*Rome intervenes: 200 B. C.* The Roman Senate, influenced by mixed motives—sympathy for the Hellenes and their culture, ambition to appear as arbiters of the fate of the Greek world, a desire for revenge upon Philip for his partial successes in the late war, and fear of seeing him develop into a more powerful enemy—was anxious to intervene. But, although the Roman fetials, the members of the priestly college which was the guardian of the Roman traditions in international relations, decided that Attalus and the other Roman _amici_ might be regarded as allies (_socii_) and so be defended legitimately, the Roman people as a whole shrank from embarking upon another war. The Comitia once voted against the proposal, and at a second meeting was only induced to sanction it, when it was represented to them that they would have to face another invasion of Italy if they did not anticipate Philip’s action. *The Roman ultimatum.* The Senate next sent ambassadors to the East to present an ultimatum to Philip, and at the same time to negotiate with Antiochus for the cessation of his attacks upon Egypt, for the Romans did not wish to have his forces added to those of the Macedonian king. When Philip was engaged in the siege of Abydos on the Hellespont he received the Roman terms, which were that he should abstain from attacking any cities of the Greeks or the possessions of Ptolemy, and should submit to arbitration his disputes with Attalus and the Rhodians. Upon his rejection of these proposals the war opened. *The Romans cross the Adriatic.* Late in 200 B. C. a Roman army under the consul Sulpicius crossed into Illyricum and endeavored to penetrate into Macedonia. However, both in this and in the succeeding year, the Romans, although aided by the forces of the Aetolian Confederacy, Pergamon, Rhodes and Athens, were unable to inflict any decisive defeat upon Philip or to invade his kingdom. However, with the arrival of the consul of 198, Titus Flamininus, the situation speedily changed. The Achaean Confederacy was won over to the side of Rome, and Flamininus succeeded in forcing Philip to evacuate his position in Epirus and to withdraw into Thessaly. In the following winter negotiations for peace were opened, but these led to nothing, for the Romans demanded the evacuation of Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias, three fortresses known as “the fetters of Greece,” and Philip refused to make this concession.