15. Philip II. son of Demetrius. He ascended the throne at the early age of sixteen, endowed with many qualities, such as might, under favourable circumstances, have formed a great prince. Macedonia had recruited her strength during a long peace; and her grand political aim, the supremacy of Greece, secured by the connection of Antigonus with the Achaeans, and by the victory of Sellasia, seemed to be already within her grasp. But Philip lived in a time when Rome was pursuing her formidable plans of aggrandizement: the more vigorous and prompt his efforts were to withstand that power, the more deeply was he entangled in the new maze of events, which embittered the rest of his life, and at last brought him to the grave with a broken heart, converted by misfortune into a despot. 16. The first five years of Philip were occupied by his participation in the war between the Achaeans and Aetolians, called the war of the two leagues; notwithstanding the treachery of his minister Apellas and his dependents, the prince was enabled to dictate the conditions of peace, according to which both parties were to remain in possession of what they then had. The conclusion of this peace was hastened by the news of Hannibal's victory at Thrasymenus, Philip being then instigated to form more extensive projects by Demetrius of Pharus, who had fled before the Romans, and soon acquired unlimited influence with the Macedonian king. The war of the two leagues arose out of the piracies of the Aetolians on the Messenians, the latter of whom the Achaeans undertook to protect, 221. The errors committed by Aratus compelled the Achaeans to have recourse to Philip, 220; whose progress, however, was for a long time impeded by the artifices of Apellas's faction, who wished to overthrow Aratus. The Acarnanians, Epirots, Messenians, and Scerdilaidas of Illyria, (who, however, soon after declared against Macedonia,) combined with Philip and the Achaeans; the Aetolians, on the other hand, commanded by their own general, Scopas, had for their allies the Spartans and Eleans.--The most important consequence of this war for Macedonia was, that she began again to be a naval power.--About the same time a war broke out between the two trading republics of Byzantium and Rhodes (the latter supported by Prusias I. of Bithynia) insignificant in itself, but which, as a commercial war, originating in the duties imposed by the Byzantines, was the only one of its kind in this age, 222. The Rhodians, so powerful in those days by sea, compelled their adversaries to submit.