539 a Roman fleet and army had been stationed at Brundisium to
meet it; Philip, who was without vessels of war, was constructing a
flotilla of light Illyrian barks to convey his army across. But when
the endeavour had to be made in earnest, his courage failed to
encounter the dreaded quinqueremes at sea; he broke the promise which
he had given to his ally Hannibal to attempt a landing, and with the
view of still doing something he resolved to make an attack on his own
share of the spoil, the Roman possessions in Epirus (540). Nothing
would have come of this even at the best; but the Romans, who well
knew that offensive was preferable to defensive protection, were by no
means content to remain--as Philip may have hoped--spectators of the
attack from the opposite shore. The Roman fleet conveyed a division
of the army from Brundisium to Epirus; Oricum was recaptured from the
king, a garrison was thrown into Apollonia, and the Macedonian camp
was stormed. Thereupon Philip passed from partial action to total
inaction, and notwithstanding all the complaints of Hannibal, who
vainly tried to breathe into such a halting and shortsighted policy
his own fire and clearness of decision, he allowed some years to
elapse in armed inactivity.

Rome Heads a Greek Coalition against Macedonia

Nor was Philip the first to renew the hostilities. The fall of
Tarentum (542), by which Hannibal acquired an excellent port on the
coast which was the most convenient for the landing of a Macedonian
army, induced the Romans to parry the blow from a distance and to give
the Macedonians so much employment at home that they could not think
of an attempt on Italy. The national enthusiasm in Greece had of
course evaporated long ago. With the help of the old antagonism to
Macedonia, and of the fresh acts of imprudence and injustice of which
Philip had been guilty, the Roman admiral Laevinus found no difficulty
in organizing against Macedonia a coalition of the intermediate and
minor powers under the protectorate of Rome. It was headed by the
Aetolians, at whose diet Laevinus had personally appeared and had
gained its support by a promise of the Acarnanian territory which
the Aetolians had long coveted. They concluded with Rome a modest
agreement to rob the other Greeks of men and land on the joint
account, so that the land should belong to the Aetolians, the men
and moveables to the Romans. They were joined by the states of anti-
Macedonian,