salians formal battles took place between those that had property
and those that had none. Under such circumstances the worst outrages
were perpetrated as a matter of course; among the Aetolians, for
instance, a general amnesty was proclaimed and a new public peace was
made up solely for the purpose of entrapping and putting to death a
number of emigrants. The Romans attempted to mediate; but their
envoys returned without success, and announced that both parties were
equally bad and that their animosities were not to be restrained. In
this case there was, in fact, no longer other help than the officer
and the executioner; sentimental Hellenism began to be as repulsive as
from the first it had been ridiculous. Yet king Perseus sought to
gain the support of this party, if it deserve to be called such--of
people who had nothing, and least of all an honourable name, to lose
--and not only issued edicts in favour of Macedonian bankrupts, but
also caused placards to be put up at Larisa, Delphi, and Delos, which
summoned all Greeks that were exiled on account of political or other
offences or on account of their debts to come to Macedonia and to
look for full restitution of their former honours and estates. As may
easily be supposed, they came; the social revolution smouldering
throughout northern Greece now broke out into open flame, and the
national-social party there sent to Perseus for help. If Hellenic
nationality was to be saved only by such means, the question might
well be asked, with all respect for Sophocles and Phidias, whether
the object was worth the cost.

Rupture with Perseus

The senate saw that it had delayed too long already, and that it was
time to put an end to such proceedings. The expulsion of the Thracian
chieftain Abrupolis who was in alliance with the Romans, and the
alliances of Macedonia with the Byzantines, Aetolians, and part of the
Boeotian cities, were equally violations of the peace of 557, and
sufficed for the official war-manifesto: the real ground of war was
that Macedonia was seeking to convert her formal sovereignty into a
real one, and to supplant Rome in the protectorate of the Hellenes.
As early as 581 the Roman envoys at the Achaean diet stated pretty
plainly, that an alliance with Perseus was equivalent to casting off
the alliance of Rome. In 582 king Eumenes came in person to Rome with
a long list of grievances and laid open to the senate the whole
situation of affairs; upon