such as it stood in 549; but it
was impossible that they could permit it to acquire the best part of
Asiatic Greece and the important Cyrene, to crush the neutral
commercial states, and thereby to double its power. Further, the fall
of Egypt and the humiliation, perhaps the subjugation, of Rhodes would
have inflicted deep wounds on the trade of Sicily and Italy; and could
Rome remain a quiet spectator, while Italian commerce with the east
was made dependent on the two great continental powers? Rome had,
moreover, an obligation of honour to fulfil towards Attalus her
faithful ally since the first Macedonian war, and had to prevent
Philip, who had already besieged him in his capital, from expelling
him from his dominions. Lastly, the claim of Rome to extend her
protecting arm over all the Hellenes was by no means an empty phrase:
the citizens of Neapolis, Rhegium, Massilia, and Emporiae could
testify that that protection was meant in earnest, and there is no
question at all that at this time the Romans stood in a closer
relation to the Greeks than any other nation--one little more remote
than that of the Hellenized Macedonians. It is strange that any
should dispute the right of the Romans to feel their human, as well as
their Hellenic, sympathies revolted at the outrageous treatment of the
Cians and Thasians.

Preparations and Pretexts for Second Macedonian War

Thus in reality all political, commercial, and moral motives concurred
in inducing Rome to undertake the second war against Philip--one of
the most righteous, which the city ever waged. It greatly redounds
to the honour of the senate, that it immediately resolved on its
course and did not allow itself to be deterred from making the
necessary preparations either by the exhaustion of the state or by
the unpopularity of such a declaration of war. The propraetor Marcus
Valerius Laevinus made his appearance as early as 553 with the
Sicilian fleet of 38 sail in the eastern waters. The government,
however, were at a loss to discover an ostensible pretext for the war;
a pretext which they needed in order to satisfy the people, even
although they had not been far too sagacious to undervalue, as was the
manner of Philip, the importance of assigning a legitimate ground for
hostilities. The support, which Philip was alleged to have granted to
the Carthaginians after the peace with Rome, manifestly could not be
proved. The Roman subjects, indeed, in the province of