impending war, was only natural.  But it was wrong in him to take advantage of the fearful economic disorganization of Greece for the purpose of attaching to Macedonia all those who desired a revolution in matters of property and of debt.  It is difficult to form any adequate idea of the unparalleled extent to which the commonwealths as well as individuals in European Greece—­excepting the Peloponnesus, which was in a somewhat better position in this respect —­were involved in debt.  Instances occurred of one city attacking and pillaging another merely to get money—­the Athenians, for example, thus attacked Oropus—­and among the Aetolians, Perrhaebians, and Thessalians formal battles took place between those that had property and those that had none.  Under such circumstances the worst outrages were perpetrated as a matter of course; among the Aetolians, for instance, a general amnesty was proclaimed and a new public peace was made up solely for the purpose of entrapping and putting to death a number of emigrants.  The Romans attempted to mediate; but their envoys returned without success, and announced that both parties were equally bad and that their animosities were not to be restrained.  In this case there was, in fact, no longer other help than the officer and the executioner; sentimental Hellenism began to be as repulsive as from the first it had been ridiculous.  Yet king Perseus sought to gain the support of this party, if it deserve to be called such—­of people who had nothing, and least of all an honourable name, to lose —­and not only issued edicts in favour of Macedonian bankrupts, but also caused placards to be put up at Larisa, Delphi, and Delos, which summoned all Greeks that were exiled on account of political or other offences or on account of their debts to come to Macedonia and to look for full restitution of their former honours and estates.  As may easily be supposed, they came; the social revolution smouldering throughout northern Greece now broke out into open flame, and the national-social party there sent to Perseus for help.  If Hellenic nationality was to be saved only by such means, the question might well be asked, with all respect for Sophocles and Phidias, whether the object was worth the cost.

Rupture with Perseus

The senate saw that it had delayed too long already, and that it was time to put an end to such proceedings.  The expulsion of the Thracian chieftain Abrupolis who was in alliance with the Romans, and the alliances of Macedonia with the Byzantines, Aetolians, and part of the Boeotian cities, were equally violations of the peace of 557, and sufficed for the official war-manifesto:  the real ground of war was that Macedonia was seeking to convert her formal sovereignty into a real one, and to supplant Rome in the protectorate of the Hellenes.  As early as 581 the Roman envoys at the Achaean diet stated pretty plainly, that an alliance with Perseus was equivalent to casting off the alliance of Rome.