Every one was
constantly listening to learn the sentiments of Rome, the liberal
man no less than the servile; they thanked heaven, when the dreaded
decree was not issued; they were sulky, when the senate gave them to
understand that they would do well to yield voluntarily in order that
they might not need to be compelled; they did what they were obliged
to do, if possible, in a way offensive to the Romans, "to save forms";
they reported, explained, postponed, evaded, and, when all this would
no longer avail, yielded with a patriotic sigh. Their proceedings
might have claimed indulgence at any rate, if not approval, had their
leaders been resolved to fight, and had they preferred the destruction
of the nation to its bondage; but neither Philopoemen nor Lycortas
thought of any such political suicide--they wished, if possible,
to be free, but they wished above all to live. Besides all this, the
dreaded intervention of Rome in the internal affairs of Greece was not
the arbitrary act of the Romans, but was always invoked by the Greeks
themselves, who, like boys, brought down on their own heads the rod
which they feared. The reproach repeated -ad nauseam- by the erudite
rabble in Hellenic and post-Hellenic times--that the Romans had been
at pains to stir up internal discord in Greece--is one of the most
foolish absurdities which philologues dealing in politics have ever
invented. It was not the Romans that carried strife to Greece--which
in truth would have been "carrying owls to Athens"--but the Greeks
that carried their dissensions to Rome.

Quarrels between Achaeans and Spartans

The Achaeans in particular, who, in their eagerness to round their
territory, wholly failed to see how much it would have been for their
own good that Flamininus had not incorporated the towns of Aetolian
sympathies with their league, acquired in Lacedaemon and Messene a
very hydra of intestine strife. Members of these communities were
incessantly at Rome, entreating and beseeching to be released from the
odious connection; and amongst them, characteristically enough, were
even those who were indebted to the Achaeans for their return to their
native land. The Achaean league was incessantly occupied in the work
of reformation and restoration at Sparta and Messene; the wildest
refugees from these quarters determined the measures of the diet.
Four years after the nominal admission of Sparta to the confederacy
matters came even to open war an