passed into Greece but for Flamininus. This was while Hannibal was at
the court of Antiochus. The Romans declared war, and sent an army into
Thessaly, which overcame the Syrians at the celebrated pass of
Thermopylæ, on the spot where Leonidas and his brave three hundred had
been slaughtered by the Persians two hundred and eighty-nine years
before (B.C. 191). Lucius Cornelius Scipio, brother of Africanus,
closed the war by defeating Antiochus at Magnesia, in Asia Minor, at
the foot of Mount Sipylus (B.C. 190). The Syrian monarch is said to
have lost fifty-three thousand men, while but four hundred of the
Romans fell. Antiochus resigned to the Romans all of Asia west of the
Taurus mountains, agreed to pay them fifteen thousand talents, and to
surrender Hannibal. The great Carthaginian, however, escaped to the
court of Prusias, King of Bithynia, where, as we have already seen, he
took his own life. Scipio carried immense booty to Rome, where he
celebrated a splendid triumph, and, in imitation of his brother
Africanus, added the name Asiaticus to his others.

The succeeding year, the Ætolians were severely punished, their land
was ravaged, and they were required to accept peace upon humiliating
terms. Never again were they to make war without the consent of Rome,
whose supremacy they acknowledged, and to which they paid an indemnity
of five hundred talents. At this time the most famous hero of later
Grecian history comes before us indirectly, just as the greatness of
his country was sinking from sight forever. Philopoemen, who was born
at Megalopolis in Arcadia (not far from the spot from which old Evander
started for Italy), during the first Punic war, just before Hamilcar
appeared upon the scene, raised himself to fame, first by improving the
armor and drill of the Achæan soldiers, when he became chief of the
ancient league, and then by his prowess at the battle of Mantinea, in
the year 207, when Sparta was defeated. He revived the ancient league,