After Macedon was ruined the Romans resolved to put down all stirrings of resistance to them in the rest of Greece. Their friend Callicrates, therefore, accused all the Achaians who had been friendly to Perseus, or who had any brave spirit—1000 in number—of conspiring against Rome, and called on the League to sentence them to death; but as this proposal was heard with horror, they were sent to Rome to justify themselves, and the Roman senate, choosing to suppose they had been judged by the League, sentenced them never to return to Achaia. Polybius was among them, so that his home was thenceforth in the house of his pupils, the sons of Æmilius. Many times did the Achaians send entreaties that they might be set at liberty, and at last, after seventeen years, Polybius’ pupils persuaded the great senator Cato to speak for them, and he did so, but in a very rough, unfeeling way. “Anyone who saw us disputing whether a set of poor old Greeks should be buried by our grave-diggers or their own would think we had nothing else to do,” he said. So the Romans consented to their going home; but when they asked to have all their rank and honours restored to them, Cato said, “Polybius, you are less wise than Ulysses. You want to go back into the Cyclops’ cave for the wretched rags and tatters you left behind you there.” After all, Polybius either did not go home or did not stay there, for he was soon again with his beloved pupils; and in the seventeen years of exile the 1000 had so melted away that only 300 went home again.
But the very year after their return a fresh rising was made by the Macedonians, under a pretender who claimed to be the son of Perseus, and by the Peloponnesians, with the Achaians and Spartans at their head, while the Corinthians insulted the Roman ambassadors. A Roman general named Quintus Metellus was sent to subdue them, and routed the Macedonians at the battle of Scarphæa, but after that another general named Mummius was sent out. The Achaians had collected all their strength against him, and in the first skirmish gained a little success; and this encouraged them to risk a battle, in which they were so confident
of victory that they placed their wives and children on a hill to watch them, and provided waggons to carry away the spoil. The battle was fought at Leucoptera, near the Isthmus, and all this boasting was soon turned into a miserable defeat. Diæus, who commanded the Greeks, was put to flight, and riding off to Megalopolis in utter despair, he killed his wife and children, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy, and then poisoned himself.
The other Achaians at first retreated into Corinth, and in the course of the night scattered themselves each to his own city. In the morning Mummius marched in and gave up the unhappy city to plunder. All the men were slain, all the women and children taken for slaves, and when all the statues, pictures, and jewels had been gathered out of the temples and houses, the place was set on fire, and burnt unceasingly for several days; the walls were pulled down, and the city blotted out from Greece. There was so much metal of all kinds in the burning houses that it all became fused together, and produced a new and valuable metal called Corinthian brass. The Romans were at this time still very rude and ignorant, and did not at all understand the value and beauty of the works of art they carried off. Polybius saw two soldiers making a dice-board of one of the most famous pictures in Greece; and Mummius was much laughed at for telling the captains of the ships who took home some of the statues to exhibit in his triumph that if they lost them they should supply
new ones at their own cost. The Corinthians suffered thus for having insulted the ambassadors. The other cities submitted without a blow, and were left untouched to govern themselves, but in subjection to Rome, and with Roman garrisons in their citadels. Polybius was sent round them to assure them of peace, and they had it for more than 500 years, but the freedom of Greece was gone for ever.
CHAP. XXXIX.—THE GOSPEL IN GREECE. b.c. 146–a.d. 60.
