e came when there
were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror.

THE ROMAN CONQUEST

=The Greek Leagues.=--The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to
see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an
assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your
eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing
something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on
that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103]

The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues
hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the AEtolians and Achaeans,
had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on
peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league
supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties--the
AEtolian League the democratic, the Achaean League[104] the
oligarchical.

=The Roman Allies.=--Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to
unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king
of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria
(193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their
armies and made them surrender their fleets.

Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and
his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite
for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and
each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party
allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the
Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of
Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At
Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against
Rome. Even among the Achaeans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans,
prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been
favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were
held twenty years without trial.

=The Last Fight.=--The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies.
In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon,
betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks
assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek
peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached
Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see
his form, touch his hand; crowns and