Greece, the Boeotians and Athenians in central Greece,
and the Achaeans, Lacedaemonians, Messenians, and Eleans in the
Peloponnesus. Among these, the republics of the Epirots, Acarnanians,
and Boeotians were in various ways closely knit to Macedonia--the
Acarnanians more especially, because it was only Macedonian protection
that enabled them to escape the destruction with which they were
threatened by the Aetolians; none of them were of any consequence.
Their internal condition was very various. The state of things may
to some extent be illustrated by the fact, that among the Boeotians
--where, it is true, matters reached their worst--it had become
customary to make over every property, which did not descend to heirs
in the direct line, to the -syssitia-; and, in the case of candidates
for the public magistracies, for a quarter of a century the primary
condition of election was that they should bind themselves not to
allow any creditor, least of all a foreign one, to sue his debtor.

The Athenians

The Athenians were in the habit of receiving support against Macedonia
from Alexandria, and were in close league with the Aetolians. But
they too were totally powerless, and hardly anything save the halo
of Attic poetry and art distinguished these unworthy successors of
a glorious past from a number of petty towns of the same stamp.

The Aetolians

The power of the Aetolian confederacy manifested a greater vigour.
The energy of the northern Greek character was still unbroken there,
although it had degenerated into a reckless impatience of discipline
and control. It was a public law in Aetolia, that an Aetolian might
serve as a mercenary against any state, even against a state in
alliance with his own country; and, when the other Greeks urgently
besought them to redress this scandal, the Aetolian diet declared that
Aetolia might sooner be removed from its place than this principle
from their national code. The Aetolians might have been of great
service to the Greek nation, had they not inflicted still greater
injury on it by this system of organized robbery, by their thorough
hostility to the Achaean confederacy, and by their unhappy antagonism
to the great state of Macedonia.

The Achaeans

In the Peloponnesus, the Achaean league had united the best elements
of Greece proper in a confederacy based on civilization, national
spirit, and peaceful preparation for self-defence. But the vigour
and more especially the