indeed it had been in reliance upon the assurances of Thoas that he had taken his resolve.

On the news that the Great King was landed, a wave of excitement swept over Greece, not unmixed with disappointment at the meanness of his following. The political situation his presence created was to some extent ambiguous. He still professed innocence of any purpose hostile to Rome. He had not come to conquer Roman territory, but to achieve the very thing which the Romans declared to be their object-to emancipate Hellas from foreign control. If the Romans were sincere in recognizing Greek independence, what objection could they raise to the presence of a friendly king on these shores ? If the Greeks were free, why might they not be friends with Rome and Antiochus alike? It cannot be denied that the glowing language of the phil-Hellenic party in Rome gave some hold to such contentions.1

But the phrases of neither side could now conceal from anybody the real fact that what each power meant by the freedom of Greece was the predominance in every state of the faction subservient to itself-in fine, its own supremacy.

Immediately after the arrival of Antiochus at Demetrias a meeting of the Aetolian Federal Assembly was held at Lamia (in Aetolian possession for the last century), confirming the previous invitation to Antiochus. The King appeared in person. He was received with a storm of applause. Under the circumstances his speech was necessarily somewhat apologetic, but he promised that the spring should really show Greece those colossal armies and fleets of which they had heard so much; and meanwhile-well, he would thank the Aetolians to provide supplies for the troops which accompanied him. The Roman party among the Aetolians, reduced to futilities, were for an impossible compromise, by which, instead of war being declared with Rome, the services of Antiochus should be requested, as arbitrator only.3 happened that the president of the year belonged to this party,

1 Liv. xxxv. 46, 5 f.

2 Niese ii. p. 8.

It

The party of wealth among the Aetolians was more than proportionately represented in the Council, Brandstädter, Gesch. des Aetolisch. Landes, p. 308.

but even his influence was overwhelmed by the popular feeling. Antiochus was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Confederation, and a body of thirty, chosen from among the Inner Council, the Apokletoi, was appointed to assist him with its advice.1

1 Liv. xxxv. 43, 7-44, 9; Polyb. xx. 1. Appian (Syr. 12) puts the election of Antiochus as στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ before the mission of Thoas to Asia.

CHAPTER XX

THE WAR IN GREECE

THE Great King was in Greece. He and his Aetolian allies were confronted by a twofold problem-how to make themselves masters of the country, and how to parry the consequent attack of Rome. They must proceed at once to the accomplishment of the first part of their task if there was to be any chance of their succeeding in the second. Greece lay before them derelict, left by the expulsion of the Macedonians and the retirement of Rome to its own caprices and powers of defence. The sudden move of Antiochus in entering Greece at that late season of the year, with many drawbacks, had one advantage. It had taken Rome by surprise. Rome had absolutely no troops on the east of the Adriatic except the force of Baebius at Apollonia-two legions with auxiliary contingents-which could not cross the mountains of Epirus till the spring, and the 3000 Roman and Italian infantry on the vessels of the praetor Atilius. Titus Flamininus and his fellow-commissioners had to depend almost entirely for stopping the progress of Antiochus upon the levies of the Greek states themselves, the states friendly to Rome. Upon these, however, they could count only so long as the states themselves did not veer, and there was, we have seen, in all or most of them, a party favourable to Antiochus. A series of not unlikely changes of government, if one may use the modern phrase, might put Antiochus ipso facto in possession of Greece. The only body of troops not drawn. from the country itself which the Romans had at their disposal, beside the 3000 with Atilius, was the Pergamene

force brought up at a fortunate moment by King Eumenes. His squadron had appeared in the Euripus just after the attempt of the Aetolians upon Chalcis had failed, and whilst Eumenes proceeded himself to Athens he had dropped in Chalcis, by the request of Flamininus, a garrison of five hundred.1 Only two years before the great Liberator had drawn the Roman garrison from that critical post with every circumstance of disinterestedness and magnanimity.

Antiochus and the Aetolians immediately put forth all they commanded of material force or diplomatic address to win over the cities and states of Greece. The Roman envoys,

on the other hand, brought their moral weight to bear to keep the states faithful. There ensued everywhere simultaneously an intense trial of strength between the two parties.2 The Boeotian League soon began to trim.3 Even the favoured Athens showed signs of unrest, and Flamininus was called in by the Roman party to drive the popular leader Apollodorus into exile, whilst an Achaean garrison of 500 was lodged in the Piraeus.*

At Aegium, before the Achaean Assembly, the envoys of Antiochus and Flamininus met face to face. In answer to the royal envoy's imposing catalogue of the nations which his master would bring into the field-Kurds, Parthians, Medes and Elamites the Roman propounded a homely parable. It reminded him, he said, of a friend of his who set what seemed every variety of flesh and game before his guests, and in the end it turned out to be all culinary disguises of the common pig! All these formidable names cloked the same miserable breed of Syrians!—a statement of a fine free boldness in ethnology. Of the Achaeans Antiochus had thought it unwise to ask more than neutrality; but here the Roman influence was so strong that even this proposition was rejected and the Achaean militia placed at Flamininus' disposal.5

Chalcis, of course, was the point of the most immediate

1 Liv. xxxv. 39.

2 Niese (ii. p. 692, note 4) points out that the elder Cato was sent from Rome at this time to co-operate with Flamininus, and was active in Corinth, Patrae, Aegium and Athens, Plutarch, Cato Major, 12.

3 Liv. xxxv. 50, 5; Polyb. xx. 2.

5 Ibid. 48 f.; Plutarch, Titus, 17.

4 Liv. xxxv. 50, 3.

consequence to Antiochus. His first attempt to seize it had been conducted in person, as the initial step in that plan of campaign which he had concerted with the Aetolians. But the Roman party in power, led by the magistrate Micythion,1 resisted his overtures, encouraged, no doubt, by the Pergamene force within their walls. It could not fail to come now to an exertion of force, on the one side to capture, on the other to retain, the important city.2

Antiochus, after his rebuff, had withdrawn to Demetrias. to gather troops, and an advanced detachment under Menippus of 3000 was soon on its way, supported by the Seleucid fleet under Polyxenidas. This man, the King's admiral, is the same Rhodian exile of whom we heard seventeen years ago as the commander of a Cretan corps in Parthia. Antiochus himself followed with the main body-6000 of his own troops and a hastily levied body of Aetolians whom he picked up at Lamia. The opposite side, on their part, hurried up reinforcements. Eumenes sent on an addition to the Pergamene garrison under Xenoclides, one of the chiefs of the Roman party in Chalcis; the Achaeans, at Flamininus' suggestion, a body of 500 men, and a third body of 500 Romans (drawn doubtless from the ships of Atilius) followed at an interval. All these bodies were racing for the Euboean Straits. The Achaeans and the men of Eumenes arrived first and threw themselves into the city. Next came Menippus, and by occupying Hermaeum, the embarking-place near Salganeus, cut off the Roman force from the passage. The latter, on finding this, moved to Delium, twelve miles along the coast, in order to cross thence. War, in spite of all the diplomatic contention and the manoeuvring of troops, had not been declared, but Menippus could now only preserve the forms of peace by allowing the Roman force to proceed. With this alternative he fell upon them suddenly, in the very sanctuary of Apollo, cut down the majority, and took fifty prisoners; only a handful escaped. The first blood was drawn in the quarrel. For the moment the sudden stroke was brilliantly successful.

1 Μικυθίων Μικυλίωνος Χαλκιδεύς, Michel, No. 655, 1. 230. Appian (Syr. 12 makes him a general of Antiochus, confusing him with Menippus ! 2 Liv. xxxv. 46.