independence, for they did not, like the Achaeans, form a Roman province; but in point of fact they were dependent upon the Romans, though they did not lose their autonomy, that is their own political constitution and jurisdiction. Their frontiers were very much narrowed, though their territory was still greater than it had ever been during the best period of Greek history. Such is a brief sketch of the various vicissitudes of that remarkable people. It is difficult to say how we should judge of the character of the Aetolians; it is not easy to arrive at a clear and precise result. But it is a point beyond all dispute that at the period during which we know them, they show a great resemblance in character to the Greek Clephths: they never were a regularly organised people with a civil constitution; their state was only of a military character, and their whole government was military; in the interior, there must necessarily have been great anarchy. Alexander is the only Aetolian whose name occurs in the whole range of Greek literature, and he lived at Alexandria; but he deserves no more to be despised than Callimachus. It is a well-founded charge that the Aetolians were faithless, so that treaties concluded with them were not safe,—hence the disgraceful attack upon the Pamboeotians,—that they disregarded the public law established among the Greeks, which ordained that in the midst of war a truce should be observed during the celebration of the national games. In war they indulged in devastation and robbery, the latter always being the principal motive of their undertakings. It must also be said, to their disgrace, that in regular and open battles they were good for nothing. Their cavalry was excellent, which, considering the nature of their country, is rather surprising; but they never formed a regular phalanx, and their peltasts were no better than the most ordinary ones; if these latter had been well trained, they might have become very efficient, but they never went beyond the first steps of military training.