mposed on the communities were destined not for the Roman
exchequer, but for the injured Greek cities, and were mostly
remitted afterwards; and the property of those traitors who had
parents or children was not sold on public account, but handed over
to their relatives. The works of art alone were carried away from
Corinth, Thespiae, and other cities and were erected partly in the
capital, partly in the country towns of Italy:(22) several pieces were
also presented to the Isthmian, Delphic, and Olympic temples. In the
definitive organization of the country also moderation was in general
displayed. It is true that, as was implied in the very introduction
of the provincial constitution,(23) the special confederacies, and
the Achaean in particular, were as such dissolved; the communities were
isolated; and intercourse between them was hampered by the rule that no
one might acquire landed property simultaneously in two communities.
Moreover, as Flamininus had already attempted,(24) the democratic
constitutions of the towns were altogether set aside, and the
government in each community was placed in the hands of a council
composed of the wealthy. A fixed land-tax to be paid to Rome was
imposed on each community; and they were all subordinated to the
governor of Macedonia in such a manner that the latter, as supreme
military chief, exercised a superintendence over administration and
justice, and could, for example, personally assume the decision of
the more important criminal processes. Yet the Greek communities
retained "freedom," that is, a formal sovereignty--reduced, doubtless,
by the Roman hegemony to a name--which involved the property of the
soil and the right to a distinct administration and jurisdiction of
their own.(25) Some years later not only were the old confederacies
again allowed to have a shadowy existence, but the oppressive
restriction on the alienation of landed property was removed.

Destruction of Corinth

The communities of Thebes, Chalcis, and Corinth experienced a treatment
more severe. There is no ground for censure in the fact that the two
former were disarmed and converted by the demolition of their walls
into open villages; but the wholly uncalled-for destruction of
the flourishing Corinth, the first commercial city in Greece, remains
a dark stain on the annals of Rome. By express orders from the senate
the Corinthian citizens were seized, and such as were not killed were
sold into slav