§ 14. The Achæan league still subsisted, but was destined before long to experience the same fate as its rival. At first, indeed, it enjoyed the protection of the Romans, and even acquired an extension of members through their influence, but this protectorate involved a state of almost absolute dependence. Philopomen also had succeeded, in the year 192, in adding Sparta to the League, which now embraced the whole of Peloponnesus. But Sparta having displayed symptoms of insubordination, Philopomen marched against it in 188, and captured the city; when he put to death eighty of the leading men, commanded all the inhabitants who had been enfranchised by the recent tyrants to leave the place by a fixed day, razed the walls and fortifications, abolished the institutions of Lycurgus, and compelled the citizens to adopt the democratic constitution of the Achæans. Meanwhile, the Romans regarded with satisfaction the internal dissensions of Greece, which they foresaw would only render her an easier prey, and neglected to answer the appeals of the Spartans for protection. In 183 the Messenians, under the leadership of Dinocrates, having revolted from the league, Philopamen, who had now attained the age of 70, led an expedition against them; but having fallen from his horse in a skirmish of cavalry, he was captured, and conveyed with many circumstances of ignominy to Messené, where, after a sort of mock trial, he was executed. His fate was avenged by Lycortas, the commander of the Achæan cavalry, the father of the historian Polybius. In the following year, Lycortas, now Strategus, captured Messené, and having compelled those who had been concerned in the death of Philopomen to put an end to their own lives, conveyed the ashes of that general to Megalopolis, where they were interred with heroic honours.

§ 15. In B.C. 179 Philip died, and was succeeded by his son Perseus, the last monarch of Macedonia. The latter years of the reign of Philip had been spent in preparations for a renewal of the war, which he foresaw to be inevitable; and when Perseus ascended the throne, he found himself amply provided with men and money for the impending contest. But, whether from a sincere desire of peace, or from irresolution of character, he sought to avert an open rupture as long as possible, and one of the first acts of his reign was to obtain from the Romans a renewal of the treaty which they had concluded with his father. It is probable that neither party was sincere in the conclusion of this peace, at least neither could entertain any hope of its duration; yet a period of seven years elapsed before the mutual enmity of the two powers broke out into open hostilities. Meanwhile, Perseus was not idle; he secured the attachment of

his subjects by equitable and popular measures, and formed alliances not only with the Greeks and the Asiatic princes, but also with the Thracian, Illyrian, and Celtic tribes which surrounded his dominions. The Romans naturally viewed these proceedings with jealousy and suspicion; and at length, in 172, Perseus was formally accused before the Roman senate, by Eumenes, king of Pergamus, in person, of entertaining hostile designs against the Roman power. The murder of Eumenes near Delphi, on his return homewards, of which Perseus was suspected, aggravated the feeling against him at Rome, and in the following year war was declared against him.

Perseus was at the head of a numerous and well-appointed army, but of all his allies, only Cotys, king of the Odrysians, ventured to support him against so formidable a foe. Yet the war was protracted three years without any decisive result; nay, the balance of success seemed on the whole to incline in favour of Perseus, and many states, which before were wavering, now showed a disposition to join his cause. But his ill-timed parsimony restrained him from taking advantage of their offers, and in 168 the arrival of the consul, L. Æmilius Paulus, completely changed the aspect of affairs. Perseus was driven from a strong position which he had taken up on the banks of the Enipeus, forced to retreat to Pydna, and finally to accept an engagement near that town. At first the serried ranks of the phalanx seemed to promise superiority; but its order having been broken by the inequalities of the ground, the Roman legionaries penetrated into the disordered mass, and committed fearful carnage, to the extent, it is said, of 20,000 men. Perseus fled first to Pella, then to Amphipolis, and finally to the sanctuary of the sacred island of Samothrace, but was at length obliged to surrender himself to a Roman squadron. He was carried to Rome to adorn the triumph of Paulus (167), and was afterwards cast into a dungeon; from whence, however, he was liberated at the intercession of his conqueror, and permitted to spend the remainder of his life in a sort of honourable captivity at Alba. Such was the end of the Macedonian empire, which was now divided into four districts, each under the jurisdiction of an oligarchical council.

§ 16. The Roman commissioners deputed to arrange the affairs of Macedonia did not confine their attention to that province, but evinced their designs of bringing all Greece under the Roman sway. In these views they were assisted by various despots and traitors in different Grecian cities, and especially by Callicrates, a man of great influence among the Achæans, and who for many years lent himself as the base tool of the Romans

to effect the enslavement of his country. After the fall of Macedonia, Callicrates denounced more than a thousand leading Achæans who had favoured the cause of Perseus. These, among whom was Polybius the historian, were apprehended and sent to Rome for trial. Polybius was one of the survivors, who, after a captivity of seventeen years, were permitted to return to their native country. A still harder fate was experienced by Ætolia, Boeotia, Acarnania, and Epirus. In the last-named country, especially, no fewer than seventy of the principal towns were abandoned by Paulus to his soldiers for pillage, and 150,000 persons are said to have been sold into slavery.

§ 17. An obscure quarrel between Athens and Oropus was the remote cause which at length afforded the Romans a pretence for crushing the small remains of Grecian independence by the destruction of the Achæan league. For some time Athens had been reduced to a sort of political mendicancy, and was often fain to seek assistance in her distress from the bounty of the Eastern princes or of the Ptolemies of Egypt. In the year 156 the poverty of the Athenians became so urgent, that they were induced to make a piratical expedition against Oropus for the purposes of plunder. On the complaint of the Oropians the Roman Senate assigned the adjudication of the matter to the Sicyonians, who condemned the Athenians to pay the large fine of 500 talents. In order to obtain a mitigation of this fine the Athenians despatched to Rome (in 151) the celebrated embassy of the three philosophers-Diogenes the Stoic, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Carneades, the founder of the third Academy. The ambassadors were nominally successful, since they obtained a reduction of the fine to 100 talents; a sum, however, still much greater than the Athenians were in a condition to pay. The subsequent relations between Athens and Oropus are obscure; but in 150 we find the Oropians complaining of a fresh aggression, which consisted in an attack upon some of their citizens by the Athenian soldiers. On this occasion the Oropians appealed for protection to the Achæan league, which, however, at first declined to interfere. The Oropians now bribed a Spartan named Menalcidas, who was at that time Strategus, with a present of 10 talents; and Menalcidas employed the corrupt influence of Callicrates to procure the intervention of the league. Menalcidas having subsequently defrauded Callicrates of the sum which he had promised him, the latter accused him of having advised the Romans during his administration to effect the detachment of Sparta from the league. Menalcidas escaped condemnation by bribing Diæus, his successor in the office of Strategus. But such was the obloquy incurred by Diæus through GR.

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this transaction, that in order to divert public attention from himself, he incited the Achæans to violent measures against Sparta, which ultimately involved the league in a fatal struggle with Rome. His pretext for making war on the Spartans was, that instead of appealing to the league respecting a boundary question, as they ought to have done, they had violated its laws by sending a private embassy to Rome.

§ 18. The Spartans, feeling themselves incompetent to resist this attack, appealed to the Romans for assistance; and in 147 two Roman commissioners were sent to Greece to settle these disputes. These commissioners decided that not only Sparta, but Corinth, and all the other cities, except those of Achaia, should be restored to their independence. This decision occasioned serious riots at Corinth. All the Spartans in the town were seized, and even the Roman commissioners narrowly escaped violence. On their return to Rome a fresh embassy was despatched to demand satisfaction for these outrages. But the violent and impolitic conduct of Critolaus, then Strategus of the league, rendered all attempts at accommodation fruitless, and after the return of the ambassadors the Senate declared war against the league. The cowardice and incompetence of Critolaiis as a general were only equalled by his previous insolence. On the approach of the Romans under Metellus from Macedonia he did not even venture to make a stand at Thermopyla; and being overtaken by them near Scarphea in Locris, he was totally defeated, and never again heard of. Diæus, who succeeded him as Strategus, displayed rather more energy and courage. But a fresh Roman force under Mummius having landed on the isthmus, Diæus was overthrown in a battle near Corinth; and that city was immediately evacuated not only by the troops of the league, but also by the greater part of the inhabitants. On entering it Mummius put the few males who remained to the sword; sold the women and children as slaves; and having carried away all its treasures, consigned it to the flames (B.C. 146). Corinth was filled with masterpieces of ancient art; but Mummius was so insensible of their surpassing excellence, as to stipulate with those who contracted to convey them to Italy, that if any were lost in the passage, they should be replaced by others of equal value! Mummius then employed himself in chastising and regulating the whole of Greece; and ten commissioners were sent from Rome to settle its future condition. The whole country, to the borders of Macedonia and Epirus, was formed into a Roman province, under the name of Achaia, derived from that confederacy which had made the last struggle for its political existence.

Group of the Laocoon.

CHAPTER XLVII.

HISTORY OF GRECIAN ART FROM THE END OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO ITS DECLINE.

§ 1. Later school of Athenian sculpture. § 2. Scopas. § 3. Praxiteles. § 4. Sicyonian school of sculpture. Euphranor, Lysippus. § 5. Sicyonian school of painting. Eupompus, Pamphilus, Apelles. § 6. Architecture. § 7. Period after Alexander the Great. School of Rhodes. § 8. Plunder of Greek works of art by the Romans.

§ 1. AFTER the close of the Peloponnesian war, what is called the second or later school of Attic sculpture still continued to assert its pre-eminence. In style and character, however, it presented a marked difference from the school of. the preceding age. The excitement and misfortunes which had attended the war had worked a great change in the Athenians. This was communicated to their works of art, which now manifested an expression of stronger passion and of deeper feeling. The serene and composed majesty which had marked the gods and heroes of the earlier artists altogether vanished. The new school of sculptors preferred to take other deities for their subjects than those which had been selected by their predecessors; and Jove, Hera, and Athēna gave place to gods, characterized by