Roman envoys, who were commissioned to
organize a second league against Philip there, found the way already
substantially paved for them by the enemy. Of the anti-Macedonian
party--the Spartans, Eleans, Athenians, and Aetolians--Philip might
perhaps have gained the latter, for the peace of 548 had made a deep,
and far from healed, breach in their friendly Alliance with Rome; but
apart from the old differences which subsisted between Aetolia and
Macedonia regarding the Thessalian towns withdrawn by Macedonia from
the Aetolian confederacy--Echinus, Larissa Cremaste, Pharsalus, and
Thebes in Phthiotis--the expulsion of the Aetolian garrisons from
Lysimachia and Cius had produced fresh exasperation against Philip
in the minds of the Aetolians. If they delayed to join the league
against him, the chief reason doubtless was the ill-feeling that
continued to prevail between them and the Romans.

It was a circumstance still more ominous, that even among the Greek
states firmly attached to the interests of Macedonia--the Epirots,
Acarnanians, Boeotians, and Achaeans--the Acarnanians and Boeotians
alone stood steadfastly by Philip. With the Epirots the Roman envoys
negotiated not without success; Amynander, king of the Athamanes, in
particular closely attached himself to Rome. Even among the Achaeans,
Philip had offended many by the murder of Aratus; while on the other
hand he had thereby paved the way for a more free development of the
confederacy. Under the leadership of Philopoemen (502-571, for the
first time -strategus- in 546) it had reorganized its military system,
recovered confidence in itself by successful conflicts with Sparta,
and no longer blindly followed, as in the time of Aratus, the policy
of Macedonia. The Achaean league, which had to expect neither profit
nor immediate injury from the thirst of Philip for aggrandizement,
alone in all Hellas looked at this war from an impartial and national-
Hellenic point of view. It perceived--what there was no difficulty in
perceiving--that the Hellenic nation was thereby surrendering itself
to the Romans even before these wished or desired its surrender, and
attempted accordingly to mediate between Philip and the Rhodians;
but it was too late. The national patriotism, which had formerly
terminated the federal war and had mainly contributed to bring about
the first war between Macedonia and Rome, was extinguished the Achaean
mediation remained fruitless, and in vain Ph