ng was fixed as to the coast towns
and the islands of Thasos and Lemnos which were -de facto- in Philip's
hands, while the Chersonese was even expressly given to Eumenes; and
it was not difficult to see that Eumenes received possessions in
Europe, simply that he might in case of need keep not only Asia but
Macedonia in check. The exasperation of the proud and in many
respects chivalrous king was natural; it was not chicane, however,
but an unavoidable political necessity that induced the Romans to take
this course. Macedonia suffered for having once been a power of the
first rank, and for having waged war on equal terms with Rome; there
was much better reason in her case than in that of Carthage for
guarding against the revival of her old powerful position.

The Achaeans

It was otherwise with the Achaeans. They had, in the course of the
war with Antiochus, gratified their long-cherished wish to bring the
whole Peloponnesus into their confederacy; for first Sparta, and then,
after the expulsion of the Asiatics from Greece, Elis and Messene had
more or less reluctantly joined it. The Romans had allowed this to
take place, and had even tolerated the intentional disregard of Rome
which marked their proceedings. When Messene declared that she wished
to submit to the Romans but not to enter the confederacy, and the
latter thereupon employed force, Flamininus had not failed to remind
the Achaeans that such separate arrangements as to the disposal of a
part of the spoil were in themselves unjust, and were, in the relation
in which the Achaeans stood to the Romans, more than unseemly; and yet
in his very impolitic complaisance towards the Hellenes he had
substantially done what the Achaeans willed. But the matter did not
end there. The Achaeans, tormented by their dwarfish thirst for
aggrandizement, would not relax their hold on the town of Pleuron in
Aetolia which they had occupied during the war, but on the contrary
made it an involuntary member of their confederacy; they bought
Zacynthus from Amynander the lieutenant of the last possessor, and
would gladly have acquired Aegina also. It was with reluctance that
they gave up the former island to Rome, and they heard with great
displeasure the good advice of Flamininus that they should content
themselves with their Peloponnesus.

The Achaean Patriots

The Achaeans believed it their duty to display the independence of
their state all the more, the less they really h