to unite in one confederacy, when the jealousy and envy in Sparta
and Athens, of the rising glory of the Achaeans, threw a fatal damp
on the enterprise. The dread of the Macedonian power induced the
league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who,
as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon.
This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led
by his ambition to make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the
Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon, had interest enough with
the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their
engagements with the league.
The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting to
Cleomenes, or of supplicating the aid of Macedon, its former
oppressor. The latter expedient was adopted. The contests of the
Greeks always afforded a pleasing opportunity to that powerful
neighbor of intermeddling in their affairs. A Macedonian army
quickly appeared. Cleomenes was vanquished. The Achaeans soon
experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally
is but another name for a master. All that their most abject
compliances could obtain from him was a toleration of the exercise
of their laws. Philip, who was now on the throne of Macedon, soon
provoked by his tyrannies, fresh combinations among the Greeks. The
Achaeans, though weakened by internal dissensions and by the
revolt of Messene, one of its members, being joined by the AEtolians
and Athenians, erected the standard of opposition. Finding
themselves, though thus supported, unequal to the undertaking, they
once more had recourse to the dangerous expedient of introducing the
succor of foreign arms. The Romans, to whom the invitation was
made, eagerly embraced it. Philip was conquered; Macedon subdued.
A new crisis ensued to the league. Dissensions broke out among it
members. These the Romans fostered. Callicrates and other popular