Rome and the Achaean League
After delivering a speech in these words, or to this
effect, Callicrates left the Senate-house. He was followed by
the envoys of the exiles, who retired after delivering a short
address, stating their case, and containing some of the ordinary
appeals to pity.
The Romans adopt the policy of raising a party in Greece against the Achaean league. |
The Senate was persuaded that
much of what Callicrates had said touched the
interests of Rome, and that it was incumbent
upon it to exalt those who supported its own
decrees, and to humble those who resisted them.
It was with this conviction, therefore, and at this
time that it first adopted the policy of depressing those who in
their several states took the patriotic and honourable side, and
promoting those who were for appealing to its authority on
every occasion, right or wrong. The result of which was that
gradually, as time went on, the Senate had abundance of flatterers,
but a great scarcity of genuine friends. However, on this
occasion the Senate did not write about the restoration of the
exiles to the Achaeans only, but also to the Aetolians, Epirotes,
Athenians, Boeotians, and Acarnanians, calling them all as it
were to witness, in order to break down the power of the
Achaeans. Moreover, they added to their answer, without saying a word to his colleagues,
a remark confined entirely to Callicrates himself, that "everybody in the various states should be
as Callicrates." This man accordingly arrived in Greece with
his answer, in a great state of exultation, little thinking that
he had become the initiator of great miseries to all the Greeks,
but especially to the Achaeans. This nation had still at that
time the privilege of dealing on something like equal terms with
Rome, because it had kept faith with her from the time that it
had elected to maintain the Roman cause, in the hour of her
greatest danger—I mean during the wars with Philip and
Antiochus. . . . The league, too, had made progress in material
strength and in every direction from the period from which my
history commences; but the audacious proceeding of Callicrates
proved the beginning of a change for the worse. . . .
The Romans having the feelings of men, with a noble
spirit and generous principles, commiserate all who have met
with misfortunes, and show favour to all who fly to them for
protection; but directly any one claims anything as of right,
on the ground of having been faithful to their alliance, they
at once draw in and correct their error to the best of their
ability. Thus then Callicrates, who had been sent to Rome to
plead for the rights of the Achaeans, acted in exactly the
opposite spirit; and dragging in the subject of the Messenian
war, on which the Romans themselves had made no complaint, returned to Achaia to overawe the people with the
threat of the hostility of Rome. Having therefore by his official
report frightened and dismayed the spirits of the populace,
who were of course ignorant of what he had really said in the
Senate, he was first of all elected Strategus, and,
to make matters worse, proved to be open to
bribery; and then, having got the office, carried out the
restoration of the Lacedaemonian and Messenian exiles.
1 . . .
