View of the political state of the world at this period. In the west, Sicily (the whole island after 212), Sardinia, and Corsica, from the year 237, and Spain, divided into citerior and ulterior (the latter rather in name than in fact), had become Roman provinces 206; the independence of Carthage had been destroyed by the last peace, and her subordination secured by the alliance of Rome with Masinissa; Cisalpine Gaul, formed into a province, served as a barrier against the inroads of the more northern barbarians. On the other side, in the east, the kingdom of Macedonia, and the free states of Greece, forming together a very complicated system, had opened a connection with Rome since the Illyrian war, 230, and Philip's alliance with Hannibal, 214. Of the three powers of the first rank, Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt, the two former were allied against the latter, who, on her part, maintained a good understanding with Rome. The states of secondary rank were, those of the Aetolian league, the kings of Pergamus, and the republic of Rhodes, with some smaller, such as Athens: these had allied themselves to Rome since the confederacy against Philip, 211. The Achaean league, on the contrary, was in the interests of Macedonia, which Rome always endeavoured to attach to herself, in order to make head against those of the first rank. 8. A declaration of war against Philip, notwithstanding the opposition of the tribunes of the people, and an attack upon Macedonia itself, according to the constant maxim of carrying the war into the enemy's country, immediately followed. They could not, however, drive Philip so soon from the fastnesses of Epirus and Thessaly, which were his bulwarks. But Rome possessed in T. Quintius Flaminius, who marched against Philip as the deliverer of Greece, a statesman and general exactly fitted for a period of great revolutions. By the permanency of his political influence he became indeed the true founder of the Roman power in the east. Who could better cajole men and nations, while they were erecting altars to him, than T. Quintius? So artfully indeed did he assume the character of a great genius, such as had been given by nature to Scipio, that he has almost deceived history itself. The struggle between him and Philip consisted rather in a display of talents in political stratagem and finesse than in feats of arms: even before the battle of Cynoscephalae had given the finishing stroke, the Romans had already turned the balance in their favour, by gaining over the Achaean league.