VII. At the beginning of the first Punic War, Greece proper was divided into four principal powers: Macedonia, Ætolia, Achaia, and Sparta. All the continental part, which extends northward of the Gulf of Corinth as far as the mountains of Pindus, was under the dependence of Philip; the western part belonged to the Ætolians. The Peloponnesus was shared between the Achæans, the tyrant of Sparta, and independent towns. Greece had been declining during about a century, and seen her warlike spirit weaken and her population diminish; and yet Plutarch, comprising under this name the peoples of the Hellenic race, pretends that their country furnished King Philip with the money, food, and provisions of his army.[304] The Greek navy had almost disappeared. The Achæan league, which comprised Argolis, Corinth, Sicyon, and the maritime cities of Achæa, had few ships. On land the Hellenic forces were less insignificant. The Ætolian league possessed an army of 10,000 men, and, in the war against Philip, pretended to have contributed more than the Romans to the victory of Cynoscephalæ. Greece was still rich in objects of art of all descriptions. When, in 535, the King of Macedonia captured the town of Thermæ, in Ætolia, he found in it more than two thousand statues.[305] Athens, in spite of the loss of her maritime supremacy, preserved the remains of a civilization which had already attained the highest degree of splendour,[306] and those incomparable buildings of the age of Pericles, the mere name of which reminds us of all that the arts have produced in greatest perfection. Among the most remarkable were the Acropolis, with its Parthenon and its Propylæa, masterpieces of Phidias, the statue of Minerva in gold and ivory, and another in bronze, the casque and spear of which were seen afar off at sea.[307] The arsenal of the Piræus, built by the architect Philo, was, according to Plutarch, an admirable work.[308] Sparta, although greatly fallen, was distinguished by its monuments and by its manufactures; the famous portico of the Persians,[309] built after the Median wars--the columns of which, in white marble, represented the illustrious persons among the vanquished--was the principal ornament of the market. Iron, obtained in abundance from Mount Taygetus, was marvellously worked at Sparta, which was celebrated for the manufacture of arms and agricultural instruments.[310] The coasts of Laconia abounded in shells, from which was obtained the purple, most valued after that of Phœnicia.[311] The port of Gytheum, very populous, and very active in 559, still possessed great arsenals.[312]