During the Carthaginian war, Andriscus now set forth that he was a son of Perseus, and he found a party in Macedonia; being, however, unable to stand his ground, he went to Demetrius in Syria, and was by him given up to the Romans. Such an act is just what one would have expected from Demetrius, who had every reason to do his best to regain his footing with the Romans, now that he had only just escaped being punished by them. He had fled indeed from Rome after the death of his brother Antiochus Epiphanes, to secure the throne; and the Romans had sent commissioners to Syria, on hearing that the Syrians, contrary to the existing treaties, were keeping elephants, and had moreover built a greater number of ships than they were allowed. One of these commissioners was slain in a riot at Laodicea, and Demetrius, with great difficulty, turned aside the vengeance of the Romans, by yielding up the murderers and killing the elephants. Under these circumstances, it was but natural that Andriscus was given up. At Rome, this man was, as an adventurer, held in such contempt, that he was not properly guarded; and he again made his escape. He came to Thrace, where the Romans were already feared and hated; all sorts of people flocked to him there, and he made an inroad into Macedon. A war in that country was very inconvenient to the Romans, who were engaged in their enterprise against Carthage, and had no troops in the north of Greece. To the amazement of every body, Andriscus routed the Macedonians on the eastern bank of the Strymon; he then crossed the river, and beat them once more, whereupon they all joined him. His success was quite wonderful; he put on the diadem under the name of Philip. Things must at that time have been in a very dismal state in Macedon. The Romans had brought in the wretched republican constitution, and the most eminent men had been led away to Italy; so that the people, who from the earliest times had been accustomed to kingly rule, eagerly caught at this hope of bettering its lot. In Thessaly also, he found partizans. Nasica, who happened to be there, got together the contingents of the Greeks, and with their aid repulsed Philip when he invaded it: at that time, therefore, the Greeks were still faithful. Andriscus was a tyrannical fellow at bottom: Polybius calls him στυγνὸς ἀνήρ. Yet he knew how to make himself respected: his armaments were on an extraordinary scale, and he ventured to wage war even against the Roman prætor, P. Juventius Thalna; after having beaten him, he marched once more into Thessaly. Matters looked serious enough: Q. Metellus, the prætor, was obliged to go with a large army to Greece, where he landed on the coast, which could not have been easily defended; in the meanwhile, the Achæans already showed themselves very mutinous, and the war, if it lasted, could not but lead to a rising. Metellus drove the king from Thessaly, who, like Perseus, fell back upon Pydna, followed by the Romans.