he conceived the unfortunate idea of interfering, from Babylon, in the affairs of Greece, and of coming forward as mediator. Whether it was that he actually wished to restore peace, or whether he had any other motives, in short he issued a proclamation ordering the Greeks to restore all φυγάδες in the widest sense of the term; and the order was even made retrospective, so as to embrace the φυγάδες who had been in exile for many years, and in many cases, as in that of Oeniadae, the φυγάδες consisted of the entire population of a town. This measure, perhaps adopted with a good intention, threw the firebrand of war into Greece. All were in consternation, because it was expected that the exiles would return with their old pretensions, and that the tranquillity which had only just been restored, would be disturbed again. The Athenians were exasperated because the amnesty was in favour of many who had been exiled as traitors and partisans of Macedonia, and whose banishment they had effected with great determination, and under circumstances which rendered the recall scarcely possible. The Aetolians were called upon to evacuate Oeniadae, and this led them to ally themselves with the Athenians in the Lamian war, and to display the greatest perseverance. When the allied army in Thessaly was broken and the Athenians were disabled, the Aetolians alone held out, resisting the great power of the Macedonians, a perseverance which ever after remained the great object of their national pride. All the Macedonian forces under Polysperchon and Antipater now turned against them: with moveable columns they entered the country, and carried on a very cruel war, devastating the country in the same fearful manner as the barbarians did in Peloponnesus, and as the French have frequently done in modern times: they advanced gradually chasing the whole population before them, and all who fell into their hands were either murdered or sold as slaves; all the cultivation of the country was destroyed, towns were reduced to ashes, and all trees rooted out. In this manner, they drove the inhabitants from one valley into another, and into the highest mountains, where they maintained themselves. But here they would have perished from cold, hunger and snow, had not a change of circumstances produced a diversion in their favour: the feuds among the Macedonian generals in Asia saved them. Antipater, who envied Perdiccas for his power, thought it advisable for the present to conclude a truce with the Aetolians, with the intention of completing the devastation of their country afterwards. But God disposed things differently. Amid the perplexities in Asia, Antipater forgot the Aetolians, and the war was not resumed. They now returned from their mountains, and this forms the commencement of a new era in their history.