aken 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 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 treated with courtesy, but was reserved to
adorn the triumph of his conqueror. Such was the end of the Macedonian
empire. The Senate decreed that Macedonia should be divided into four
districts, each under the jurisdiction of an oligarchical council.

Before leaving Greece, Paullus was commanded by the Senate to inflict a
terrible punishment upon the Epirotes, because they had favored Perseus.
Having placed garrisons in the seventy towns of Epirus, he razed them
all to the ground in one day, and carried away 150,000 inhabitants as
slaves. Epirus never recovered from this blow. In the time of Augustus
the country was still a scene of desolation, and the inhabitants had
only ruins and villages to dwell in.

Paullus arrived in Italy toward the close of B.C. 167. The booty which
he brought with him from Macedonia, and which he paid into the Roman
treasury, was of enormous value; and his triumph, which lasted three
days, was the most splendid that Rome had yet seen. Before his triumphal
car walked the captive monarch of Macedonia, and behind it, on
horseback, were his two eldest sons, Q. Fabius Maximus, and P. Scipio
Africanus the younger, both of whom had been adopted into other
families. But his glory was darkened by the death of his two younger
sons, one dying a few days before, and the other a few days after his
triumph.

After the triumph Perseus was thrown into a dungeon, but, in consequence
of the intercession of Paullus, he was released, and permitted to end
his days in an honorable captivity at Pella. His son Alexander learned
the Latin language, and became a public clerk at Rome.

The fall of the Macedonian monarchy made Rome the real mistress of the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The most haughty monarchs trembled
before the Republic. Antiochus Epiphanes had invaded Egypt, and was
marching upon Alexandria, when he was met by three Roman com