[183:1] Duruy even quotes, in connection with the earlier Athenian Confederacy (chap. xix. § 2), the words of the actual treaties between several of the smaller towns (Erythræ, Chalcis), which have been found graven on stone; and argues that because they assert permanent union with Athens, and invoke curses on him that hereafter attempts to dissolve this union, Athens was legally as well as morally justified in coercing any seceders. It is strange so acute a thinker should not perceive that this assertion of eternal peace and union was an almost universal and perfectly unmeaning formula. If such formulæ were really valid, we might find ourselves bound by our ancestors to very serious obligations. There is no case, except that of Adam, where the act of one generation bound all succeeding centuries. [185:1] We now have recovered several inscriptions, which give us information on some of these points. Cf. _Mitth._ of the German Institute at Athens, xi. 262. CHAPTER X. THE ROMANS IN GREECE. [Sidenote: Position of Rome towards the Leagues.] § 79. The interference of the Romans in Greek affairs reopened many of the constitutional questions upon which I have touched; for in their conflicts with Macedon they took care to win the Greeks to their side by open declarations in favour of independence, and by supporting the Leagues, which afforded the only organization that could supply them with useful auxiliaries. When the Romans had conquered came the famous declaration that all the cities which had been directly subject to Macedon should be independent, while the Achæan League could resume its political life freed from the domination of the Antigonids which Aratus had accepted for it. Now at last it might have seemed as if the peninsula would resume a peaceful and orderly development under the presidency and without the positive interference of Rome. [Sidenote: Roman interpretation of the 'liberty of the Greeks.'] But new and fatal difficulties arose. The 'liberty of the Greeks' was still, as ever, a sort of sentimental aphorism which the Romans repeated, often from conviction, often again from policy. But the Romans were a practical people, and did not the least understand why they should free the Greeks from Macedon in order that they might join some other Hellenistic sovran against Rome. And even if this danger did not arise, the Romans felt that the liberation of Greece would have worse than no meaning if the stronger States were allowed to prey upon the weaker, if every little city were allowed to go to war with its neighbours,--if, in fact, the nominal liberty resulted in the tyranny of one section over another. [Sidenote: Opposition of the Ætolians.]