The Roman History: Macedonian Affairs (IV-VII)

[*] Not long afterward Philip, having ordered a fleet to be prepared by his maritime subjects, took Samos and Chios and devasted a part of the territory of King Attalus. He even attempted Pergamus itself, not sparing temples or sepulchres. He also ravaged Peraea, which belonged to the Rhodians, who had been promoters of the treaty of peace. With another part of his army he ravaged Attica and laid [*] siege to Athens, as though none of these countries concerned the Romans. It was reported also that a league had been made between Philip and Antiochus, king of Syria, to the effect that Philip should help Antiochus to conquer Egypt and Cyprus, of which Ptolemy IV., surnamed Philopator,[*] who was still a boy, was the ruler; and that Antiochus should help Philip to gain Cyrene, the Cyclades islands, and Ionia. This rumor, so disquieting to all, the Rhodians communicated to Rome. After the Rhodians, ambassadors of Athens came complaining of the siege instituted by Philip. The Aetolians also had repented of their treaty, and they complained of Philip’s bad faith toward them and asked to be inscribed again as allies. The Romans reproached the Aetolians for their recent defection, but they sent ambassadors to the kings ordering Antiochus not to invade Egypt, and Philip not to molest the Rhodians, or the Athenians, or Attalus, or any other ally of theirs. To them Philip made answer that it would be well if the Romans would abide by the treaty of peace they had entered into with him. Thus was the treaty dissolved and a Roman army hastened to Greece, Publius commanding the land forces and Lucius the fleet.

Philip, king of Macedon, had a conference with Flamininus, [*] which had been brought about by the ambassadors of the Epirots. When Flamininus ordered Philip to retire to Greece, not on account of the Romans, but of the Greek cities themselves and to make good the damage he had done to the aforesaid cities. . . .

A shepherd promised to guide an army well equipped for the climb by a mountain path in three days’ time.

Lucius Quintius [Flamininus][*] sent envoys to the Achaean League to persuade them, together with the Athenians and Rhodians, to abandon Philip and join the Romans, and to ask them to furnish aid as allies. But they, being troubled by a civil war and also by one with Nabis, the neighboring tyrant of Lacedaemon, were divided in mind and hesitated. The greater part of them preferred the alliance of Philip and sided against the Romans on account of certain outrages against Greece committed by Sulpicius, the former commander. When the Roman faction urged their views with vehemence, most of their opponents left the assembly in disgust, and the remainder, being forced to yield by the smallness of their number, entered into an alliance with Lucius and followed him at once to the siege of Corinth, bringing their engines with them.