In Greece, the Ætolians just then were very much weakened, but independent, and hostile to Macedon. They possessed Ætolia, part of Acarnania, the country of the Ænianians, that of the Ozolian Locrians, most of Phthiotis, the land of the Dolopians, part of southern Thessaly, and Thermopylæ; and they had isopolity with Lacedæmon, and with a number of distant places in Elis and Messene: yet for the last thirty years they had been going down hill. In the Peloponnesus, the Achæans held Achaia, Sicyon, Phlius, and Argolis, and Arcadia; but in reality they were entirely dependent on the Macedonians, and were protected by them against Ætolia and Lacedæmon. The Lacedæmonians were confined within very narrow limits in their old country, and they had lost their ancient constitution; they had no ephors, perhaps not even a senate, but they were ruled by a tyrant, Nabis, one of the worst of monsters. The Messenians stood apart from the Ætolians and Achæans, and were become sworn foes to the latter; the Eleans were independent, and leagued with the Ætolians; the Bœotians remained independent in appearance only, under the supremacy of Macedon; Corinth, Eubœa, Phocis, Locris, were nominally allies of the Macedonians, but in fact were subject to their rule. Thessaly was held to be a state which had become blended with Macedon. In Epirus, the house of the Æacidæ was extirpated, and the remainder of the people hemmed in by the Ætolians, formed a republic, sometimes under Ætolian, and at other times under Macedonian influence. On the Greek mainland, Athens survived as a mere name, without a connexion belonging to her, an object of Philip’s hate. The Acarnanians were, properly speaking, none of the subjects of the Macedonians, but were only united with them by their common enmity against the Ætolians. The Cyclades had formerly belonged to Egypt, and they were now in an unsettled state. Crete was independent, but torn by factions, owing to which Philip had been called upon to mediate. Chios and Mitylene were free; Rhodes was great and powerful; Byzantium also was free, and allied with Chios and Mitylene: they had taken as little part as possible in all the quarrels; but now they were drawn into them, particularly Chios, and in a league with Attalus. As to their intellectual life, the Greeks were utterly fallen. There were indeed still some schools at Athens; but poesy was dead, and even the art of speech, that last blossom of the Greek spirit, had vanished away, and had sought a new home among the Asiatic peoples which had been hellenized, but without imbibing any of the excellencies of the Greek nation. Most places were mere shadows of what they had been; there were but few indeed which had not been destroyed more than once: of the number of those spared was Corinth, which therefore was the most flourishing of all Greek towns. The Achæans, ever since Aratus, out of spite to the Lacedæmonians, had given over his country into