The Historians' History of the World 04

This transaction roused the indignation of the Peloponnesian states: they looked to Cleomenes as the only protector of their liberties. That hero, upon hearing that the Macedonians were in motion, took possession of a pass on the Onean Mountains, which commanded the Corinthian Isthmus; but the Achæans having surprised Argos, he was forced to abandon it, and to leave it open for the Macedonians. The Achæans now resumed their superiority in Peloponnesus, and most of the cities in that peninsula were constrained to submit to their power. The efforts of Cleomenes to restore the liberties of Peloponnesus, and to protect, of course, those of the rest of Greece, equal the most famed exploits of antiquity. But the wary Antigonus, rich in treasure, artfully protracted the war, and suffered his impetuous adversary to waste his force in vain. Cleomenes was forced to retreat to Sellasia, in order to cover Sparta.

Greek Cuirass and Helmets

(In the British Museum)

Antigonus, therefore, encamped at a distance, on the plain below, in order to watch the motions of the enemy, and to act according to circumstances. Cleomenes, reduced to the greatest distress for want of provisions, was forced to throw open his entrenchments, and, without further delay, to come to an engagement. All his skill and valour, which were eminently displayed on this occasion, could not save him from a complete defeat (221 B.C.). He fled first to Sparta, and from thence to Egypt; where, after various adventures, the loftiness of his spirit, which could not brook the indignities offered to him by the ministers of Ptolemy Philopator, brought him to an honourable but untimely end.f

Having eluded the vigilance of his guards he made a sally with his friends, thirteen in number, all with drawn swords, and raised the cry of liberty. The Alexandrian populace stared and applauded, as at a scene on the stage, but with as little thought of taking any part in the action. The Spartans killed the governor of the city, and another courtier, but after an ineffectual attempt to break open the prison in the citadel, finding themselves universally shunned, they abandoned their forlorn hope, and turned their swords against their own hearts. Panteus, the dearest of the king’s friends, consented at his request to survive until he saw that the others had breathed their last. Ptolemy, as soon as he had learned what had happened, ordered all the women and children belonging to the deceased to be put to death; and the young wife of Panteus is said to have paid the like pious offices to Cratesiclea, who was forced to witness the butchery of her two grandsons, as Cleomenes had received from her husband. The body of Cleomenes was flayed and hung on a cross, until, if we may believe Plutarch, an extraordinary occurrence awakened Ptolemy’s superstitious fears, gave occasion for new expiatory rites in the palace, and induced the Alexandrians to venerate Cleomenes as a hero.

Such indeed he was, when measured with them. As we turn from them to the proper subject of this history, we feel, as it were, that we are beginning again to breathe a healthier atmosphere: and we carry away a strengthened conviction, that great as were the evils which Greece suffered from the ill-regulated passion for liberty, it was still better to live there, than under the sceptre of the Ptolemies—among a people who can hardly be said to have a history, in any higher sense than a herd of animals, always prone, unless when goaded into fury.d

[221 B.C.]

During the absence of Antigonus, a multitude of Illyrians, and other barbarians, made an irruption into Macedon, and committed great devastation. This irruption hastened his return into his own dominions. In a decisive battle, the barbarians were defeated; but the Macedonian king, by straining his voice during the engagement, burst a blood-vessel. The consequent effusion of blood threw him into a languishing state, and he died in the space of a few days, lamented by all Greece.

Antigonus II was succeeded by Philip, the son of Demetrius, the last of the Macedonian kings of that name; a prince only in the seventeenth year of his age, intelligent, affable, munificent, and attentive to all the duties of the royal station. This excellent character was formed by a good natural disposition, cultivated by the instructions and example of Antigonus, who appointed him his successor on the Macedonian throne.

THE SOCIAL WAR

[221-216 B.C.]