In B.C. 179 Philip died, and was succeeded by his son Perseus, the last monarch of Macedonia. The latter years of the reign of Philip had been spent in preparations for a renewal of the war, which he foresaw to be inevitable; yet a period of seven years elapsed after the accession of Perseus before the mutual enmity of the two powers broke out into open hostilities. The war was protracted three years without any decisive result; but was brought to a conclusion in 168 by the consul L. AEmilius Paulus, who defeated Perseus with great loss near Pydna. Perseus was carried to Rome to adorn the triumph of Paulus (167), and was permitted to spend the remainder of his life in a sort of honourable captivity at Alba. Such was the end of the Macedonian empire, which was now divided into four districts, each under the jurisdiction of an oligarchical council. The Roman commissioners deputed to arrange the affairs of Macedonia did not confine their attention to that province, but evinced their design of bringing all Greece under the Roman sway. In these views they were assisted by various despots and traitors in different Grecian cities, and especially by Callicrates, a man of great influence among the Achaeans, and who for many years lent himself as the base tool of the Romans to effect the enslavement of his country. After the fall of Macedonia, Callicrates denounced more than a thousand leading Achaeans who had favoured the cause of Perseus. These, among whom was Polybius the historian, were apprehended and sent to Rome for trial. A still harder fate was experienced by AEtolia, Boeotia, Acarnania, and Epirus. In the last-named country, especially, no fewer than seventy of the principal towns were abandoned by Paulus to his soldiers for pillage, and 150,000 persons are said to have been sold into slavery. A quarrel between the Achaeans and Sparta afforded the Romans a pretence for crushing the small remains of Grecian independence by the destruction of the Achaean league.