Hellenes Philip and Perseus had, long
before declaring war against Rome carried on a lively double system of
proselytizing, attempting to gain over to the side of Macedonia on the
one hand the national, and on the other--if we may be permitted the
expression--the communistic, party. As a matter of course, the whole
national party among the Asiatic as well as the European Greeks was
now at heart Macedonian; not on account of isolated unrighteous acts
on the part of the Roman deliverers, but because the restoration of
Hellenic nationality by a foreign power involved a contradiction in
terms, and now, when it was in truth too late, every one perceived
that the most detestable form of Macedonian rule was less fraught with
evil for Greece than a free constitution springing from the noblest
intentions of honourable foreigners. That the most able and upright
men throughout Greece should be opposed to Rome was to be expected;
the venal aristocracy alone was favourable to the Romans, and here
and there an isolated man of worth, who, unlike the great majority,
was under no delusion as to the circumstances and the future of the
nation. This was most painfully felt by Eumenes of Pergamus, the main
upholder of that extraneous freedom among the Greeks. In vain he
treated the cities subject to him with every sort of consideration;
in vain he sued for the favour of the communities and diets by fair-
sounding words and still better-sounding gold; he had to learn that
his presents were declined, and that all the statues that had formerly
been erected to him were broken in pieces and the honorary tablets
were melted down, in accordance with a decree of the diet,
simultaneously throughout the Peloponnesus (584). The name of Perseus
was on all lips; even the states that formerly were most decidedly
anti-Macedonian, such as the Achaeans, deliberated as to the
cancelling of the laws directed against Macedonia; Byzantium,
although situated within the kingdom of Pergamus, sought and obtained
protection and a garrison against the Thracians not from Eumenes, but
from Perseus, and in like manner Lampsacus on the Hellespont joined
the Macedonian: the powerful and prudent Rhodians escorted the Syrian
bride of king Perseus from Antioch with their whole magnificent war-
fleet--for the Syrian war-vessels were not allowed to appear in the
Aegean--and returned home highly honoured and furnished with rich
presents, more especially with wood for shipb