mind for war; and yet did not at once say so. After demanding that full satisfaction should be made to Massanissa, it next decreed that the Carthaginians must at once give three hundred of their noblest youths as hostages to the Roman consuls Manilius and Censorinus, who had sailed to Lilybaeum with secret orders to let no concession induce them to stop the war until Carthage was destroyed.35 There was naturally some hesitation in obeying this demand at Carthage; for the hostages were to be given to the Romans absolutely without any terms, and without any security. They felt that it was practically a surrender of their city. To overcome this hesitation Manilius sent for Polybius, perhaps because he had known and respected him at Rome, and believed that he could trust him; perhaps because his well-known opinion, as to the safety in trusting the Roman fides, might make him a useful agent. But also probably because he was known to many influential Carthaginians, and perhaps spoke their language.36 He started for Lilybaeum at once. But when he reached Corcyra he was met with the news that the hostages had been given up to the consul: he thought, therefore, that the chance of war was at an end, and he returned to the Peloponnese.37
He must soon have learnt his mistake. The Consul, in accordance with his secret instructions,—first to secure the arms in Carthage, and then to insist on the destruction of the town,—gradually let the wretched people know the extent of the submission required of them. These outrageous demands resulted in the Carthaginians taking the desperate resolution of standing a siege. Censorinus and his colleague accordingly began operations; but they were not capable of so great an undertaking. The eyes of the whole army were turned upon Scipio Aemilianus, who was serving as a military tribune. The siege lingered through the summer of B.C. 148 without any result; and when in the autumn Scipio left for Rome, to stand for the Aedileship, he started amidst loud expressions of hope that he might return as Consul, though below the legal age.38
The loss of so much of Polybius’s narrative at this point leaves us uncertain when he arrived in Africa: but as he met and conversed with Massanissa,39 who died in B.C. 148, it seems likely that he did join the army after all in B.C. 149. At any rate he was in Scipio’s train in B.C. 147-146, when he was in chief command of the army, first as consul, and then as proconsul; advised him on sundry points in the formation of his siege works; stood by his side when Carthage was burning; and heard him, as he watched the dreadful sight, utter with tearful eyes the foreboding of what might one day befall Rome.40 Scipio is also said to have supplied him with ships for an exploring expedition round the coast of Africa;41 and it seems most likely that this was in his year of consulship (147), as after the fall of Carthage Polybius went home.
The destruction of Carthage took place in the spring of B.C. 146. When Scipio went back to celebrate his triumph, Polybius seems to have returned to the Peloponnese, there to witness another act of vengeance on the part of Rome, and to do what he could to lighten the blow to his countrymen, and to preserve the fragments of their shattered liberties.
B.C. 148.
Among the restored Achaean exiles were Diaeus, Damocritus, Alcamenes, Theodectes, and Archicrates. They had returned with feelings embittered by their exile; and without any of the experience of active life, which might have taught them to subordinate their private thirst for revenge to the safety of their country. Callicrates died in B.C. 148, and Diaeus was Strategus in B.C. 149-148, 147-146. The appearance of the pseudo-Philip (Andriscus) in Macedonia, and the continued resistance of Carthage during his first year of office (148), encouraged him perhaps to venture on a course, and to recommend the people to adopt a policy, on which he would otherwise not have ventured. Troubles arising out of a disgraceful money transaction between the Spartan Menalchidas, Achaean Strategus, and the Oropians, who had bribed him to aid them against the Athenians, had led to a violent quarrel with Callicrates, who threatened to impeach him for treason to the league in the course of an embassy to Rome. To save himself he gave half the Oropian money to Diaeus, his successor as Strategus (B.C. 149-148). This led to a popular clamour against Diaeus: who, to save himself, falsely reported that the Senate had granted the Achaeans leave to try and condemn certain Spartans for the offence of occupying a disputed territory. Sparta was prepared to resist in arms, and a war seemed to be on the point of breaking out. Callicrates and Diaeus, however, were sent early in B.C. 148 to place the Achaean case before the Senate, while the Spartans sent Menalchidas. Callicrates died on the road. The Senate heard, therefore, the two sides from Diaeus and Menalchidas, and answered that they would send commissioners to inquire into the case. The commissioners, however, were slow in coming; so that both Diaeus and Menalchidas had time to misrepresent the Senate’s answer to their respective peoples. The Achaeans believed that they had full leave to proceed according to the league law against the Spartans; the Spartans believed that they had permission to break off from the league. Once more, therefore, war was on the point of breaking out.42 Just at this time Q. Caecilius Metellus was in Macedonia with an army to crush Andriscus. He was sending some commissioners to Asia, and ordered them to visit the Peloponnese on their way and give a friendly warning. It was neglected, and the Spartans sustained a defeat, which irritated them without crushing their revolt.
B.C. 147.
When Diaeus succeeded Damocritus as Strategus in B.C. 147, he answered a second embassy from Metellus by a promise not to take any hostile steps until the Roman commissioners arrived. But he irritated the Spartans by putting garrisons into some forts which commanded Laconia; and they actually elected Menalchidas as a Strategus in opposition to Diaeus. But finding that he had no chance of success Menalchidas poisoned himself.43
Then followed the riot at Corinth.44 Marcus Aurelius Orestes at the head of a commission arrived at last at Corinth, and there informed the magistrates in council that the league must give up Argos, Corinth, and Sparta. The magistrates hastily summoned an assembly and announced the message from the Senate; a furious riot followed, every man in Corinth suspected of being a Spartan was seized and thrown into prison; the very residence of the Roman commissioners was not able to afford such persons any protection, and even the persons of Orestes and his colleagues were in imminent danger.
Some months afterwards a second commission arrived headed by Sextus Julius Caesar, and demanded, without any express menace, that the authors of the riot should be given up. The demand was evaded; and when Caesar returned to Rome with his report, war was at once declared.
B.C. 147-146.
The new Strategus, elected in the autumn of B.C. 147, was Critolaus. He was a bitter anti-Romanist like Diaeus: and these statesmen and their party fancied that the Romans, having already two wars on hand, at Carthage and in Spain, would make any sacrifice to keep peace with Achaia. They had not indeed openly declined the demands of Sextus, but, to use Polybius’s expressive phrase, “they accepted with the left hand what the Romans offered with the right.”45 While pretending to be preparing to submit their case to the Senate, they were collecting an army from the cities of the league. Inspired with an inexplicable infatuation, which does not deserve the name of courage, Critolaus even advanced northwards towards Thermopylae, as if he could with his petty force bar the road to the Romans and free Greece. He was encouraged, it was said, by a party at Thebes which had suffered from Rome for its Macedonising policy. But, rash as the march was, it was managed with at least equal imprudence. Instead of occupying Thermopylae, they stopped short of it to besiege Trachinian Heracleia, an old Spartan colony,46 which refused to join the league. While engaged in this, Critolaus heard that Metellus (who wished to anticipate his successor Mummius) was on the march from Macedonia. He beat a hasty retreat to Scarpheia in Locris,47 which was on the road leading to Elateia and the south; here he was overtaken and defeated with considerable slaughter. Critolaus appears not to have fallen on the field; but he was never seen again. He was either lost in some marshes over which he attempted to escape, as Pausanias suggests, or poisoned himself, as Livy says. Diaeus, as his predecessor, became Strategus, and was elected for the following year also. Diaeus exerted himself to collect troops for the defence of Corinth, nominally as being at war with Sparta. He succeeded in getting as many as fourteen thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry, consisting partly of citizens and partly of slaves; and sent four thousand picked men under Alcamenes to hold Megara, while he himself
