Perseus, profoundly artful, and having the advantage of being the heir apparent to the Macedonian crown, secretly gained over to his interest his father’s ambassadors, who returned to the king with an account that Demetrius was held in the highest estimation at Rome, and that his views appeared to have been of an unjustifiable kind; delivering, at the same time, a letter, which they pretended to have received from Quintus Flaminius. The handwriting of the Roman, and the impression of his signet, the king was well acquainted with; and the exactness of the imitation induced him to give entire credit to the contents, more especially as Flaminius had formerly written in commendation of Demetrius. The present letter was written in a different strain. The author acknowledged the criminality of Demetrius, who indeed, he confessed, aimed at the throne; but for whom, as he had not meditated the death of any of his own blood, he interceded with the monarch. The issue of this atrocious intrigue was truly tragical: Demetrius, found guilty of designs against the crown and the life of his father, was put to death. Philip, when too late, discovered that he had been imposed upon by a forgery, and died of a broken heart.
PERSEUS, KING OF MACEDONIA
[179-168 B.C.]
Perseus succeeded his father on the throne of Macedon, a hundred and seventy-nine years before the birth of Christ. The first measures of his government appeared equally gracious and political. He assumed an air of benignity and gentleness. He not only recalled all those whom fear or judicial condemnation had, in the course of the late reign, driven from their country; but he even ordered the income of their estates, during their exile, to be reimbursed. His deportment to all his subjects was happily composed of regal dignity and parental tenderness. The same temper which regulated his behaviour to his own subjects, he displayed in his conduct towards foreign states. He courted the affections of the Grecian states, and despatched ambassadors to request a confirmation of the treaties subsisting between Rome and Macedon. The senate acknowledged his title to the throne, and pronounced him the friend and ally of the Roman people. His insinuations and intrigues with his neighbours were the more effectual, that most of them began to presage what they had to expect, should the dominion of Rome be extended over all Greece; and looked upon Macedon as the bulwark of their freedom from the Roman yoke.
The only states that stood firm to the Roman cause, were Athens and Achaia. But in this all of them now agreed, that foreign aid was on all occasions necessary to prop the tottering remains of fallen liberty, which, by this time, was little else than a choice of masters. Besides all those advantages which Perseus might derive from the well-grounded jealousy of Roman ambition, he succeeded to all those mighty preparations which were made by his father. But all this strength came to nothing: it terminated in discomfiture, and the utter extinction of the royal family of Macedon. He lost all the advantages he enjoyed, through avarice, meanness of spirit, and want of real courage. The Romans, discovering or suspecting his ambitious designs, sought and found occasion of quarrelling with him. A Roman army passed into Greece. This army, for the space of three years, did nothing worthy of the Roman name; but Perseus, infatuated, or struck with a panic, neglected to improve the repeated opportunities which the incapacity or the corruption of the Roman commanders presented to him. Lucius Æmilius Paullus, elected consul, restored and improved the discipline of the Roman army, which, under the preceding commanders, had been greatly relaxed. He advanced against Perseus, drove him from his entrenchments on the banks of the river Enipeus, and engaged and defeated him under the walls of Pydna.
On the ruin of his army, Perseus fled to Pella. He gave vent to the distraction and ferocity of his mind, by murdering with his own hand two of his principal officers, who had ventured to blame some parts of his conduct. Alarmed at this act of barbarity, his other attendants refused to approach him; so that, being at a loss where to hide himself, or whom to trust, he returned from Pella, which he had reached only about midnight, before break of day. On the third day after the battle he fled to Amphipolis. Being driven by the inhabitants from thence, he hastened to the seaside, in order to pass over into Samothrace, hoping to find a secure asylum in the reputed holiness of that place. Having arrived thither, he took shelter in the temple of Castor and Pollux. Abandoned by all the world, his eldest son Philip only excepted, without a probability of escape, and even destitute of the means of subsistence, he surrendered to Octavius, the Roman prætor, who transported him to the Roman camp. Perseus approached the consul with the most abject servility, bowing his face to the earth, and endeavouring with his suppliant arms to grasp his knees. “Why, wretched man,” said the Roman, “why dost thou acquit Fortune of what might seem her crime, by a behaviour which evinces that thou deservest not her indignation? Why dost thou disgrace my laurels, by showing thyself an abject adversary, and unworthy of having a Roman to contend with?” He tempered, however, this humiliating address, by raising him from the ground, and encouraging him to hope for everything from the clemency of the Roman people. After being led in triumph through the streets of Rome, he was thrown into a dungeon, where he starved himself to death. His eldest son, Philip, and one of his younger sons, are supposed to have died before him. Another of his sons, Alexander, was employed by the chief magistrates of Rome in the office of a clerk.
THE HUMILIATION OF GREECE
[168-167 B.C.]
Within the space of fifteen days after Æmilius had begun to put his army in motion, all the armament was broken and dispersed; and, within two days after the defeat at Pydna, the whole country had submitted to the consul. Ten commissioners were appointed to assist that magistrate in the arrangement of Macedonian affairs. A new form of government was established in Macedon, of which the outlines had been drawn at Rome. On this occasion the Romans exhibited a striking instance of their policy in governing by the principle of division. The whole kingdom of Macedon was divided into four districts; the inhabitants of each were to have no connection, intermarriages, or exchange of possessions, with those of the other districts, but every part to remain wholly distinct from the rest. And among other regulations tending to reduce them to a state of the most abject slavery, they were inhibited from the use of arms, unless in such places as were exposed to the incursions of the barbarians. Triumphal games at Amphipolis, exceeding in magnificence all that this part of the world had ever seen, and to which all the neighbouring nations, both European and Asiatic, were invited, announced the extended dominion of Rome, and the humiliation not only of Macedon, but of Greece; for now the sovereignty of Rome found nothing in that part of the world that was able to oppose it.
The Grecian states submitted to various and multiplied acts of oppression, without a struggle. The government which retained the longest a portion of the spirit of ancient times, was the Achæan. In their treatment of Achaia, the Romans, although they had gained over to their interests several of the Achæan chiefs, were obliged to proceed with great circumspection, lest the destruction of their own creatures should defeat their designs. They endeavoured to trace some vestiges of a correspondence between the Achæan body and the late king of Macedon; and when no such vestiges could be found, they determined that fiction should supply the place of evidence. Caius Claudius, and Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus, were sent as commissioners from Rome, to complain that some of the first men of Achaia had acted in concert with Macedon. At the same time they required, that all who were in such a predicament should be sentenced to death: promising that, after a decree for that purpose should be enacted, they would produce the names of the guilty. “Where,” exclaimed the assembly, “would be the justice of such a proceeding? First name the persons you accuse, and make good your charge.” “I name, then,” said the commissioner, “all those who have borne the office of chief magistrate of Achaia, or been the leaders of your armies.” “In that case,” answered Xenon, an Achæan nobleman, “I too shall be accounted guilty, for I have commanded the armies of Achaia; and yet I am ready to prove my innocence, either here, or before the senate of Rome.” “You say well,” replied one of the Roman commissioners, laying hold on his last words, “let the senate of Rome then be the tribunal before which you shall answer.”