a system of equilibrium; on the opposite
system Seleucus and Antigonous, Hannibal and Scipio, came into
collision. And, if it seems to us sad that all the other richly-
endowed and highly-developed nations of antiquity had to perish in
order to enrich a single one out of the whole, and that all in the
long run appear to have only arisen to contribute to the greatness
of Italy and to the decay involved in that greatness, yet historical
justice must acknowledge that this result was not produced by the
military superiority of the legion over the phalanx, but was the
necessary development of the international relations of antiquity
generally-so that the issue was not decided by provoking chance,
but was the fulfillment of an unchangeable, and therefore
endurable, destiny.

Notes for Chapter X

1. --Ide gar prasde panth alion ammi dedukein-- (i. 102).

2. II. VII. Last Struggles in Italy

3. The legal dissolution of the Boeotian confederacy, however, took
place not at this time, but only after the destruction of Corinth
(Pausan. vii. 14, 4; xvi. 6).

4. The recently discovered decree of the senate of 9th Oct. 584, which
regulates the legal relations of Thisbae (Ephemeris epigraphica, 1872,
p. 278, fig.; Mitth. d. arch. Inst., in Athen, iv. 235, fig.), gives
a clear insight into these relations.

5. The story, that the Romans, in order at once to keep the promise
which had guaranteed his life and to take vengeance on him, put him
to death by depriving him of sleep, is certainly a fable.

6. The statement of Cassiodorus, that the Macedonian mines were
reopened in 596, receives its more exact interpretation by means of
the coins. No gold coins of the four Macedonias are extant; either
therefore the gold-mines remained closed, or the gold extracted was
converted into bars. On the other hand there certainly exist silver
coins of Macedonia -prima- (Amphipolis) in which district the silver-
mines were situated. For the brief period, during which they must
have been struck (596-608), the number of them is remarkably great,
and proves either that the mines were very energetically worked, or
that the old royal money was recoined in large quantity.

7. The statement that the Macedonian commonwealth was "relieved of
seignorial imposts and taxes" by the Romans (Polyb. xxxvii. 4) does
not necessarily require us to assume a subsequent remission of these
taxes: it is sufficient, for the explanation of Polybius' words, to