HKB
[Sidenote: B.C. 167.]
Careful, however, as he had ever been to avoid giving just offence to Rome, he and his party had long been marked by the Senate as opponents of that more complete interference in the details of Achaean politics which it wished to exercise. This was partly owing to the machinations of Callicrates; but it was also the result of the deliberate policy of the Senate: and it was doubtless helped by the report of every Roman officer who had found himself thwarted by the appeal to legality, under the influence of the party in the league with which Polybius was connected.[25] Accordingly, soon after the final defeat of Perseus by Aemilius Paulus in B.C. 168, and the consequent dismemberment of Macedonia, the Senate proceeded to execute its vengeance upon those citizens in every state in Greece who were believed to have been opposed to the Roman interests. The commissioners entrusted with the settlement and division of Macedonia were directed to hold an inquiry into this matter also. From every city the extreme partisans of Rome were summoned to assist them, men who were only too ready to sacrifice their political opponents to the vengeance of the power to which they had long been paying a servile and treacherous court. From Boeotia came Mnasippus; from Acarnania, Chremes; from Epirus, Charops and Nicias; from Aetolia, Lyciscus and Tisippus; and from Achaia, Callicrates, Agesias, and Philippus.[26] Instigated by these advisers, the commissioners ordered the supposed covert enemies of Rome in the several states to proceed to Italy to take their trial. To Achaia two commissioners, Gaius Claudius and Gnaeus Domitius, were sent. An Achaean assembly being summoned to meet them, they announced that there were certain men of influence in the league who had helped Perseus by money and other support. They required that a vote should be passed condemning them all to death; and said that, when that was done, they would publish the names. Such a monstrous perversion of justice was too much for the assembly, who refused to vote until they knew the names. The commissioners then said that all the Strategi who had been in office since the beginning of the war were involved. One of them, Xeno, came forward, declared his innocence, and asserted that he was ready to plead his cause before any tribunal, Achaean or Roman. Upon this the commissioners required that all the accused persons should go to Rome. A list of one thousand names was drawn up, under the guidance of Callicrates, of those who were at once to proceed to Italy[27] (B.C. 167). The court of inquiry, before which they were to appear, was never held. They were not allowed even to stay in Rome, but were quartered in various cities of Italy, which were made responsible for their safe custody: and there they remained until B.C. 151, when such of them as were still alive, numbering then somewhat less than three hundred, were contemptuously allowed to return.[28] Among these detenus was Polybius. We do not hear that Lycortas was also one, from which it has been with some probability supposed that he was dead. More fortunate than the rest, Polybius was allowed to remain at Rome. He had made, it seems, the acquaintance of Aemilius Paulus and his two sons in Macedonia, and during the tour of Amelius through Greece after the Macedonian war.[29] And on their return to Italy he was allowed by their influence to remain in Rome; and, acting as tutor to the two boys,[30] became well acquainted with all the best society in the city. The charming account which he gives[31] of the mutual affection existing between him and the younger son of Aemilius (by adoption now called Publius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus) bears all the marks of sincerity, and is highly to the credit of both. To it we may add the anecdote of Plutarch, that “Scipio, in observance of the precept of Polybius, endeavoured never to leave the forum without having made a close friend of some one he met there.”