The Historians' History of the World 05

Paulus led his army without delay into Macedonia, and in the neighbourhood of Pydna he forced the crafty Perseus to come to an engagement. The victory was speedy and decisive on the side of the Romans; the Macedonian horse fled, the king setting the example, and the phalanx thus left exposed was cut to pieces. Perseus fled with his treasures to Amphipolis, and thence to the sacred isle of Samothrace. All Macedonia submitted to the consul, who then advanced to Amphipolis after Perseus, who in vain sent letters suing for favour (168).

Meantime the prætor Cn. Octavius was come with his fleet to Samothrace. He sought ineffectually to induce Perseus to surrender, and then so wrought on the people of the island, that the unhappy prince, considering himself no longer safe, resolved to try to escape to Cotys, king of Thrace, his only remaining ally. A Cretan ship-master undertook to convey him away secretly; provisions, and as much money as could be carried thither unobserved, were put on board his bark in the evening, and at midnight the king left the temple secretly and proceeded to the appointed spot. But no bark was there; the Cretan, false as any of his countrymen, had set sail for Crete as soon as it was dark. Perseus having wandered about the shore till near daylight, slunk back and concealed himself in a corner of the temple. He was soon obliged to surrender to Octavius, by whom he was conveyed to the consul. Macedonia was, by the direction of the senate, divided into four republics, between which there was to be neither intermarriage nor purchase of immovable property (connubium or commercium

); each was to defray the expenses of its own government, and pay to Rome one-half of the tribute it had paid to the kings; the silver and gold mines were not to be wrought, no ship-timber was to be felled, no troops to be kept except on the frontiers; all who had held any office, civil or military, under Perseus were ordered to quit Macedonia and go and live in Italy, lest if they remained at home they should raise disturbances. In Greece the lovers of their country were put to death or removed to Italy, under pretext of their having favoured the cause of Perseus, and the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of the tools of Rome.

Paulus on his return to Rome celebrated his triumph with great magnificence. His soldiers—because he had maintained rigid discipline and had given them less of the booty than they had expected—instigated by Ser. Sulpicius Galba, one of their tribunes, a personal enemy to the consul, had tried to prevent it; but the eloquence of M. Servilius and others prevailed. Perseus and his children, examples of the mutability of fortune, preceded the car of the victor. After the triumph, Perseus was confined at Alba in the Marsian land,[58] where he died a few years after.

Octavius was allowed to celebrate a naval triumph; and the prætor L. Anicius Gallus, who had in thirty days reduced Illyricum and made Gentius and all his family captives, also triumphed for that country.

AFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE[59]

[201-149 B.C.]

After the conclusion of the Hannibalian War, the Carthaginians seemed disposed to remain at peace; but the ambition of their neighbour Masinissa, whose life, to their misfortune, was extended to beyond ninety years, would not allow them to rest. He was continually encroaching on their territory and seizing their subject towns. The Roman senate, when appealed to as the common superior, sent out commissioners, who almost invariably decided in favour of Masinissa, and he gradually extended his dominion from the ocean inlands to the Syrtes.

On one of these occasions M. Porcius Cato was one of those sent out; and when he saw the fertility of the Carthaginian territory and its high state of culture, and the strength, wealth, and population of the city, he became apprehensive of its yet endangering the power of Rome; his vanity also, of which he had a large share, was wounded, because the Carthaginians, who were manifestly in the right, would not acquiesce at once in the decision of himself and his colleagues; and he returned to Rome full of bitterness against them. Henceforth he concluded all his speeches in the senate with these words, “I also think that Carthage should be destroyed.” On the other side, P. Scipio Nasica, either from a regard to justice, or, as it is said, persuaded that the only mode of saving Rome from the corruption to which she was tending was to keep up a formidable rival to her, strenuously opposed this course. The majority, however, inclined to the opinion of Cato; it was resolved to lay hold on the first plausible pretext for declaring war, and to those who were so disposed a pretext was not long wanting.