly blooming under Euergetes; yet their hopes were chiefly bent upon the Romans. In Rome there was much consultation what to do. The senate and the leading men, who already had unbounded views of extending the Roman power, would not have hesitated for a moment to declare war, and the more so, as they were likewise eager to make up for what they had lost by the unfortunate issue of the former one: but the people, who were most wretchedly off, and longed for rest, threw out the first motion for a war.

It is a most erroneous thing, for one to believe that a constitution remains the same, so long as its outward forms still last. When alterations have taken place in the distribution of property, in public opinion, and in the way in which people live, the constitution, even without any outward change, may become quite different from what it was, and the self-same form may at one time be democratical, and at another aristocratical. This internal revolution is hardly ever traced by modern writers of history, and yet it is one of those very things which in history ought to be particularly searched into. That strange and wonderful preponderance of the oligarchy of wealth existed already at that time in Rome, and the many—who generally speaking have neither judgment nor a will of their own—now decree the very things which they did not wish. Here indeed we have one of the first and most remarkable symptoms of this: the people, contrary to their own wishes, vote for the war with Philip. It was the great misfortune of Rome, that after the war of Hannibal, there was no great man who had the genius to restore the constitution in accordance with its spirit. For great states always decline and fall, because, after great exertions, everything is left to the blind spirit of the age, and no healing of what is diseased is attempted.

The Romans now, with great zeal, sent ambassadors to Philip to demand indemnification for the Athenians, and cessation of all hostilities against the allies of Rome, to the number of whom Ptolemy also belonged. Philip clearly saw that this was but a pretext to raise a quarrel, and he had bitterly to repent of not having taken better advantage of the war with Hannibal. In the year 552, the war was decreed, and the command was given to the consul P. Sulpicius Galba, who had already made a campaign before in those parts, though not of the most glorious kind, as he devastated Dyme, Oreus, and Ægina. It must have been resolved upon late in the season, and as the consul besides fell ill, nothing more could be undertaken that year: Galba’s expedition therefore entirely belongs to the year which followed his consulship, a fact which is overlooked by Livy. Villius, the next consul, was only present at the seat of war for a very short period, towards the end of his time of office.

In Greece, the Ætolians just then were very much weakened, but independent, and hostile to Macedon. They possessed Ætolia, part of Acarnania, the country of the Ænianians, that of the Ozolian Locrians, most of Phthiotis, the land of the Dolopians, part of southern Thessaly, and Thermopylæ; and they had isopolity with Lacedæmon, and with a number of distant places in Elis and Messene: yet for the last thirty years they had been going down hill. In the Peloponnesus, the Achæans held Achaia, Sicyon, Phlius, and Argolis, and Arcadia; but in reality they were entirely dependent on the Macedonians, and were protected by them against Ætolia and Lacedæmon. The Lacedæmonians were confined within very narrow limits in their old country, and they had lost their ancient constitution; they had no ephors, perhaps not even a senate, but they were ruled by a tyrant, Nabis, one of the worst of monsters. The Messenians stood apart from the Ætolians and Achæans, and were become sworn foes to the latter; the Eleans were independent, and leagued with the Ætolians; the Bœotians remained independent in appearance only, under the supremacy of Macedon; Corinth, Eubœa, Phocis, Locris, were nominally allies of the Macedonians, but in fact were subject to their rule. Thessaly was held to be a state which had become blended with Macedon. In Epirus, the house of the Æacidæ was extirpated, and the remainder of the people hemmed in by the Ætolians, formed a republic, sometimes under Ætolian, and at other times under Macedonian influence. On the Greek mainland, Athens survived as a mere name, without a connexion belonging to her, an object of Philip’s hate. The Acarnanians were, properly speaking, none of the subjects of the Macedonians, but were only united with them by their common enmity against the Ætolians. The Cyclades had formerly belonged to Egypt, and they were now in an unsettled state. Crete was independent, but torn by factions, owing to which Philip had been called upon to mediate. Chios and Mitylene were free; Rhodes was great and powerful; Byzantium also was free, and allied with Chios and Mitylene: they had taken as little part as possible in all the quarrels; but now they were drawn into them, particularly Chios, and in a league with Attalus. As to their intellectual life, the Greeks were utterly fallen. There were indeed still some schools at Athens; but poesy was dead, and even the art of speech, that last blossom of the Greek spirit, had vanished away, and had sought a new home among the Asiatic peoples which had been hellenized, but without imbibing any of the excellencies of the Greek nation. Most places were mere shadows of what they had been; there were but few indeed which had not been destroyed more than once: of the number of those spared was Corinth, which therefore was the most flourishing of all Greek towns. The Achæans, ever since Aratus, out of spite to the Lacedæmonians, had given over his country into the hands of the Macedonians, were mere clients to their new patrons. Owing to this connexion, which had lasted nearly twenty years, they had many a time received the deepest cause for provocation; but they were on bad terms with their neighbours, and if their patriots had any wish, it was to have their dependence upon Macedon changed into a freer form of clientship; none, however, dreamed of independence. But then many were filled with bitter indignation at the cruelty with which several towns had been laid waste by the Romans. The Ætolians felt inclined to undertake the war; but they did not come to any decision, a misunderstanding having arisen between them and the Romans, whom they reproached with having given them unfounded hopes, whilst, on the other hand, the Romans complained of not having been supported by them in the Illyrian war.

In the first campaign of Sulpicius (553), the Romans could do nothing: they took the bull by the horns, and attacked Macedon from Illyria. Philip kept on the defensive. That part of Illyria, as far as Scutari, is a country of rather low hills, very much like Franconia; in many places it is flat. On the eastern frontier, near Macedon, a ridge of high mountains runs down, which takes in western Macedon, and from Scodrus, or Scardus, reaches southwards to Pindus and Parnassus. This range of mountains, lofty and broad, cold, barren, and naturally poor, is now hardly inhabited any longer; even the valleys are inhospitable. Here are the highlands of Macedon, the true home of the earliest Macedonians, who had formerly held under their own liege-lords, being dependent upon Philip, but at that time were entirely united with Macedon. The Romans found every thing here against them: nearly the whole of the population, consisting as it did of Macedonians, was hostile with the exception of the Epirote Orestians, and provisions were scarce everywhere. Sulpicius therefore retreated, and passed the winter in the fertile country of lower Illyria, near Apollonia and Epidamnus. However carefully historians may disguise the fact, certain it is that his undertaking was a complete failure.

T. Quinctius Flamininus, immediately after his being made consul, in the year 554, led reinforcements across the Adriatic, and changed the whole plan. This time also, the Macedonians had fortified their frontiers, and they kept on the defensive. The principal camp of the king was near what is now Argyrocastro, the old Antigonea, founded by Pyrrhus, where the Aous—so we must read instead of Apsus, in Plutarch’s life of Flamininus—has worn its way between two high ridges of limestone: both these mountain ranges are wild and impassable; they stretch out on one side as far as the Acroceraunian heights, on the other towards Pindus. The place cannot be mistaken from its very nature (fauces Antigoneæ); even to this day, the true road from Illyria into the interior of Epirus passes through it, part of which, on the brink of the river, is cut in the mountains. The Romans had renewed their alliance with the Ætolians, who took up arms and threatened the frontier of Thessaly, but undertook nothing of consequence. Philip was much bent on hindering the Ætolians, now that they were the allies of the Romans, from attacking the Thessalian frontiers in right earnest, and uniting with them; and this he effected by taking up his position near Antigonea. Before this defile, Villius also who, when Flamininus arrived, was still in Greece, had during his proconsulship stood his ground against Philip; yet it was hopeless to attack him in front, and several attempts had miscarried. Perhaps the Romans expected that the Ætolians would compel the Macedonian army to change their position, as otherwise it would be incomprehensible why they should have encamped in that place.

Flamininus, who now entered upon the consulship, was a distinguished man, and had moreover been chosen by the people before he was thirty years old, owing to their confidence in his personal qualities. It is indeed a proof of the utter falsehood of the notion that the Romans had only in later times sought to make themselves acquainted with Greek literature, when we find it distinctly stated of men like Flamininus that they were imbued with Greek learning. His conduct towards Greece is not indeed to be approved of in every respect; but he was provoked, when his noble attempt to win her applause, was darkened by the ingratitude of a nation which was already partly degenerated. Had the Greeks been able to suit themselves to the actual state of things, they might have been spared many a sad experience. Flamininus became convinced that it was necessary to try and drive the Macedonians from their vantage ground, and he attained his end by means of that faithlessness then so general in Greece. He tampered with a chieftain belonging to the Epirote republic of the name of Charops; and the latter, being gained over by money and promises, undertook to lead a small Roman division of four thousand men through unknown roads to the rear of the Macedonian army. The Romans did not indeed trust their guides, and they carried them bound along with them; but no treachery was committed, and on the third day they reached the heights above the Macedonians. That day had been appointed for the attack. At sunrise, Flamininus began the battle in front, and thus engaged the attention of the Macedonians; he had already lost a great many men, when the detachment which had gone round the Macedonians, gave the signal with fire from the heights. He now renewed the attack with redoubled vigour: the other Romans fell upon the Macedonians from the rear, and these were panic-struck and fled; so that the Romans by one blow became masters of Epirus, where all the towns opened their gates to them. Philip escaped across mount Pindus into Thessaly. Flamininus did not follow, as he wished first to take advantage of these circumstances, entirely to drive the Macedonians out of Greece. But an expedition to Thessaly had no great results. He united with the Ætolians in Ambracia, and took up his winter-quarters in Phocis, where he besieged the strong town of Elatea.

During the campaign, the combined fleet of Attalus, the Rhodians, and the Romans, was in the Greek seas; they made several undertakings, which, however, led to nothing but the ravaging of unhappy Greece. Thus Chalcis, once so flourishing, was destroyed and pillaged. The Achæans had before been obliged to give up Megara and Corinth to Philip, who had likewise kept Orchomenus without asking their leave; at a later period only, that is to say at the beginning of the second war, he gave it back to them. Had he now after his defeat, likewise restored to them Corinth, they would hardly have forsaken him; for they had an implacable hatred against the Ætolians, and also against the Romans on account of the savage devastations of the former war. But now that Philip had not been able to stand his ground, and all the country as far as Thermopylæ was in the hands of the Romans, the Macedonian party, although certainly still considerable, could not come forward, and the proposal was discussed of concluding an alliance with the Romans. Roman ambassadors appeared at Sicyon; the Achæan strategus Aristænus, a shrewd statesman, took advantage of the disposition which was felt by many to yield to sense and reason, and to dwell on the injuries suffered from Philip; and he got the alliance with him dissolved, though not without difficulty, and another one concluded with the Romans. The restoration of the places of which Philip had stripped them, was promised; Nabis and the Ætolians were not to exercise any hostility against them. It was no longer possible, as Demosthenes once had done, to lead the nation by inspired eloquence and high feeling, but shrewdness had its effect. The Achæans were not warlike, although Philopœmen had done everything he could to make them so. The war with Macedon was very irksome to them; for, although there was only a small Macedonian garrison stationed at Corinth, yet it was able by its allies to do much harm to the neighbouring places in the Peloponnesus. The governor of Corinth, Philocles, even took Argos.