[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]
After the death of Philopoemen there was little real spirit left in the
Achaians, and Callicrates, who became the leading man among them, led
them to submit themselves to the senate of Rome, and do as it pleased
with regard to Sparta and Messene.
Philip of Macedon was at war with Rome all his life, and his son Perseus
went on with it. Marcus Paullus AEmilius, one of the best and bravest of
the Romans, was sent to subdue him, and the great battle was fought in
188, at Pydna, near Mount Olympus. The night before the battle there was
an eclipse of the moon, which greatly terrified the Macedonians; but the
Romans had among them an officer who knew enough of the movements of the
heavenly bodies to have told the soldiers of it beforehand, and its
cause. The Macedonians being thus discouraged, gave way, and fled as
soon as the battle seemed to be going against them; and Perseus himself
galloped from the field to Pella, where he was so beside himself with
despair that he stabbed two of his counsellors who tried to show him the
mistakes he had made. But as AEmilius advanced, he was forced to retreat
before him, even into the island of Samothrace, which was sacred soil,
whence he could not be taken by force. The Romans watched all round the
island, and he dreaded that the Samothracians should give him up to them;
so he bargained with a Cretan shipmaster to take him and all his treasure
on board his ship, and carry him off at night. The Cretan received half
the treasure, and Perseus crept out at a small window, crossed a garden,
and reached the wharf, where, to his horror, he found that the
treacherous captain had sailed off with the treasure, and left him
behind.
There was nothing for him to do but to yield to the Romans. He came into
the camp in mourning, and AEmilius gave him his hand and received him
kindly, but kept him a prisoner, and formed Macedon into a province under
Roman government. AEmilius himself went on a journey through the most
famous Greek cities, especially admiring Athens, and looking at the
places made famous by historians, poets, and philosophers. He took
Polybius, a learned Athenian philosopher, who wrote the history of this
war, to act as tutor to his two sons, though both were young men able to
fight in this campaign, and from that time forward the Romans were glad
to have Greek teachers for their sons, and Greek was spoken by them as
freely and easily as their own Latin; every well-educated man knew the
chief Greek poets by heart, and was of some school of philosophy, either
Stoic or Epicurean, but the best men were generally Stoics.
[Picture: Sappho] Perseus and his two young sons were taken to Rome,
there, according to the Roman fashion, to march in the triumph of the
conqueror, namely, the procession in which the general returned home with
all his troops. It was a shame much feared by the conquered princes, and
the cruel old rule was that they should be put to death at the close of
the march. Paullus AEmilius was, however, a man of kind temper, and had
promised Perseus to spare his life. The unfortunate king begged to be
spared the humiliation of walking in the triumph, but AEmilius could not
disappoint the Roman people, and answered that "the favour was in
Perseus' own power," meaning, since he knew no better, that to die should
prevent what was so much dreaded. Perseus, however, did not take the
counsel, but lived in an Italian city for the rest of his life.
After Macedon was ruined the Romans resolved to put down all stirrings of
resistance to them in the rest of Greece. Their friend Callicrates,
therefore, accused all the Achaians who had been friendly to Perseus, or
who had any brave spirit--1000 in number--of conspiring against Rome, and
called on the League to sentence them to death; but as this proposal was
heard with horror, they were sent to Rome to justify themselves, and the
Roman senate, choosing to suppose they had been judged by the League,
sentenced them never to return to Achaia. Polybius was among them, so
that his home was thenceforth in the house of his pupils, the sons of
AEmilius. Many times did the Achaians send entreaties that they might be
set at liberty, and at last, after seventeen years, Polybius' pupils
persuaded the great senator Cato to speak for them, and he did so, but in
a very rough, unfeeling way. "Anyone who saw us disputing whether a set
of poor old Greeks should be buried by our grave-diggers or their own
would think we had nothing else to do," he said. So the Romans consented
to their going home; but when they asked to have all their rank and
honours restored to them, Cato said, "Polybius, you are less wise than
Ulysses. You want to go back into the Cyclops' cave for the wretched
rags and tatters you left behind you there." After all, Polybius either
did not go home or did not stay there, for he was soon again with his
beloved pupils; and in the seventeen years of exile the 1000 had so
melted away that only 300 went home again.
[Picture: Lessina, The Ancient Eleusis, on the Gulf of Corinth]
But the very year after their return a fresh rising was made by the
Macedonians, under a pretender who claimed to be the son of Perseus, and
by the Peloponnesians, with the Achaians and Spartans at their head,
while the Corinthians insulted the Roman ambassadors. A Roman general
named Quintus Metellus was sent to subdue them, and routed the
Macedonians at the battle of Scarphaea, but after that another general
named Mummius was sent out. The Achaians had collected all their
strength against him, and in the first skirmish gained a little success;
and this encouraged them to risk a battle, in which they were so
confident of victory that they placed their wives and children on a hill
to watch them, and provided waggons to carry away the spoil. The battle
was fought at Leucoptera, near the Isthmus, and all this boasting was
soon turned into a miserable defeat. Diaeus, who commanded the Greeks,
was put to flight, and riding off to Megalopolis in utter despair, he
killed his wife and children, to prevent their falling into the hands of
the enemy, and then poisoned himself.
The other Achaians at first retreated into Corinth, and in the course of
the night scattered themselves each to his own city. In the morning
Mummius marched in and gave up the unhappy city to plunder. All the men
were slain, all the women and children taken for slaves, and when all the
statues, pictures, and jewels had been gathered out of the temples and
houses, the place was set on fire, and burnt unceasingly for several
days; the walls were pulled down, and the city blotted out from Greece.
There was so much metal of all kinds in the burning houses that it all
became fused together, and produced a new and valuable metal called
Corinthian brass. The Romans were at this time still very rude and
ignorant, and did not at all understand the value and beauty of the works
of art they carried off. Polybius saw two soldiers making a dice-board
of one of the most famous pictures in Greece; and Mummius was much
laughed at for telling the captains of the ships who took home some of
the statues to exhibit in his triumph that if they lost them they should
supply new ones at their own cost. The Corinthians suffered thus for
having insulted the ambassadors. The other cities submitted without a
blow, and were left untouched to govern themselves, but in subjection to
Rome, and with Roman garrisons in their citadels. Polybius was sent
round them to assure them of peace, and they had it for more than 500
years, but the freedom of Greece was gone for ever.
[Picture: Figures carrying vases]