One hundred and twenty-five years had passed away since the death of Alexander; the proud waves had gone down, and the Greeks no longer deemed themselves to be the people which alone had been called to rule the world. They no longer thought Macedonians upstarts, but they beheld in them their protectors against the Gauls, Scordiscans, Thracians, and other Northern peoples; they looked up to the Macedonian court; Macedonian money also did its work; in short, they acknowledged their leadership. Nor did they indeed any more reckon them to be barbarians. At Pella, Greek was no doubt as much spoken as Macedonian; at court, and among all the educated classes, it was the language in vogue; so that the difference between Hellenes and Macedonians had by this time been effaced. Before the new campaign had begun, but when the Achæans had already declared against him, Philip sought to negotiate. He would not, however, yield to the demand of the Romans that he should evacuate the whole of Greece; and so determined again to try his luck in war, as he had become much more spirited in the course of his reign. These negotiations failed, and the hostile armies marched against each other in the year 555. Thessaly was the natural scene of the campaign of this year, in which Philip had put forth all his strength. If what Livy tells us of his levy be true, and he was indeed able to raise but so small an army, then must the Gauls have dreadfully visited his country. But the statement does not seem to be correct; for if Macedon had any thing of a population, it must easily have furnished a hundred thousand men. The Romans took the field, reinforced by the Ætolians; no other allies are spoken of, and the Ætolians themselves are said not to have been more than a few thousand foot and four or five hundred horse, unless this be another mistake; altogether, we are told, the army of Flamininus consisted of twenty-six thousand men and a small body of horse. The struggle began rather early in the year. The harvest in Thessaly is gathered in about the middle of June, and by that time the battle of Cynoscephalæ must have taken place; for the corn was ripe, but not yet cut, so that the soldiers, when foraging, had only to reap it. The Romans and Macedonians, who were each advancing, fell in with each other at a spot where they were separated only by a range of low hills. This was on the borders of the Thessalian plain, at which the Phthiotic hills gently slope away into Thessaly proper. Here the two armies were marching in the same direction, without knowing it, each believing the other to be far behind: the object on both sides, was to take up their quarters wherever they might find provisions, and they wished to avail themselves of the ripe corn. Both were on their way to Scotussa. It had rained the day before, and in the morning there arose a thick fog; so that they scarcely saw the hills along which they were marching to the right and left, and the Romans chanced to