ning of a new period, being as far as we know the first ever paid to the country for such a purpose. It would have been happy for Greece if her destinies had now depended on the will of Paullus. But he was the minister of a system by which the rapacious oligarchy, which wielded the Roman legions, was enabled to treat the fairest portion of the civilized world as its prey, and, as it grew bolder with success, became more and more callous to shame and remorse in the prosecution of its iniquitous ends, which it scarcely deigned to cover with the threadbare mantle of its demure hypocrisy. Such men as Q. Marcius and C. Popillius were now the fittest agents for its work. A scene occurred to Paullus, as he passed through Thessaly on his return to Macedonia, which exhibited a slight prelude to the miseries which Greece was to endure under the absolute ascendency of this system. He was met by a multitude of Etolians in the garb of suppliants, who related that Lyciscus and another of his party, having obtained a body of troops from a Roman officer, had surrounded the council room, had put 550 of their opponents to death, forced others into exile, and taken possession of the property both of the dead and the banished. Paullus could only bid the suppliants repair to Amphipolis, where he was to arrange the affairs of his province in concert with the ten commissioners, who had already arrived in Macedonia. They had brought with them the outlines of a decree, which when the details had been adjusted was solemnly published from the proconsular tribunal at Amphipolis, in the presence of a great concourse of people: first recited in Latin by Paullus, and then in a Greek translation by the propretor Octavius. By its provisions Macedonia was divided into four districts, to which Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, and Pelagonia were assigned as capitals. They were to be governed each by its own councils and magistrates, and were to be not only independent of each other, but separated from each other by the strictest prohibition of mutual intercourse, both of intermarriage and of contracts for the acquisition of land or houses beyond the border within which either of the parties dwelt. Even the importation of salt was forbidden, as well as the working of gold and silver mines to guard against the abuses which were admitted to be inseparable from the administration of these royalties on the Roman system—and the felling of ship timber. As the three regions which bordered on the territories of barbarian tribes were expressly permitted to keep garrisons for the protection of their frontiers, the use of arms for any other purpose seems to have been tacitly, if not expressly, interdicted. A tribute of 100 talents, one half of the amount of the taxation under the royal government, was reserved for the Romans. Whether the burdens of the people were lightened to the same extent, or the difference was more than equal to the increased expense of the quadruple administration, has been perhaps justly questioned. The most important benefits conferred on the conquered nation were exemption from the rule of a Roman magistrate and the rapacity of Roman farmers of the revenue, which, however, was only a precarious and temporary boon,and a new code of laws, compiled under the care of Paullus himself, and therefore probably framed on equitable principles, and wisely adapted to the condition of the country, as it is said to have stood the test of experience. That nevertheless the decree was received with deep discontent by every Macedonian who retained any degree of national feeling, may be easily supposed; and we hardly know whether Livy is in earnest, when he affects to correct the error of those who complained of the dismemberment of their country, not aware, he thinks, how adequate each region was to the supply of its own wants. The jealousy of the senate, however, was not satisfied with these precautions. The government of each region was committed to an oligarchical council; and to secure an election of its members conformable to the interests of Rome, all the Macedonians who had held any office in the king's service were ordered, under pain of death, to go with their children, who had passed the age of fifteen, to Italy. The authority of the commissioners was not confined to Macedonia. They were invested with an unlimited jurisdiction over all political causes in Greece, and even beyond the shores of Europe; for they sent one of their number to raze the town of Antissa in Lesbos to the ground, and to remove its whole population to Methymna, because it had received a Macedonian admiral in its port, and supplied his fleet with provisions. Every part of their instructions seems to have breathed the same spirit of vindictive cruelty, and insolent, shameless tyranny; or they were directed to follow the counsels of Callicrates, Charops, and Lyciscus. From all parts of Greece the principal traitors and sycophants flocked to their tribunal; for no state ventured to send any representatives but the men who had been most forward on the side of Rome. From Achaia, Callicrates, Aristodamus, Agesias, and Philippus; from Boeotia, Mnasippus; from Acarnania, Chremes; from Epirus, Charops and Nicias; from Ætolia, Lyciscus and Tisippus, -the authors of the recent massacre, named among the men who came to share the triumph of the Romans, and to direct their persecution against the best and most patriotic of their fellow-countrymen. are Paullus saw and despised the baseness of these miscreants, and would not have sacrificed better men to their malice; but his was only one voice against ten. His colleagues were better informed as to the intentions of the senate, and knew that Callicrates and Charops possessed, as they deserved, its entire confidence. The manner in which they decided on the case of the Etolians, who had been the victims of the recent violence, removed all doubt as to the course which they meant to pursue, and encouraged their partisans to lay aside all shame and reserve. No inquiry was made except as to the political principles of the actors and the sufferers. The bloodshed, the banishment, and the confiscation were all sanctioned and ratified; only Babius was pronounced to have been in fault, when he lent his soldiers for such a purpose. Still even Ætolia was not deemed to be yet sufficiently purged from disaffection. There, as well as in Acarnania, Epirus, Boeotia, and Achaia, as the commissioners were assured by their Greek advisers, there were still many covert enemies of Rome, and until this party was everywhere crushed, and the ascendency of the decided advocates of the Roman supremacy firmly established, there could be no security for the public loyalty and tranquillity. Lists of the suspected citizens were drawn up by their adversaries, and letters were dispatched in the name of the proconsul to Ætolia, Acarnania, Epirus, and Boeotia, commanding them all to proceed to Rome to take their trial. With the Achæans it was thought prudent to adopt a different course; for it was doubted whether they might submit so quietly to such an order; especially as no papers had been discovered in the Macedonian archives to implicate any of their proscribed citizens in a charge of correspondence with Perseus. Two of the commissioners, C. Claudius and Cn. Domitius, were sent to Peloponnesus to accomplish their object without danger of tumult or opposition. In the meanwhile, for a specimen of the justice which awaited the accused, Neon, the Boeotian, and Andronicus, the Ætolian, were beheaded: Neon, as the author of the alliance with Perseus; Andronicus, because he had followed his father to the war against the Romans. When these affairs had been transacted, after having celebrated magnificent games at Amphipolis, in which the spoils of the Macedonian monarchy, which were about to be transported to Rome, formed the most splendid part of the spectacle, Paullus set out for Epirus. On his arrival at Passaro he sent for ten of the principal citizens from each of seventy towns, mostly of the Molossians, which had been involved in the revolt of Cephalus, or in a suspicion of disloyalty to Rome, and ordered that the gold and silver of every town should be collected and brought forth into the public place. A detachment of soldiers was then sent into each, in such order that all were occupied precisely at the same time; and at the same hour, at a preconcerted signal, were all given up to pillage. The inhabitants, whose fears had been previously lulled by an intimation that the garrisons were to be withdrawn, were carried away as slaves. A hundred and fifty thousand human beings were thus at one blow torn from their homes, and reduced into the lowest depth of wretchedness. The produce of the spoil was divided among the troops. The guilt of this atrocious wickedness rests with the senate, by whose express command it was perpetrated. Paullus, though a severe exacter of discipline, who threw the deserters under the feet of his elephants, was of an affectionate and gentle nature, softened by study, inclined to contemplation, deeply sensible of the instability of mortal greatness, and shrinking with religious awe from wanton oppression of a vanquished enemy, as he showed when, after his triumph, he interceded for Perseus, and procured his release from the dungeon to which he had been mercilessly consigned. That such a man should have been made the instrument of such a deed, may be numbered among the most melancholy examples of military servitude. THE LAST TWO ORACLES OF GREECE. TRANSLATED BY F. W. H. MYERS. I. AN ORACLE CONCERNING THE ETERNAL GOD. O GOD ineffable eternal Sire, Throned on the whirling spheres, the astral fire, Wrapt in thy light the star-set cycles roll, But stars and souls shall keep their watch and way, Nor change the going of thy lonely day. Some sons of thine, our Father, King of kings, Some to strange hearts the unspoken message bear, Sped on thy strength through the haunts and homes of air, — Sigh for thy courts and gather at thy gate; II. To AMELIUS, WHO INQUIRED, "WHERE IS NOW PLOTINUS' SOUL?" PURE spirit-once a man Greet thee rejoicing, and of these art thou; With one same battle and one the same intent Through eddying cloud and earth's bewildering roar To win her bright way to that stainless shore. Ay, 'mid the salt spume of this troublous sea, |