Description of Greece

When the Ionians were gone the Achaeans divided their land among themselves and settled in their cities. These were twelve in number, at least such as were known to all the Greek world; Dyme, the nearest to Elis, after it Olenus, Pharae, Triteia, Rhypes, Aegium, Ceryneia, Bura, Helice also and Aegae, Aegeira and Pellene, the last city on the side of Sicyonia. In them, which had previously been inhabited by Ionians, settled the Achaeans and their princes.

Those who held the greatest power among the Achaeans were the sons of Tisamenus, Daimenes, Sparton, Tellis and Leontomenes; his eldest son, Cometes, had already crossed with a fleet to Asia. These then at the time held sway among the Achaeans along with Damasias, the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes, who on his father's side was cousin to the sons of Tisamenus. Equally powerful with the chiefs already mentioned were two Achaeans from Lacedaemon, Preugenes and his son, whose name was Patreus. The Achaeans allowed them to found a city in their territory, and to it was given the name Patrae from Patreus.

The wars of the Achaeans were as follow. In the expedition of Agamemnon to Troy they furnished, while still dwelling in Lacedaemon and Argos, the largest contingent in the Greek army. When the Persians under Xerxes attacked Greece the Achaeans it is clear had no part in the advance of Leonidas to Thermopylae, nor in the naval actions fought by the Athenians with Themistocles off Euboea and at Salamis, and they are not included in the Laconian or in the Attic list of allies.

They were absent from the action at Plataea, for otherwise the Achaeans would surely have had their name inscribed on the offering of the Greeks at Olympia. My view is that they stayed at home to guard their several fatherlands, while because of the Trojan war they scorned to be led by Dorians of Lacedaemon. This became plain in course of time. For when later on the Lacedaemonians began the war with the Athenians, the Achaeans were eager for the alliance with Patrae, and were no less well disposed towards Athens.

Of the wars waged afterwards by the confederate Greeks, the Achaeans took part in the battle of Chaeroneia against the Macedonians under Philip, but they say that they did not march out into Thessaly to what is called the Lamian war, for they had not yet recovered from the reverse in Boeotia. The local guide at Patrae used to say that the wrestler Chilon was the only Achaean who took part in the action at Lamia.

I myself know that Adrastus, a Lydian, helped the Greeks as a private individual, although the Lydian commonwealth held aloof. A likeness of this Adrastus in bronze was dedicated in front of the sanctuary of Persian Artemis by the Lydians, who wrote an inscription to the effect that Adrastus died fighting for the Greeks against Leonnatus.

The march to Thermopylae against the army of the Gauls was left alone by all the Peloponnesians alike; for, as the barbarians had no ships, the Peloponnesians anticipated no danger from the Gauls, if only they walled off the Corinthian Isthmus from the sea at Lechaeum to the other sea at Cenchreae.

This was the policy of all the Peloponnesians at this time. But when the Gauls had somehow crossed in ships to Asia, the condition of the Greeks was as follows. No Greek state was preeminent in strength. For the Lacedaemonians were still prevented from recovering their former prosperity by the reverse at Leuctra combined with the union of the Arcadians at Megalopolis and the settlement of Messenians on their border.

Thebes had been brought so low by Alexander that when, a few years later, Cassander brought back her people, they were too weak even to hold their own. The Athenians had indeed the goodwill of Greece, especially for their later exploits, but they never found it possible to recover from the Macedonian war.

When the Greeks no longer took concerted action, but each state acted for itself alone, the Achaeans enjoyed their greatest power. For except Pellene no Achaean city had at any time suffered from tyranny, while the disasters of war and of pestilence touched Achaia less than any other part of Greece. So we have what was called the Achaean League, and the Achaeans had a concerted policy and carried out concerted actions.

As a place of assembly they resolved to have Aegium, for, after Helice had been swallowed up by the sea, Aegium from of old surpassed in reputation the other cities of Achaia, while at the time it enjoyed great power. Of the remaining Greeks the Sicyonians were the first to join the Achaean League, and after the Sicyonians there entered it yet other Peloponnesians, some forthwith and others after an interval. Some too who lived outside the Isthmus were persuaded to join the Achaean League by its unbroken growth in power.

Alone among the Greeks the Lacedaemonians were the bitter enemies of the Achaeans and openly carried on war against them. Pellene, a city of the Achaeans, was captured by Agis, the son of Eudamidas, who was king at Sparta; but he was immediately driven out by the Sicyonians under Aratus. Cleomenes, the son of Leonidas, the son of Cleonymus, king of the other royal house, won a decisive victory at Dyme over the Sicyonians under Aratus, who attacked him, and afterwards concluded a peace with the Achaeans and Antigonus.

This Antigonus at the time ruled over the Macedonians, being the guardian of Philip, the son of Demetrius, who was still a boy. He was also a cousin of Philip, whose mother he had taken to wife. With this Antigonus then and the Achaeans Cleomenes made peace, and immediately broke all the oaths he had sworn by reducing to slavery Megalopolis, the city of the Arcadians. Because of Cleomenes and his treachery the Lacedaemonians suffered the reverse at Sellasia, where they were defeated by the Achaeans under Antigonus. In my account of Arcadia I shall again have occasion to mention Cleomenes.

When Philip, the son of Demetrius, reached man's estate, and Antigonus without reluctance handed over the sovereignty of the Macedonians, he struck fear into the hearts of all the Greeks. He copied Philip, the son of Amyntas, who was not his ancestor but really his master, especially by flattering those who were willing to betray their country for their private advantage. At banquets he would give the right hand of friendship offering cups filled not with wine but with deadly poison, a thing which I believe never entered the head of Philip the son of Amyntas, but poisoning sat very lightly on the conscience of Philip the son of Demetrius.

He also occupied with garrisons three towns to be used as bases against Greece, and in his insolent contempt for the Greek people he called these cities the keys of Greece. To watch Peloponnesus Corinth was fortified with its citadel; to watch Euboea, the Boeotians and the Phocians, Chalcis on the Euripus; against the Thessalians themselves and the Aetolian people Philip occupied Magnesia at the foot of Mount Pelium. The Athenians especially and the Aetolians he harried with continual attacks and raids of bandits.

Already, in my account of Attica I have described the alliances of Greeks and barbarians with the Athenians against Philip, and how the weakness of their allies urged the Athenians to seek help from Rome. A short time before, the Romans had sent a force ostensibly to help the Aetolians against Philip, but really more to spy on the condition of Macedonia.

At the appeal of Athens the Romans despatched an army under Otilius, to give him the name by which he was best known. For the Romans differ from the Greeks in their being called, not by the names of their fathers, but by three names at least, if not more, given to each man. Otilius had received orders from the Romans to protect Athenians and Aetolians from war with Philip.

Otilius carried out his orders up to a point, but displeased the Romans in certain of his acts. Hestiaea in Euboea and Anticyra in Phocis, which had been compelled to submit to Philip, he utterly destroyed. It was, I think, for this reason that the senate, when they heard the news, sent Flamininus to succeed Otilius in his command.

On his arrival Flamininus sacked Eretria, defeating the Macedonians who were defending it. He then marched against Corinth, which was held by Philip with a garrison, and sat down to besiege it, while at the same time he sent to the Achaeans and bade them come to Corinth with an army, if they desired to be called allies of Rome and at the same time to show their goodwill to Greece.

But the Achaeans greatly blamed Flamininus himself, and Otilius before him, for their savage treatment of ancient Greek cities which had done the Romans no harm, and were subject to the Macedonians against their will. They foresaw too that the Romans were coming to impose their domination both on Achaeans and on the rest of Greece, merely in fact to take the place of Philip and the Macedonians. At the meeting of the League many opposite views were put forward, but at last the Roman party prevailed, and the Achaeans joined Flamininus in besieging Corinth.

On being delivered from the Macedonians the Corinthians at once joined the Achaean League; they had joined it on a previous occasion, when the Sicyonians under Aratus drove all the garrison out of Acrocorinth, killing Persaeus, who had been placed in command of the garrison by Antigonus. Hereafter the Achaeans were called allies of the Romans, and in all respects right zealous allies they proved themselves to be. They followed the Romans to Macedonia against Philip; they took part in the campaign against the Aetolians; thirdly they fought side by side with the Romans against the Syrians under Antiochus.

All that the Achaeans did against the Macedonians or the host of the Syrians they did because of their friendship to the Romans; but against the Aetolians they had a long standing private quarrel to settle. When the tyranny of Nabis in Sparta was put down, a tyranny marked by extreme ferocity, the affairs of Lacedaemon at once caught the attention of the Achaeans.

At this time the Achaeans brought the Lacedaemonians into the Achaean confederacy, exacted from them the strictest justice, and razed the walls of Sparta to the ground. These had been built at haphazard at the time of the invasion of Demetrius, and afterwards of the Epeirots under Pyrrhus, but under the tyranny of Nabis they had been strengthened to the greatest possible degree of safety. So the Achaeans destroyed the walls of Sparta, and also repealed the laws of Lycurgus that dealt with the training of the youths, at the same time ordering the youths to be trained after the Achaean method.

I shall treat of this more fully in my account of Arcadia. The Lacedaemonians, deeply offended by the ordinances of the Achaeans, fled to Metellus and the other commissioners who had come from Rome. They had come, not at all to bring war upon Philip and the Macedonians, as peace had already been made between Philip and the Romans, but to judge the charges brought against Philip by the Thessalians and certain Epeirots.

In actual fact Philip himself and the Macedonian ascendancy had been put down by the Romans; Philip fighting against the Romans under Flamininus was worsted at the place called Dog's Heads, where in spite of his desperate efforts Philip was so severely defeated in the encounter that he lost the greater part of his army and agreed with the Romans to evacuate all the cities in Greece that he had captured and forced to submit.

By prayers of all sorts, however, and by vast expenditure he secured from the Romans a nominal peace. The history of Macedonia, the power she won under Philip the son of Amyntas, and her fall under the later Philip, were foretold by the inspired Sibyl. This was her oracle:—

Ye Macedonians, boasting of your Argive kings,To you the reign of a Philip will be both good and evil.The first will make you kings over cities and peoples;The younger will lose all the honor,Defeated by men from west and east.Now those who destroyed the Macedonian empire were the Romans, dwelling in the west of Europe, and among the allies fighting on their side was Attalus . . . who also commanded the army from Mysia, a land lying under the rising sun.

On the occasion to which I referred Metellus and the other commissioners resolved not to overlook the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and asked the officers of the League to summon the Achaeans to a meeting, so that they might receive all together instructions to be gentler in their treatment of Lacedaemon. The officers replied that they would call a meeting of the Achaeans neither for them nor for anyone else who had not a decree of the Roman senate approving the proposal for which the assembly was to be held. Metellus and his colleagues, thinking that the conduct of the Achaeans was very insolent, on their arrival at Rome made before the senate many accusations against the Achaeans, not all of which were true.

More accusations still against the Achaeans were made by Areus and Alcibiadas, Lacedaemonians of great distinction at Sparta but ungrateful to the Achaeans. For the Achaeans gave them a welcome when exiled by Nabis, and on the tyrant's death restored them to Sparta against the will of the Lacedaemonian people. On this occasion, therefore, they too arose and attacked the Achaeans with great vehemence before the senate; accordingly, the Achaeans, at a meeting of their League, passed sentence of death upon them.

The Roman senate sent Appius and other commissioners to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. The mere sight of Appius and his colleagues was sure to be displeasing to the Achaeans, for they brought with them Areus and Alcibiadas, detested by the Achaeans at that time beyond all other men. The commissioners vexed the Achaeans yet more when they came to the assembly and delivered speeches more angry than conciliatory.

But Lycortas of Megalopolis, than whom no man was more highly esteemed among the Arcadians, and whose friendship with Philopoemen had given him something of his spirit, set forth the case for the Achaeans in a speech suggesting that the Romans were somewhat to blame. But Appius and his colleagues greeted the speech of Lycortas with jeers, acquitted Areus and Alcibiadas of any offence against the Achaeans, and permitted the Lacedaemonians to send an embassy to Rome. Such permission was a contravention of the agreement between the Romans and the Achaeans, which allowed the Achaeans as a body to send a deputation to the Roman senate but forbade any city of the Achaean League to send a deputation privately.

A deputation of the Achaeans was sent to oppose the Lacedaemonians, and after speeches had been delivered by both sides before the senate, the Romans again despatched the same commissioners, Appius and his former colleagues in Greece, to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. This commission restored to Sparta those whom the Achaeans had exiled, and they remitted the penalties inflicted by the Achaeans on those who had fled before their trial and had been condemned in their absence. The Lacedaemonian connection with the Achaean League was not broken, but foreign courts were established to deal with capital charges; all other charges were to be submitted for judgment to the Achaean League. The circuit of the city walls was restored by the Spartans right from the foundations.

The restored Lacedaemonian exiles carried on various intrigues against the Achaeans, hoping to vex them most by the following plot. They persuaded to go up to Rome the exiles of the Achaeans, along with the Messenians who had been held to be involved in the death of Philopoemen and banished on that account by the Achaeans. Going up with them to Rome they intrigued for the restoration of the exiles. As Appius was a zealous supporter of the Lacedaemonians and opposed the Achaeans in everything, the plans of the Messenian and Achaean exiles were bound to enjoy an easy success. Despatches were at once sent by the senate to Athens and Aetolia, with instructions to bring back the Messenians and Achaeans to their homes.

This caused the greatest vexation to the Achaeans. They bethought themselves of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and how all their services had proved of no avail; to please the Romans they had made war against Philip, against the Aetolians and afterwards against Antiochus, and after all there was preferred before them a band of exiles, whose hands were stained with blood. Nevertheless, they decided to give way.

Such were the events that took place on this occasion. The most impious of all crimes, the betrayal for private gain of fatherland and fellow-citizens, was destined to be the beginning of woes for the Achaeans as for others, for it has never been absent from Greece since the birth of time. In the reign of Dareius, the son of Hystaspes, the king of Persia, the cause of the Ionians was ruined because all the Samian captains except eleven betrayed the Ionian fleet.

After reducing Ionia the Persians enslaved Eretria also, the most famous citizens turning traitors, Philagrus, the son of Cyneas, and Euphorbus, the son of Alcimachua. When Xerxes invaded Greece, Thessaly was betrayed by Aleuades, and Thebes by Attaginus and Timegenidas, who were the foremost citizen of Thebes. After the Peloponnesian war, Xenias of Elis attempted to betray Elis to the Lacedaemonians under Agis,

and the so-called “friends” of Lysander at no time relaxed their efforts to hand over their countries to him. In the reign of Philip, the son of Amyntas, Lacedaemon is the only Greek city to be found that was not betrayed; the other cities in Greece were ruined more by treachery than they had been previously by the plague. Alexander, the son of Philip, was so favoured by fortune that he had little need worth mentioning of traitors.

But when the Greeks suffered defeat at Lamia, Antipater, in his eagerness to cross over to the war in Asia, wished to patch up a peace quickly, and it mattered nothing to him if he left free Athens and the whole of Greece. But Demades and the other traitors at Athens persuaded Antipater to have no kindly thoughts towards the Greeks, and by frightening the Athenian people were the cause of Macedonian garrisons being brought into Athens and most other cities.

My statement is confirmed by the following fact. The Athenians after the disaster in Boeotia did not become subjects of Philip, although they lost two thousand prisoners in the action and one thousand killed. But when about two hundred at most fell at Lamia they were enslaved by the Lacedaemonians. So the plague of treachery never failed to afflict Greece, and it was an Achaean, Callicrates, who at the time I speak of made the Achaeans completely subject to Rome. But the beginning of their troubles proved to be Perseus and the destruction by the Romans of the Macedonian empire.

Perseus, the son of Philip, who was at peace with Rome in accordance with a treaty his father Philip had made, resolved to break the oaths, and leading an army against the Sapaeans and their king Abrupolis, allies of the Romans, made their country desolate. These Sapaeans Archilochus mentions in an iambic line.

The Macedonians and Perseus were conquered because of this wrong done to the Sapaeans, and afterwards ten Roman senators were sent to arrange the affairs of Macedonia in the best interests of the Romans. When they came to Greece, Callicrates curried favour with them, no form of flattery, whether in word or in deed, being too gross for him to use. One member of the commission, a most dishonorable man, Callicrates so captivated that he actually persuaded him to attend the meeting of the Achaean League.

When he entered the assembly he declared that while Perseus was at war with Rome the most influential Achaeans, besides helping him generally, had supplied him with money. So he required the Achaeans to condemn them to death. After their condemnation, he said, he would himself disclose the names of the culprits. His words were regarded as absolutely unfair, and the members present demanded that, if certain Achaeans had sided with Perseus, their individual names should be mentioned, it being unreasonable to condemn them before this was done.

Thereupon the Roman, as he was getting the worst of the argument, brazenly asserted that every Achaean who had held the office of general was included in his accusation, since one and all had favoured the cause of the Macedonians and Perseus. This he said at the bidding of Callicrates. After him rose Xenon, a man of great repute among the Achaeans, and said “The truth about this accusation is as follows. I myself have served the Achaeans as their general, but I am guilty neither of treachery to Rome nor of friendship to Perseus. I am therefore ready to submit to trial either before the Achaean diet or before the Romans themselves.” This frank speech was prompted by a clear conscience,

but the Roman at once grasped the pretext, and sent for trial before the Roman court all those whom Callicrates accused of supporting Perseus. Never before had Greeks been so treated, for not even the most powerful of the Macedonians, Philip, the son of Amyntas, and Alexander, despatched by force to Macedonia the Greeks who were opposed to them, but allowed them to plead their case before the Amphictyons.

But on this occasion it was decided to send up to Rome every one of the Achaean people, however innocent, whom Callicrates chose to accuse. They amounted to over a thousand men. The Romans, holding that all these had already been condemned by the Achaeans, distributed them throughout Etruria and its cities, and though the Achaeans sent embassy after embassy to plead on behalf of the men, no notice was taken of the petitions.

Sixteen years later, when the number of Achaeans in Italy was reduced to three hundred at most, the Romans set them free, considering that their punishment was sufficient. But those who ran away, either at once when they were being brought up to Rome, or later on from the cities to which the Romans sent them, were saved from punishment by no defence if they were recaptured.

The Romans again despatched a senator to Greece. His name was Gallus, and his instructions were to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives in the case of a disputed piece of territory. This Gallus on many occasions behaved towards the Greek race with great arrogance, both in word and deed, while he made a complete mock of the Lacedaemonians and Argives.

These states had reached the highest degree of renown, and in a famous war of old had poured out their blood like water because of a dispute about boundaries, while later Philip, the son of Amyntas, had acted as arbitrator to settle their differences; yet now Gallus disdained to arbitrate in person, and entrusted the decision to Callicrates, the most abominable wretch in all Greece.