[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]
The jealousy and rivalry of Aratus and the Achaians had made them put
themselves under the power of Macedon, in order thus to overthrow Sparta.
Aratus seemed to have lost all his skill and spirit, for when the robber
AEtolians again made an attack on the Peloponnesus, he managed so ill as
to have a great defeat; and the Achaians were forced again to call for
the help of the Macedonians, whose king was now Philip, son to Antigonus.
A war went on for many years between the Macedonians, with the Achaians
on the one hand and the AEtolians on the other. Aratus was a friend and
adviser to Philip, but would gladly have loosened the yoke he had helped
to lay on Greece. When the old Messenian town of Ithome fell into the
hands of Philip, he went into the temple of Jupiter, with Aratus and
another adviser called Demetrius the Pharian, to consult the sacrifices
as to whether he should put a garrison into Ithome to overawe Messenia.
The omens were doubtful, and Philip asked his two friends what they
thought. Demetrius said, "If you have the soul of a priest, you will
restore the fort to the Messenians; if you have the soul of a prince, you
will hold the ox by both his horns."
The ox was, of course, the Peloponnesus, and the other horn was the
Acro-Corinthus, which, with Ithome, gave Philip power over the whole
peninsula. The king then asked Aratus' advice. He said, "Thieves nestle
in the fastnesses of rocks. A king's best fortress is loyalty and love;"
and at his words Philip turned away, and left the fort to its own people.
He was at that time a youth full of good promise, but he let himself be
led astray by the vices and pleasures of his court, and withdrew his
favour from Aratus. Then he began to misuse the Messenians, and had
their country ravaged. Aratus, who was for the seventeenth time general
of the League, made a complaint, and Philip, in return, contrived that he
should be slowly poisoned. He said nothing; only once, when a friend
noticed his illness, he said, "This is the effect of the friendship of
kings." He died in 213, and just about this time Philopoemen of
Megalopolis returned from serving in the Cretan army to fight for his
country. He was a thoroughly noble-hearted man, and a most excellent
general, and he did much to improve the Achaian army. In the meantime
Sparta had fallen under the power of another tyrant, called Nabis, a
horribly cruel wretch, who had had a statue made in the likeness of his
wife, with nails and daggers all over her breast. His enemies were put
into her arms; she clasped them, and thus they died. He robbed the
unhappy people of Sparta; and all the thieves, murderers, and outlaws of
the country round were taken into his service, and parties of them sent
out to collect plunder all over the Peloponnesus. At last one of his
grooms ran away with some horses, and took refuge at Megalopolis, and
this Nabis made a cause for attacking both that city and Messenia; but at
last Philopoemen was made general of the Achaian League, and gave the
wretch such a defeat as forced him to keep at home, while Philopoemen
ravaged Laconia.
Philip of Macedon offered to come and drive out Nabis if the Achaians
would help him, but they distrusted him, and did not choose to go to war
with the Romans, whom the robber AEtolians had called from Italy to
assist them. However, Philip reduced Nabis to make all sorts of promises
and treaties, which, of course, he did not keep, but invited in the
AEtolians to assist him. This, however, brought his punishment on him,
for soon after their arrival these allies of his murdered him, and began
to rob all Laconia. Philopoemen and his Achaians at once marched into
the country, helped the Spartans to deliver themselves from the robbers,
and persuaded them to join the League. They were so much pleased with
him that they resolved to give him Nabis' palace and treasure, but he was
known to hate bribes so much that nobody could at first be found to make
him the offer. One man was sent to Megalopolis, but when he saw
Philopoemen's plain, grave, hardy life, and heard how much he disapproved
of sloth and luxury, he did not venture to say a word about the palace
full of Eastern magnificence, but went back to Sparta. He was sent
again, and still found no opportunity; and when, the third time, he did
speak, Philopoemen thanked the Spartans, but said he advised them not to
spend their riches on spoiling honest men, whose help they might have at
no cost at all, but rather to use them in buying over those who made
mischief among them.
Wars were going on at this time between Philip of Macedon, on the one
side, and the AEtolians on the other. Philip's ally was Antiochus the
Great, the Greek king of Syria; the AEtolians had called in the Romans,
that great, conquering Italian nation, whose plan was always to take the
part of some small nation against a more powerful one, break the strength
of both, and then join them to their own empire. But the Achaians did
not know this, and wished them well, while they defeated the Macedonians
at the great battle of Cynocephalae, or the Dog's Head Rocks, in
Thessaly. Philip was obliged to make peace, and one condition required
of him was that he should give up all claims to power over Greece. Then
at Corinth, at the Isthmian games, the Roman consul, Quintius Flaminius,
proclaimed that the Greek states were once more free. Such a shout of
joy was raised that it is said that birds flying in the air overhead
dropped down with the shock, and Flaminius was almost stifled by the
crowds of grateful Greeks who came round him to cover him with garlands
and kiss his hands.
[Picture: Crowning the Victor in the Isthmian Games]
But, after all, the Romans meant to keep a hold on Greece, though they
left the cities to themselves for a little while. The Spartans who had
been banished by Nabis had not returned home, but lived a life of
robbery, which was thought to be favoured by Philopoemen, and this
offended those at home, some of whom plundered a town called Las. The
Achaians demanded that the guilty should be given up to them for
punishment, and a war began, which ended by a savage attack on Sparta, in
which Philopoemen forgot all but the old enmity between Achaia and
Laconia, put ninety citizens to death, pulled down the walls, besides
abolishing the laws of Lycurgus, which, however, nobody had observed
since the fall of Cleomenes. Many citizens were sent into banishment,
and these went to Rome to complain of the Achaians. While they were gone
the Messenians rose against the League, while Philopoemen was lying sick
of a fever at Argos; but though he was ill, and seventy years old, he
collected a small troop of young Megalopolitan horsemen, to join the main
army with them. But he met the full force of the Messenians, and while
fighting bravely to shelter his young followers, received a blow on the
head which stunned him, so that he was made prisoner, and carried to
Messene. There his enemies showed him in the theatre, but the people
only recollected how noble he was, and how he had defended all Greece
from Nabis. So his enemies hurried him away, and put him in an
underground dungeon, where, at night, they sent an executioner to carry
him a dose of poison. Philopoemen raised himself with difficulty, for he
was very weak, and asked the man whether he could tell him what had
become of his young Megalopolitan friends. The man replied that he
thought they had most of them escaped. "You bring good news," said
Philopoemen; then, swallowing the draught, he laid himself on his back,
and, almost instantly died. He is called the Last of the Greeks, for
there never was a great man of the old sort after him.
[Picture: Livadia, The Ancient Mideia in Argolis]