William Smith, A Smaller History of Ancient Greece

CHAPTER XXI

From the Death of Alexander the Great to the Conquest of Greece by the Romans, B.C. 323-146

HOMER

PLATO

ARISTOTLE

THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT (SEPTUAGINT)

THE NEW TESTAMENT

PLOTINUS

DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

MAXIMUS CONFESSOR

SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN

CAVAFY

More...

Page 16

In the following gear Antigonus was succeeded by Philip V., the son of Demetrius II., who was then about sixteen or seventeen years of age. His youth encouraged the AEtolians to make predatory incursions into the Peloponnesus. That people were a species of freebooters, and the terror of their neighbours; yet they were united, like the Achaeans, in a confederacy or league. The Aetolian League was a confederation of tribes instead of cities, like the Achaean. The diet or council of the league, called the Panaetolicum, assembled every autumn, generally at Thermon, to elect the strategus and other officers; but the details of its affairs were conducted by a committee called APOCLETI, who seem to have formed a sort of permanent council, The AEtolians had availed themselves of the disorganised state of Greece consequent upon the death of Alexander to extend their power, and had gradually made themselves masters of Locris, Phocis, Boeotia, together with portions of Acarnania, Thessaly, and Epirus. Thus both the Amphictyonic Council and the oracle of Delphi were in their power. They had early wrested Naupactus from the Achaeans, and had subsequently acquired several Peloponnesian cities.

Such was the condition of the AEtolians at the time of Philip's accession. Soon after that event we find them, under the leadership of Dorimachus, engaged in a series of freebooting expeditions in Messenia, and other parts of Peloponnesus. Aratus marched to the assistance of the Messenians at the head of the Achaean forces, but was totally defeated in a battle near Caphyae. The Achaeans now saw no hope of safety except through the assistance of Philip. That young monarch was ambitious and enterprising possessing considerable military ability and much political sagacity. He readily listened to the application of the Achaeans, and in 220 entered into an alliance with them. The war which ensued between the AEtolians on the one side, and the Achaeans, assisted by Philip, on the other, and which lasted about three years, has been called the Social War. Philip gained several victories over the AEtolians, but he concluded a treaty of peace with them in 217, because he was anxious to turn his arms against another and more formidable power.

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