The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

His prospects of ulterior measures were, however, sufficiently remote to induce him to attempt an arrangement through the intervention of his son Demetrius. The latter had been educated in Rome, and of course had a thorough understanding of the Roman character. He succeeded in his mission, but he obtained his end in a less agreeable sense; for his existence was brought to a close by treachery. Some designing persons fomented a feeling of jealousy between himself and his elder brother, Perseus, who poisoned the mind of Philip with such fatal effect, that he caused the poisoning—not merely mental, but physical—of his son Demetrius. When the wretched parent discovered that he had been duped, he became so uneasy in his mind, that he went quite out of it, and died at the age of three-score, unable to meet the heavy score that he had run up against himself in the court of his own conscience.

Perseus was hailed by the Romans as king; but all their hailing could not render his reign prosperous. He endeavoured to cement his power by a marriage with the daughter of Antiochus Epiphanes, for Perseus thought that the aid he would derive from the match, would render him more than a match for his enemies. He gave his sister to Prusias of Bithynia, in the hope that the latter, having married into the family, would feel himself wedded to its interests. Avarice was, however, the ruin of Perseus; for he did not understand the true use of the purse, which he used his utmost exertions to fill, and then held its strings with parsimonious stringency. He had promised to pay his allies, but their zeal in his cause subsided when they were left without their subsidies.

Eumenes of Pergamus being among others seized with a panic, went to Rome to ask advice, and on his return nearly lost his life on the highway, by some persons who attacked him in a very low manner. He was passing a narrow footpath near Delphi—from which it would appear that he had walked at least a portion of the way—when some persons concealed in the rocks, hurled down several large blocks of granite, which though not causing his death, brought him within a stone's throw of it. Several huge pieces having fallen upon him, something struck him that all was not right; and he was revolving the affair in his mind, when he found himself rolling down the precipice. He was picked up nearly lifeless, but though very much jammed, he was preserved; and though almost dashed to pieces, he was sufficiently collected, in a few days, to be enabled to go home, by another road, to Asia. It was said that Perseus had had a hand in this disgraceful affair; but he declared that even if he had wished for the death of Eumenes, he would not have been guilty of making such a desperate push for it.

This circumstance gave an impetus to the hostilities between Rome and Perseus, who was driven by the Consul Paulus Æmilius to a place called Pydna, where the two armies came to such very close quarters, that their cavalry were compelled to go halves in the same stream of water. A Roman horse happened to be drinking, when, startled by his own shadow, and not giving himself time for reflection, which would have shown him the cause of his alarm, he ran away into the camp of the enemy. The animal, though goaded on by nothing but the spur of the moment, continued his flight; and some Roman soldiers running after him into the enemy's camp, were speedily followed by so many more, that, though they had come after their own horse, they began attacking the foot of the enemy.

The battle was commenced under such unfavourable circumstances, that Æmilius, the Roman leader, thinking it all lost, declared that it was all one to him what became of him. He manifested his grief by tearing his robe to show how much he was cut up; and beating his foot impatiently on the ground, he stamped himself for ever as a man without strength of mind, in a case where fortitude was required. The Roman cavalry beginning to bear down successfully, the Consul began to bear up; and the tide of fortune being turned, the Macedonians were, according to those grave authorities—which never mince matters, though always mincing men—cut, as usual, to pieces. Perseus flew to Pella; but having omitted to close the gates after him, he was shut out from all chance of escape had he remained in the place, and he went on, therefore, to Amphipolis. There he attempted to address the inhabitants on his own behalf; but he shed so many tears, that he drowned his own voice, and choked his own utterance. He had hoped to rouse the inhabitants by going to the country with a cry; but he damped their enthusiasm with a flood of tears, when they had been looking for a flow of eloquence.

After flying from place to place, like a hunted hare, he felt the game was up, and, retreating to Samothrace, he consigned his weary head to the shelter of Castor, in whose temple he hid himself. He had managed to carry about with him a large supply of treasure, which he was anxious to save, and had hired a mariner to take him to Crete; but the money having been first sent on board, the crafty seaman, out of curiosity, weighed the gold, and immediately weighed anchor. Perseus having gone down to the beach, to embark, saw the ship in the offing, and, having watched it, he perceived that it was fairly, or rather unfairly off, with all his treasure. As he paced the shore, he felt himself quite aground, and, having no lodging for the night, or the means of obtaining one, he returned to the solitary chambers of the temple. Having a wife and family to provide for, he threw himself on the generosity of Æmilius, who gave him a subsistence, but loaded him with chains, that he might feel the weight of his obligations. The unhappy Perseus was made to walk in a triumph before the car of his conqueror; and though he had entreated that he might not be so lowered, he was still further let down, by cruel confinement in a subterranean dungeon. His fellow-prisoners are said to have offered him a sword, to end his days, but, on looking at the weapon, he very properly declined to bring his sufferings to a point, by an act of folly and wickedness. He eventually found his way to Alba, where he died in about two years; his son, Alexander, having adopted the trade of a turner, with the laudable view of turning an honest penny.

Paulus Æmilius exercised the usual privilege of a conqueror, by robbing the vanquished of all they had possessed; and Macedonia was declared free, in the customary manner, by placing it entirely under the government of its foreign victors.

The triumph of Paulus Æmilius was one of the most magnificent shows that had ever been seen, and lasted three days, during which a perpetual fair was kept up; for, among the Romans, "None but the brave deserve the fair" was a maxim literally followed. On the first day there was a procession of pictures, showing the exploits of Æmilius in the brightest colours. The second day was devoted to the carrying of the trophies and the silver coin; but, on the third, which was the grandest day of all, the gold was paraded, followed by 120 bulls, which seem to be suggestive of nothing belonging to war but its butchery. After these came the unhappy Perseus, loaded with fetters, and having about him some other links of a far more affecting kind, in the shape of his three children.

The fame spread by the fate of Perseus was general among the kings of the earth, who flocked like sheep, or rather, crawled like curs, to do homage to the Roman Senate. Perseus arrived with his head shaved, as if to show that he owed not only his crown, but his hair and all, to Rome; and he wore the tattered garments of a freed slave, as if to prove that he had not a rag to his back, but what he held at the pleasure of his masters.

All who had shown any sympathy with the cause of Perseus were cruelly persecuted, and the unfortunate Rhodians were so terrified with the bare anticipation of their fate, that they began to anticipate it in reality, by making away with themselves and with one another. On the few who remained the hardest conditions were imposed, which made their own condition the more deplorable. Carthage and the Achaian League were the only two powers that seemed to stand in the way of Rome, and of these the latter was thought so contemptible, that some Achaians who had been detained in Italy were saved by a sarcasm of Cato on their feebleness and decrepitude. "We have only to decide," said he, "whether these poor creatures shall be buried by their own grave-diggers, or by ours;" a cruel pleasantry, which, however, had a humane result, for it was decided that they should be at liberty to go home and yield to their native undertakers the profit—or loss—attendant on their funerals.