Philip was at that time very young, hardly in his twenty-first or second year. His father Demetrius II. had left him at his death yet a child, and had given him for guardian an uncle, or elder cousin, Antigonus Epitropus (likewise called Doson). This Antigonus showed a conscientiousness which, considering the time in which he lived, really awakens our wonder; he seems to have taken as much care of the education of his ward, as of his rights: of this we see the traces in Philip, especially in the first years of his reign, in which he is said to have been very amiable. But there was something bad-hearted in him, which soon shook off that influence: like an eastern youth, he then wallowed in lust. Yet he was endowed with remarkable talents; he was highly gifted as a general, and he had courage and skill, to employ and to increase the resources of his empire. In the war against the Romans under Flamininus, he displayed much ability; and when in the peace he had lost part of his kingdom, he cleverly took advantage of circumstances to be set up again by Rome herself. Thus he managed to leave behind to his son a power, such as he himself had never possessed before. The empire of Macedon, during the latter days of Antigonus Gonatas, had fallen into decay: the Ætolians had risen, the Achæans had made themselves free. Under Demetrius, it was going down hill still faster. From this condition, it only recovered in the last years of the guardianship of Antigonus, and that by the treason of old Aratus, who sacrificed the whole glory of a well-spent life; for he chose, rather to yield up Corinth and the liberty of Greece, and to make the Achæans sink into utter insignificance, than to let Cleomenes have that authority in the state, which was due to him, and without which the Lacedæmonians could not have joined the Achæan league. Philip, in the beginning of his reign, had, in conjunction with the Achæans, undertaken a war against the Ætolians, by which the latter were considerably humbled, important fortresses in Thessaly having been taken from them and their estimation in Greece lowered. They were obliged to agree to a disadvantageous peace, yet they still kept their independence. When Philip leagued himself with Hannibal, and began the war with the Romans, Greece was at peace. Thessaly, with the exception of that part which was Ætolian, Phocis, Locris, Eubœa with Chalcis, Corinth, Heræa, and Aliphera were well affected to Macedon, and had Macedonian garrisons. The Achæans were nominally free and united, but in reality dependent on their allies the Macedonians; so were likewise the Bœotians and Acarnanians. The Ætolians, who were hostile, were free, and had a territory of considerable extent. In Lacedæmon, at that time one revolution followed upon another: it was subjected to a nominal king, probably a son of Eudamidas; but soon afterwards Machanidas seized upon the government. The Syrian kings ruled over