uilding; commissioners
from the Asiatic cities, and consequently subjects of Eumenes, held
secret conferences with Macedonian deputies in Samothrace. That
sending of the Rhodian war-fleet had at least the aspect of a
demonstration; and such, certainly, was the object of king Perseus,
when he exhibited himself and all his army before the eyes of the
Hellenes under pretext of performing a religious ceremony at Delphi.
That the king should appeal to the support of this national
partisanship in the impending war, was only natural. But it was wrong
in him to take advantage of the fearful economic disorganization of
Greece for the purpose of attaching to Macedonia all those who desired
a revolution in matters of property and of debt. It is difficult to
form any adequate idea of the unparalleled extent to which the
commonwealths as well as individuals in European Greece--excepting the
Peloponnesus, which was in a somewhat better position in this respect
--were involved in debt. Instances occurred of one city attacking and
pillaging another merely to get money--the Athenians, for example,
thus attacked Oropus--and among the Aetolians, Perrhaebians, and
Thessalians formal battles took place between those that had property
and those that had none. Under such circumstances the worst outrages
were perpetrated as a matter of course; among the Aetolians, for
instance, a general amnesty was proclaimed and a new public peace was
made up solely for the purpose of entrapping and putting to death a
number of emigrants. The Romans attempted to mediate; but their
envoys returned without success, and announced that both parties were
equally bad and that their animosities were not to be restrained. In
this case there was, in fact, no longer other help than the officer
and the executioner; sentimental Hellenism began to be as repulsive as
from the first it had been ridiculous. Yet king Perseus sought to
gain the support of this party, if it deserve to be called such--of
people who had nothing, and least of all an honourable name, to lose
--and not only issued edicts in favour of Macedonian bankrupts, but
also caused placards to be put up at Larisa, Delphi, and Delos, which
summoned all Greeks that were exiled on account of political or other
offences or on account of their debts to come to Macedonia and to
look for full restitution of their former honours and estates. As may
easily be supposed, they came; the social revolution smoulder