13. THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR (THE SOCIAL/SYMMACHIC WAR) 1. THE CAUSES (228-220)

The end of the 'War of Demetrios', by a presumed treaty between the Aitolians and King Antigonos in 228 or 227 which is nowhere actually attested, left Aitolia greater in size than ever before, but in an international situation which had radically changed, and was about to change still further. The collapse of the Epeirote monar• chy had opened up the west to Aitolian expansion, but had also encouraged Illyrian seaborne expansion, which in turn had brought Romans onto the scene. The brief collapse of Macedon in Thessaly, had also allowed Aitolian expansion there but it had also produced, for the first time in four decades, a violent reaction from Macedon, and no doubt a continuing suspicion. To the south the same war had produced an alliance with Achaia, also now greatly swollen, but to be allied with such a lawless and unstable state was a problem in itself. And just as Aitolia's expansion had provoked hostility from Macedon, so Achaia's had produced hostility from Sparta. It is not altogether clear if the alliance with Achaia continued in effect after the end of the fighting in 228. It had originated at a time when both leagues were threatened by Demetrios II, a situation which ceased to apply after the various settlements of 228 - peace between Aitolia and Macedon, Argos subsumed into the Achaian League, the Macedonian garrisons removed from Attika, the Illyrians subdued by Rome. Co-operation between the leagues had been inef• fective, except in the Illyrian invasion of Epeiros, and the absence of any Achaian assistance to Aitolia in Thessaly was mirrored by the absence of any Aitolian assistance to Achaia in the Peloponnese. It seems reasonable to assume that the alliance may be defined as defunct by 228 1• The delivery of the Peloponnesian cities of Manti• nea, Tegea, and Kaphyai to Kleomenes of Sparta2, with at least

1 Walbank, more than once, remarks that the battle of Paxos was the 'last joint action' of the alliance (01H VII (2) 453, and in Hammond Hist. Mac 3.335), but this is not necessarily the end of the alliance. 2 Pol. 2.46.2. THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR: THE CAUSES (228-220) 245

Aitolian compliance, if not active assistance, was a development which will not have encouraged the continuance of that alliance. The real problem was not the occasional disputes and other alliances of the two leagues, but their differing methods and policies. The Achaian tradition, as developed and exemplified by Aratos, was to threaten and use violence - coups at Sikyon and Corinth, raids into Attika and Argos - and it had a distressing tendency to favour deals with tyrants so that Lydiadas of Megalopolis and Aristomachos of Argos became strategoi of the league and other tyrants brought in their cities, despite the fact that Aratos had begun his political career as a liberator from tyranny at Sikyon. The expansion of the Achaian League had thus been accomplished by revolution, war and black• mail, and the smaller cities who joined it had clearly done so as a means of self-defence - defence, that is, against the Achaians. These methods were essentially the same as those used by the Illyrians in their brief imperial career. The Aitolian method, however, did not rely on such procedures, but was cautious and non-violent in most cases. Since 278 the league had been involved in only one war, and had used violence to expand only in the cases of Herakleia and Medeon. The fighting in Thessaly against Antigonos had been unexpected, judging by the brief account we have of it. That is to say, the Aitolian League did not expand by the methods used by Aratos. This difference in method is important, for Aratos' methods, pre• sumably distasteful to the Aitolians, were liable to involve the Achaian League in conflicts, which, if the alliance of the two leagues continued, might drag in Aitolia as well. The Macedonian war had involved at least one Aitolian raid on Attika, which was not an area in which the Aitolians had ever shown much interest, and the only power which could reap advantage from such an action was Achaia. The presence on Achaia's southern flank of the four cities who were Aitolian allies, cut off as they were from easy Aitol• ian assistance since the Achaian acquisition of Heraia, was there• fore an obligation which Aitolia could shed, leaving the decision to the local cities, though in doing so the Achaians would undoubtedly complain. The developing crisis in the Peloponnese thus did involve the Aitolians at first, but they rapidly disengaged themselves from it. Kleomenes of Sparta engineered the annexation of the three Aitolian allies without any protest from the cities themselves - 'they showed