Western Asia, with the exception of Caria and Samos, which, as well as the Hellespont, Chersonesus, and the towns on the southern coast of Thrace, belonged to Egypt. Chios, Lesbos, and Byzantium formed together a confederacy of free cities. Rhodes was free, the mistress of the sea, and powerful; she was a friend of the Romans, without being actually allied with them. Egypt and Syria were at war with each other. The former retained Cœlesyria when the peace was made; but she lost the northern fortresses of Phœnicia to Syria. The Athenians were on friendly terms with the Romans; in their enfeebled state they kept aloof from all political activity. There was peace everywhere; the eyes of Greece were already very much turned towards Rome. One would have thought that under these circumstances Philip might have undertaken something of importance against Rome; yet he did not exert himself. In the beginning of the contest, there were only little skirmishes going on, and he had some success; he overcame the Atintanians, and also the Ardyæans in the north of Illyricum, who were under the protection of Rome. About the fourth year of the war, the Romans made an alliance with the Ætolians, and from that time, unhappily for Greece, they became enterprising in those parts. They sent over indeed but one legion, in fact, only marines; but they also had a fleet in those seas, which was of some consequence, as the Macedonians had scarcely any at all. Through the Ætolians, the Romans also became connected with Attalus, who having begun with the small realm of Pergamus, had conquered Lydia, and created a rich principality. The Roman fleets of Lævinus, and after him of Sulpicius, were a real curse for ill-fated Greece. The treaty with the Ætolians stipulated, that of all the places beyond Corcyra which they should conquer together, the soil should belong to the Ætolians, the inhabitants with their goods and chattels to the Romans. Such a stipulation is indeed not unheard of; yet it shows what the Ætolians really were. After the Lamian war, they deserve praise; but all that happened afterwards, shows them to have been morally barbarians: their language may indeed have been partly Greek. This treaty had the saddest consequences. The Roman fleet made its appearance off the Greek coast; Ægina, Dyme, Oreus, were taken, and the whole population swept away by the Romans. These two last places the Ætolians were not able to keep; but Ægina with its harbour they sold to Attalus for thirty talents,--that noble Greek island to a prince of Pergamus! These atrocities drew upon the Ætolians and Romans the abhorrence of the whole of Greece. Philip, who thereby became popular, penetrated with the Greeks, for the first time, into Ætolia, and requited them in their own country for their devastations. The Ætolians, abandoned by the Romans, concluded a very disadvantageous peace. Philip made considerable conquests. Two or three years afterwards, (Livy’s