Illyria had
for a considerable time complained of the Macedonian encroachments.
In 551 a Roman envoy at the head of the Illyrian levy had driven
Philip's troops from the Illyrian territory; and the senate had
accordingly declared to the king's envoys in 552, that if he sought
war, he would find it sooner than was agreeable to him. But these
encroachments were simply the ordinary outrages which Philip practised
towards his neighbours; a negotiation regarding them at the present
moment would have led to his humbling himself and offering
satisfaction, but not to war. With all the belligerent powers in the
east the Roman community was nominally in friendly relations, and
might have granted them aid in repelling Philip's attack. But Rhodes
and Pergamus, which naturally did not fail to request Roman aid, were
formally the aggressors; and although Alexandrian ambassadors besought
the Roman senate to undertake the guardianship of the boy king,
Egypt appears to have been by no means eager to invoke the direct
intervention of the Romans, which would put an end to her difficulties
for the moment, but would at the same time open up the eastern sea to
the great western power. Aid to Egypt, moreover, must have been in
the first instance rendered in Syria, and would have entangled Rome
simultaneously in a war with Asia and with Macedonia; which the
Romans were naturally the more desirous to avoid, as they were firmly
resolved not to intermeddle at least in Asiatic affairs. No course
was left but to despatch in the meantime an embassy to the east for
the purpose, first, of obtaining--what was not in the circumstances
difficult--the sanction of Egypt to the interference of the Romans in
the affairs of Greece; secondly, of pacifying king Antiochus by
abandoning Syria to him; and, lastly, of accelerating as much as
possible a breach with Philip and promoting a coalition of the minor
Graeco-Asiatic states against him (end of 553). At Alexandria they
had no difficulty in accomplishing their object; the court had no
choice, and was obliged gratefully to receive Marcus Aemilius Lepidus,
whom the senate had despatched as "guardian of the king" to uphold
his interests, so far as that could be done without an actual
intervention. Antiochus did not break off his alliance with Philip,
nor did he give to the Romans the definite explanations which they
desired; in other respects, however--whether from remissness, or
influenced by the declara