reign had lasted a long while; but he made an excellent use of his
time to strengthen his kingdom. His expectations from the war against
Antiochus had not been fulfilled; but he had considerably enlarged
his dominions: he was again in possession of Demetrias and of part of
Magnesia, so that he hemmed in Thessaly; the Dolopians had remained
under his sway (although they were detached from his country); he
also had Athamania; and he had gotten again the Greek towns on
the Thracian coast, Ænos, Maronea, Abdera, and others, which had
formerly been Egyptian. The Romans had let him go on quietly for a
while; but now they began craftily to undermine his rule. They gave
their encouragement when Amynander drove the Macedonian garrisons
from Athamania; they received embassies which they themselves had
set on foot, from Thessaly and the towns on the Thracian coast,
bearing complaints of Philip’s encroachments. They must have held the
conviction, that he had no other object, but thus to strengthen himself
until he should be able to regain his former might; but Philip, in
all his preparations, was too cautious to run foul upon the treaty.
Particularly hostile to Philip was Eumenes, who longed to have the
towns on the Thracian coast, that he might extend his territory to
the frontiers of Macedon. Philip heard that many ambassadors were
gathering in Rome, and he sent his son Demetrius thither, who had
formerly been with the Romans as a hostage, and in that way had made a
good many connexions there. These transactions--as was always managed
by the Romans at that time with ruthless dexterity--led to nothing;
the decision was to be given in Macedonia by Roman commissioners.
During that time, there was now a great anxiety not to do anything
that might have seemed unfriendly to the Romans. These commissioners
were received by Philip with great bitterness: some things he yielded
which he could not help; in others, he made evasions, and sought to
gain time; misfortune had taught him wisdom. He had carried on the
first war with the Romans, in which he might have done them much harm,
sluggishly, and without having his heart in it; he had also engaged
quite unprepared in that which had been directed against himself,
so that after one defeat, every thing was lost for him; but from
555, during the eighteen years which elapsed to his death, he was
always preparing himself. On both sides, they vied with each other in
faithlessness. Philip set on the Thracians to surprise the Roman army
which was coming from Asia, and to rob it of its _impedimenta_: the
Romans tried to strip him of his possessions. He therefore strove to
make himself as unassailable as possible; and as he was not allowed to
have a fleet, and therefore was exposed to constant attacks by sea,
he formed the plan of abandoning the sea-port towns, which were by no
means strong, and of drawing the inhabitants into the interior: he also
directed his whole attention to getting money. For this purpose, he
settled in Thrace, where he worked the mines with redoubled activity,
and the arsenals were filled with arms: on the other hand, he caused
Thracians to emigrate to the wasted Macedonian countries. At the same
time, he negotiated with other nations; yet he did not turn his eyes
towards the powerless East, but to the Getæ and Bastarnians. The
latter then dwelt in Dacia, the present Moldavia and Wallachia: the
great move of the Sarmatian peoples on the Dnieper, had made those
tribes inclined to leave their abodes. Philip therefore tried to get
them to fall upon Italy, a scheme which was carried out seventy years
afterwards by the Cimbrians. These transactions had already gone very
far, nor would they have been abortive but for the death of the king;
and in fact this would have been the only means of assailing Rome. The
Romans were universally hated, and they deserved it. The people among
whom in former days justice had been the corner-stone of religion, had
not even a spark left of their ancient virtue: they tried to stir up
infamous intrigues in the free states, and in the families of princes;
they everywhere took the bad under their protection, and cheered them
on to venture everything on the strength of it. Thus, in the royal
house of Macedon, there arose a quarrel between the two sons of Philip,
the elder of whom was Perseus, and the younger, Demetrius; the former
being the son of a concubine, the latter begotten in lawful wedlock.
Demetrius became suspected by the king of being a partisan of the
Romans; and the hatred between the two brothers broke out with so much
the greater fierceness--Perseus being maddened against the Romans--the
more Demetrius took their part. After years of horrid accusations and
treacherous wiles, Perseus at last carried the day, and had Demetrius
poisoned by his father. Whether Demetrius really engaged in guilty
plots, or whether there was nothing more than a passing impulse, cannot
be made out now; if we judge from the morality of those times, his
complete innocence is not likely: that the charges against the father
and Perseus in Livy, according to which Perseus tells false-hearted
slanders against his brother to the king, are highly exaggerated,
however beautifully they read, may be asserted with the greatest
probability. Thus it is no doubt one of those unjust insinuations
which we meet with but too often, when the _mors opportuna_ of Philip
is spoken of. How frequently, when such a _mors opportuna_ happened,
was it represented as having been intentionally brought about! Philip
had reached the age when he might very well have died a natural death;
he was sixty years old when he died (573): he is said to have deeply
rued the foul deed which he had committed against Demetrius, and to
have died of a broken heart. And it still remains a question, whether,
and how far, he could have had the thought of passing over his son,
who was no fool, and bequeathing the kingdom to his cousin, a son of
Antigonus Doson. In short, the country was left to his son Perseus
in a state of power and greatness, which no one could have dreamed
of at the beginning of his reign, and still less at the time of the
disadvantageous peace with Rome.
It is difficult to form a correct opinion of Perseus, who was an
inconsistent character. A marked feature in his disposition was
avarice: he could not tear himself away from his treasures, even when
there was the strongest necessity for it, and he grudged them when
they might have gotten him the most formidable troops; and this is
particularly the case when he promises subsidies to foreign peoples.
Moreover, he showed himself wavering in war, which indeed was partly
the result of circumstances, but was also deep-rooted in his nature.
He was no general; for he had no presence of mind in an emergency:
as long as circumstances were not appalling, he was very clever in
hitting upon and doing the right thing; with regard to his courage the
ancients themselves differed in their judgment. In his first years,
it was his endeavour to win the hearts of the Greeks, in which he was
signally successful: he gained over the Achæans, Bœotians, Acarnanians,
Epirotes, and Thessalians, one after another, and besides these, even
the Rhodians and other islanders. Here he did not indeed show his
avarice: he remitted taxes, recalled convicted persons from banishment,
and opened Macedon as a refuge for unfortunate and exiled Greeks. Thus
he got adherents among all the Greeks, and we meet everywhere with a
Roman and a Macedonian party. Among the Achæans there even arose three
factions, a Roman, a Macedonian, and a third one of the patriots,
which was hated by the other two. Thus Perseus came to Greece, and was
welcomed with enthusiasm, as the Roman rule grew more oppressive every
day. The Greeks looked upon him as the man who would restore the old
Macedonian sway, and drive the Romans back again across the Adriatic.
With Carthage also he entered into negociations: but things had already
come to that pass that there was not much to be expected any more even
from a general coalition; for although Rome’s moral power was blighted,
yet she had acquired the influence of a wealthy state, being able to
hire and to arm troops in distant lands.
The Rhodians stood quite free: having entered into no league with the
Romans, they might, if they chose, ally themselves with Perseus. The
latter married a Syrian princess, daughter of Antiochus Epiphanes, a
crazy tyrant, but who displayed no common energy: (he is very correctly
described in the book of the Maccabees, and in the fragments of
Polybius.) Perseus’ sister was married to Prusias. He also went on with
the negociations with the Bastarnians, and even entered into new ones
with the Illyrians. But Eumenes became suspicious of these connexions
of Perseus with Rhodes, Antiochus, and Prusias; for he saw fast enough,
that he could not but fall a victim, if Perseus should be successful
against the Romans: Perseus held out as a bait to the other powers the
kingdom of Pergamus, which would be the natural prey for them to share.
Eumenes therefore complained to the Romans; and these listened to him,
and took up all sorts of other grievances against Perseus and the
Rhodians, which had been set forth against the former by the Thracian
petty princes, and against the latter by the Carians and Lycians, who
had rather be independent than have to pay heavy taxes to the Rhodians.
To these ambassadors they gave the most encouraging answers, without,
however, committing themselves by any thing positive. In this way, they
irritated the Rhodians, but did not break with them: their policy at
that time was truly Macchiavellian. The peace-party, although indeed
very weak in Rhodes, had yet sufficiently the upperhand to prevent
their fellow citizens from declaring against the Romans. Eumenes
himself came to Rome and got a splendid reception, the Romans wishing
even by this very means to display their hostile dispositions. Perseus,
however, kept quiet: he was acknowledged by the Romans, having been
termed the friend and ally of the Roman people, and his ambassadors
were received and rewarded.
On his return from Rome, Eumenes was attacked by assassins in Delphi.
This plot may have been laid by Perseus; it was very like him, although
he positively disavowed it: perhaps also it was a farce of Eumenes
himself, intended to give the Romans a handle for war; yet it would,
after all, have been too bad. The demand of the Romans, that Perseus
should deliver up persons who stood highest in his estimation, because
they were accused of having been the instigators of that attack, met
with a flat refusal, and thence arose the war, which lasted until the
fourth year, from 581-584. This war took a different turn from what
the Romans had expected. They had hoped to be able to bring it to an
end, like the second Macedonian one and that against Antiochus, in
one campaign; besides which, they wished to crush Macedon, and to
reconstruct the whole state of things in the eastern countries. But
Perseus began the struggle with extraordinary resources: Macedon, for
the first time, had enjoyed a twenty-five years’ peace, and it was
thriving; so that besides his auxiliaries and four thousand horse,
he had an army of forty thousand foot. The last books of Livy are
mutilated, and thus we are without any clear view of part of the
operations. The duration of the war, considering the disproportion
between the two powers, is very great; but indeed the Roman generals
carried it on at first in the worst way that could be, and strategical
talent seems to have very much fallen off just then among the Romans.
P. Licinius Crassus appeared in Thessaly, where Perseus advanced to
meet him, and gained a pretty considerable advantage over his cavalry:
the Romans had many killed and taken prisoners. The king, in waging the
war, did it with the wish to obtain a favourable peace; and he believed
that by showing himself resolute, he would get it on better terms. Yet
this was contrary to the settled maxim of the Romans; in fact, it was
exactly a case in which they felt that they must humble him. Perseus
immediately began to negociate; but it was answered, that he was to
make his submission, and to await the decision of the senate. This led
to the battle in Thessaly, the result of which was favourable to the
king. This victory threw such lustre on the arms of Perseus, that the
whole of Greece was ready to go over to him. Yet the Romans had a vast
advantage in their fleet, which was a dreadful scourge to the Greek
sea-port towns; and though indeed it was now opposed by a Macedonian
squadron, which did more than any one expected, they had still the
best of it. Only some few party-leaders in Greece, such as Charops in
Epirus (who had been brought up in Rome, and made it his boast that
he was able to speak Latin), Lyciscus in Ætolia, and Callicrates in
Achaia, were for the Romans: the public opinion was altogether against
them. Whilst men like Polybius, who certainly hated the Romans as
bitterly as his father Lycortas did,--but this was a different hatred
from that of the common herd,--and like Philopœmen, now saw plainly
that Perseus would not be able to stand his ground against the Romans,
and only supported him with pious wishes and prayers, the many dreamt
that he could not fail to be victorious. They egregiously exaggerated
trifling successes, such as the battle in Thessaly, and were guilty of
the worst outrages and insolence against the Romans; just as was done
in Germany, when the French were at the height of their power. Such
men also as Polybius had a very strong feeling against the Romans: it
was not till afterwards, when he was living among them, that he became
aware of the good that was in them. The state of affairs at that time
is clearly shown by the fragments of his history. The Romans now also,
on their side, everywhere looked upon the Greeks as enemies; and this
gave rise to the most cruel deeds, for which the prætor Lucretius was
particularly notorious. A number of Greek towns on the sea-coast were
taken and utterly destroyed, under the command of this Lucretius and
of Hostilius, and the inhabitants were led away as slaves: in Bœotia,
Haliartus and Coronea were burned to ashes. If Perseus had taken
advantage of these circumstances, and had pressed the consul hard,
the whole country on the other side of the Adriatic would have risen
in revolt: but he was irresolute and narrow-minded; he had made out
for himself a petty plan, within the range of which alone he could
do any thing, and of those great enterprises, which would have been
needed to overthrow the Roman empire, he was utterly incapable. Thus he
listened to the delusive offers of the Roman consul to make a lasting
peace; and in the meanwhile Crassus got himself out of his wretched
plight, and the negociations were, of course, broken off. In the same
way, when Marcius Philippus subsequently opposed Perseus again with
insufficient means, he was allowed to offer the king a truce, which,
it was given out, was to lead to a peace, whereas the Romans merely
availed themselves of it to send the consul the reinforcements which
he wanted. In the second and third years of the war, Perseus was very
successful; he even drove back the Romans out of Macedon into Illyria,
and also gained time to protect his empire against the attacks of the
savage Dardanians.
In the third year of the war, Perseus had withdrawn from Thessaly;
but he kept Magnesia, his army held Tempe, and thus he lay safely in
winter-quarters in Pieria. Here Q. Marcius Philippus undertook a bold
piece of daring. He stood at the entrance of Tempe, and as he was not
able to force the pass, he endeavoured with an immense effort to cross
the huge heights of Olympus, so as to turn the army of the Macedonians,
who did not dream of the enemy having thus gone round them. Yet this
enterprise of the Romans ought only to be blamed; for their army got
into a position, in which, if Perseus had only had common presence
of mind and attacked them, they might have been cut off to a man.
Perseus abandoned Dium, having set fire to part of the town; evacuated
Pieria, that narrow strip of beautiful land along the coast, extending
from Olympus to the Thermaic gulf; and retired to Pydna. The Roman
general himself, finding his own situation to be a very dangerous one,
retreated, and the Macedonians, in their turn, advanced again. This
undertaking, however, ended in the Macedonians evacuating Tempe.
The state of opinion with regard to the issue of the war shifted more
and more, though the Romans were slowly creeping on. It was thought
that a formidable coalition would be made; and that fortune would
turn against the Romans, as Rome had reached the crowning height of
her power, and now must needs sink down, as all the Greek states had
done. The Rhodians believed that they might now set up an independent
system, as they hoped, if the wars ended unfavourably for Rome, to
consolidate their own rule over Caria and Lycia: they too allowed
themselves to be beguiled by their wishes. The connexion of Perseus
with Prusias and Antiochus became more active; Antiochus, however,
entered with less spirit into these affairs, as he wished first of
all to take advantage of the crisis to gain Egypt. Since he therefore
no longer threatened Asia Minor, even old Eumenes changed his policy,
and likewise espoused the interests of Perseus; so that not only was
he backward in supporting the Romans, but he even entered into secret
negociations with Perseus: these, however, could not be kept altogether
concealed, and for this the Romans afterwards bore him a bitter grudge.
The Bastarnians also were stirring again; and there was likewise a
closer alliance with Genthius, king of Illyricum, of whose kingdom and
descent we have no distinct accounts, though this we know for certain,
that Scutari (Scodra) was his residence; (his country seems to have
very nearly comprised what is now Upper Albania.) He was not a great
prince, yet, if he took a determined part, a dangerous neighbour to
the Romans. But the Illyrians and Bastarnians reckoned upon getting
subsidies from Perseus: his not granting them to the Bastarnians was
downright madness; he ought at any price to have induced them to invade
Italy. The three hundred talents which he had agreed upon for Genthius,
he kept back, after having drawn him in to commit an outrage against
the Roman ambassadors at his court; for he thought that he had thus
bound him fast to himself by a tie which could not be broken. This was
a pitiful trick!
In 584, the Romans chose L. Æmilius Paullus, the son of the general who
was killed at Cannæ, to be consul for the second time; and as they saw
that considerable efforts were needed to finish the war, they furnished
him with every possible means for it. The Rhodians, most unfortunately
for themselves, had wished to act as mediators: the war interfered with
their trade, and they by no means wanted the Romans to conquer, as they
owed their own independence to the balance of the different states.
They came forward, using violent language, and engaged to get Perseus
to make peace; but the Romans, though hard pressed by the war, did not
desire peace, and the speech of the Rhodians even offended them. At
home, and among their neighbours, the Rhodians felt strong, and there
by their weight they could turn the scales, which indeed they had done
in the war of Antiochus by means of their fleet; but they forgot the
immense disproportion between the power of the Romans and their own.
Perseus opened the campaign without any further increase of force,
except that Genthius declared himself for him. The king had taken up
his winter-quarters in Macedonia, and when the Romans broke up theirs,
he retreated behind the Cambunian hills and Olympus, the lofty ridge
of mountains which separates Thessaly from the Macedonian coast, a
country which is one of the most beautiful on earth. Yet this time
also the Romans succeeded in going round the mountains. Between the
Peneus and Pieria, there is the high and broad range of Olympus, the
peaks of which are almost all covered with everlasting snow. The chief
pass was through Tempe, which was fortified; besides this, there were
several ways across Olympus, and these also were most of them so well
secured, that Æmilius did not expect any good from an attack. But he
discovered a road, just over one of the most towering summits of the
mountains, which, inasmuch as it seemed to be inaccessible, was less
strongly guarded. Thither he sent the son-in-law of Scipio Africanus,
young Scipio Nasica, with eight thousand men, so as to go round the
camp. This enterprise could not have succeeded, had Perseus been a
great general; the aggressor, however, has always an advantage. The
impassable mountain was got over; the Macedonian army saw the Roman
detachment in its rear; the vanguard was defeated by Scipio Nasica, and
Perseus was obliged to change his position. He now took up another at
the back of Pydna, behind a deep torrent: for in this narrow strip of
coast, in which a number of deep mountain streams run down alongside
of each other from Olympus to the sea, lines were thrown up behind
every one of these, so that a stand might be made at every point
successively, in case the enemy should force the pass at Tempe. But now
that the Romans had crossed the mountains on the extreme left wing of
the Macedonians, these entrenchments were useless; and the Macedonians
had then to retreat behind the last of them near Pydna. Thus the Romans
were in Pieria, the country of Orpheus, which was a great advance. Yet
the Macedonian power was still unshaken. Near Pydna, the final battle
was fought, in which the Macedonian monarchy ingloriously fell; it was
decided in one hour, and with it the fate of Macedon: the infantry
was cut to pieces, the cavalry saved itself without much loss, but
with disgrace. The loss of the Romans was trifling: according to some,
it was only ninety-one, according to others, one hundred men; and
moreover the former of these estimates is that of a man, who was no
friend of the Romans, namely Posidonius,--not the celebrated one, but
a writer who lived at the time of this war, and who wished to justify
Perseus.[49] The king had no hope of a rising; for he had drained the
resources of the country to the utmost, and the great fault of the
Macedonians was want of faithfulness to their princes in the day of
need: he fled, and, escorted by some Cretans, tried to escape with
what treasures he had left, as if there had been a place where they
were safe from the Romans. Part of these he therefore offered to give
up to his followers; yet when he had taken breath at Amphipolis, with
the madness of avarice, he repented of his promise, and cheated them
of their due. He ought to have gone to Thrace where he had allies, and
from thence to some Greek town on the Black sea, as these would not
have delivered him up; but he was utterly blinded, and betook himself
to Samothrace, where there was an inviolable temple, which he may have
looked upon as so much safer an asylum, as indeed the worship of the
_penates_ at Lavinium, and that of the Samothracian gods, were akin.
He would doubtless have been safe in that island as a private person;
but it could not possibly have been expected, that the Romans would let
him alone there in his present capacity. His chief motive was certainly
the thought, that he might then also have saved his money; yet he
soon found out that he could not trust those who were about him, and
he even went so far as to have one of them put to death, on which the
others treacherously left him. He now wished to embark for Crete, or,
according to others, to go to Cotys in Thrace; but the master of the
ship, whom he had paid beforehand, deceived him, and all that he could
do was to take away his own life, as the Roman prætor had already
made his appearance, either to seize or to starve him. From a cowardly
love of life, he was led to surrender himself to the Roman admiral Cn.
Octavius; and he was kept as a prisoner for the triumph of Æmilius
Paullus, as was also the case with Genthius.[50]