then declared that, according to the laws, a new assembly could not be held for six months. The Achæans now armed themselves. Yet one can hardly conceive how so small and insignificant a people could have the madness even to dream of being able to stand against the Romans. During the fifty years which had elapsed since they had been under their protection, they had been quite inactive: they had only carried on petty and trifling wars, and as they had ceased to have a standing army, they had nothing but militia, which was still to be properly trained. They had spent their time, while they were well off, in sensual indulgence, and had neglected everything which they ought to have done for their armament; so that they were not prepared for the chance of a danger which might try their utmost strength, as may be seen from the newly discovered fragments of Polybius. A wanton luxury and moral degeneracy, the contemplation of which awakens most dismal thoughts, was now rife among them. They came, as we have said, to the resolution of waging war; and they were joined by the Bœotians and Chalcidians, the latter of whom may have feared for their newly recovered freedom. These transactions are, however, very obscure. The Ætolians did not take part with them, perhaps from revenge and a malignant joy at seeing the downfall of their rivals. Critolaus led a small army to Thessaly, in all likelihood with the hope that the false Philip would still be able to hold out, and that the Romans would thus be placed between two fires: for it was thought that the Macedonians would go on with the war, and that the Thessalians perhaps would rise in a body. But in Macedon all was over. Heraclea, which before had sided with the Achæans, was in fact separated from them by the Romans: an Achæan detachment, which had already penetrated through Thermopylæ, and was besieging Heraclea, quickly fled at the approach of Metellus and the Romans to the main army, and joined Critolaus, who had not yet reached Thermopylæ. Experience indeed had shown that this pass could be turned; yet the very place ought surely to have called upon the Greeks to die a glorious death: but they did the very worst thing that they could have done; for they made off in all haste for the Isthmus, and when near Scarphea,[60] Metellus came up with their rear-guard, being seized by a sudden panic, they were scattered like chaff before the wind. Critolaus disappeared: the most likely supposition is that he sank with his horse in the marshes on the sea-shore, though it is possible that they who told this, may also have meant by this mysterious account to designate him as the evil genius of Greece. The Romans now entered Bœotia, and fell in at Chæronea with the Arcadian contingent of one thousand men, which, at the tidings of the battle, was trying to retreat. The misery of Greece is described by Polybius, and we then see how unjust it was to this great man to have looked upon him as