Description of Greece

Such were the events that took place on this occasion. The most impious of all crimes, the betrayal for private gain of fatherland and fellow-citizens, was destined to be the beginning of woes for the Achaeans as for others, for it has never been absent from Greece since the birth of time. In the reign of Dareius, the son of Hystaspes, the king of Persia[*](494 B.C.), the cause of the Ionians was ruined because all the Samian captains except eleven betrayed the Ionian fleet.

After reducing Ionia the Persians enslaved Eretria also, the most famous citizens turning traitors, Philagrus, the son of Cyneas, and Euphorbus, the son of Alcimachua. When Xerxes invaded Greece[*](480 B.C.), Thessaly was betrayed by Aleuades,[*](Sylburg would read Ἀλευαδῶν, “by the Aleuads.”) and Thebes by Attaginus and Timegenidas, who were the foremost citizen of Thebes. After the Peloponnesian war, Xenias of Elis attempted to betray Elis to the Lacedaemonians under Agis,

and the so-called “friends” of Lysander at no time relaxed their efforts to hand over their countries to him. In the reign of Philip, the son of Amyntas, Lacedaemon is the only Greek city to be found that was not betrayed; the other cities in Greece were ruined more by treachery than they had been previously by the plague. Alexander, the son of Philip, was so favoured by fortune that he had little need worth mentioning of traitors.

But when the Greeks suffered defeat at Lamia[*](322 B.C.), Antipater, in his eagerness to cross over to the war in Asia, wished to patch up a peace quickly, and it mattered nothing to him if he left free Athens and the whole of Greece. But Demades and the other traitors at Athens persuaded Antipater to have no kindly thoughts towards the Greeks, and by frightening the Athenian people were the cause of Macedonian garrisons being brought into Athens and most other cities.

My statement is confirmed by the following fact. The Athenians after the disaster in Boeotia did not become subjects of Philip, although they lost two thousand prisoners in the action and one thousand killed. But when about two hundred at most fell at Lamia they were enslaved by the Lacedaemonians. So the plague of treachery never failed to afflict Greece, and it was an Achaean, Callicrates, who at the time I speak of made the Achaeans completely subject to Rome. But the beginning of their troubles proved to be Perseus and the destruction by the Romans of the Macedonian empire.

Perseus, the son of Philip, who was at peace with Rome in accordance with a treaty his father Philip had made, resolved to break the oaths, and leading an army against the Sapaeans and their king Abrupolis, allies of the Romans, made their country desolate. These Sapaeans Archilochus[*](Fr. 49 (Bergk).) mentions in an iambic line.

The Macedonians and Perseus were conquered because of this wrong done to the Sapaeans, and afterwards ten Roman senators were sent to arrange the affairs of Macedonia in the best interests of the Romans. When they came to Greece, Callicrates curried favour with them, no form of flattery, whether in word or in deed, being too gross for him to use. One member of the commission, a most dishonorable man, Callicrates so captivated that he actually persuaded him to attend the meeting of the Achaean League.