War was now determined on for the next year, and the praetor ordered to enroll troops. And Eumenes also, now recovered from the wounds of the assassins, made preparations to join in the struggle (Livy, 42, 18-27).
In B.C. 171, fresh legions having been enrolled, and an army of sixteen thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry ordered to Macedonia, envoys appeared from Perseus demanding the reason. The Senate would not allow them to enter the Pomoerium, but received them in the temple of Bellona: and after listening to a report from Sp. Cavilius that Perseus had, among other acts of hostility, taken cities in Thessaly and entered Perrhaebia in arms, the Senate answered the Macedonian envoys that any complaint they had to make must be made to the consul, P. Licinius, who would presently be in Macedonia, but that they must not come into Italy again (Livy, 42, 36).
A few days afterwards five commissioners were sent into Greece, who distributed the districts to be visited among themselves: Servius and Publius Lentulus and Lucius Decimius were to go to Cephallenia, the Peloponnese, and the west coast generally; Q. Marcius and Aulus Atilius to Epirus, Aetolia, Thessaly, and thence to Boeotia and Euboea, where they were to meet the Lentuli. Meanwhile a letter from Perseus, demanding the cause of their coming and of the presence of troops in Macedonia, was received and left unanswered. After visiting the districts assigned to them, in the course of doing which Marcius and Atilius had met Perseus on the river Peneus, and granted him a truce to enable him to send envoys to Rome (Marcius knowing well that the Romans were not yet fully prepared for war[144]), the commissioners reached their destination at Chalcis, where the earlier events narrated in the following extracts occurred (Livy, 42, 36-43).
THE WAR WITH PERSEUS
[1.] At this time Lases and Callias arrived at the head of an embassy from the Thespians, and Ismenias[145] from Neon.B.C. 171. Coss. P. Licinius Crassus, C. Cassius Longinus. Lases and his colleagues offered to put their city wholly into the hands of the Romans; Ismenias proposed to submit all the cities of Boeotia as one nation to the discretion of the commissioners. The Roman commissioners at Chalcis: ambassadors from Thespiae and Neon of Boeotia. But this latter proposal was diametrically opposed to the policy of Marcius and his colleagues. What suited that policy best was to split up Boeotia into separate cities: and they therefore received Lases and his party, as well as the envoys from Chaeronea and Lebadea, and all who came from single cities, with great favour and lavish courtesy; but treated Ismenias with ostentatious neglect and coldness. Some of the exiles[146] also attacked Ismenias and were very near stoning him to death, and would have done so if he had not saved himself by taking refuge through the door[147] of the chamber where the commissioners were sitting.Thebes. At the same period there were disturbances and party contests at Thebes. One party were for committing the town unconditionally to Rome; but the Coroneans and Haliartians flocked to Thebes and vehemently maintained that they ought to maintain the alliance with Perseus. For a time neither of the two parties showed any disposition to give in to each other; but when Olympichus of Coronea set the example of changing sides and asserting that they ought to cleave to the Romans, a great change and revolution came over the feelings of the populace. First, they compelled Dicetas to go on an embassy to Marcius and the other commissioners to excuse them for their alliance with Perseus. Next, they expelled Neon and Hippias, crowding to their houses, and bidding them go and make their own defence for the terms that they had made; for they were the men who had negotiated the alliance. When these men had left the town, the people immediately collected into the assembly and first voted honours and gifts to the Romans, and then ordered the magistrates to push on the alliance. Last of all they appointed ambassadors to hand over the city to the Romans and to restore their exiles.
[2.] Whilst these things were being accomplished at Thebes, the exiles in Chalcis appointed PompidesThe cause of the exiles’ triumph at Chalcis. to state their grievances against Ismenias, Neon, and Dicetas. The bad policy of these men being manifest, and the Romans lending their support to the exiles, Hippias and his party were rendered so odious that they were in danger of falling victims to the fury of the populace, until the Romans, by checking the assaults of the mob, secured them a certain degree of safety.
When the Theban envoys arrived, bringing with them to the commissioners the decrees and honours I have mentioned,Dissolution of the Boeotian league, B.C. 171. a rapid change passed over the face of things in each of the towns, for they were separated by a very narrow interval from each other. The commissioners with Marcius received the Theban envoys, complimented their town and counselled them to restore the exiles, and bade the several towns send embassies to Rome submitting themselves individually and unreservedly to the protection of the Romans. Their policy, therefore, of splitting up the league of the Boeotian towns, and of destroying the popularity of the Macedonian royal house with the Boeotian populace having thus completely succeeded, the commissioners sent for Servius Lentulus from Argos, and leaving him in charge at Chalcis went themselves to the Peloponnese; while Neon a few days afterwards retired to Macedonia; and Ismenias and Dicetas, being thrown at once into prison, shortly afterwards put an end to their lives. Thus it came about that the Boeotians, who had for a long period of years, and through many strange vicissitudes, maintained a national league, by now rashly and inconsiderately adopting the cause of Perseus, and giving way to an outburst of unreasoning excitement, were entirely disintegrated and split up into separate cities.
When Aulus and Marcius arrived at Argos, after communication with the council of the Achaean league,The Commissioners in the Peloponnese. they called upon Archon the Strategus to despatch a thousand men to Chalcis, to garrison the town until the arrival of the Romans; an order which Archon readily obeyed. Having thus settled affairs in Greece during the winter, and met Publius Lentulus and his two colleagues, the commissioners sailed back to Rome....
[3.] Meanwhile Tiberius Claudius and Aulus Postumius had been engaged on a visitation of the islands and Greek cities in Asia,The Rhodians prepare to co-operate with Rome. and had spent the longest time in Rhodes; though the Rhodians at that time did not require any supervision, for the prytanis that year was Agesilochus, a man of high rank, who had once been on an embassy to Rome. Even before the legates came, as soon as it became clear that the Romans intended to go to war with Perseus he had urged his people to throw in their fortunes with those of Rome; and, among other things, had counselled them to repair forty ships, in order that, if any occasion for using them should arise, it should not find them still in the midst of preparations, but ready to answer to the call and to carry out their resolve at once. By stating these facts to the Roman envoys, and showing them the preparations visibly progressing, he let them return to Rome in a high state of satisfaction with Rhodes....