important positions, Hieron, which was at the entrance of the Bosporus, and effectually commanded it. This, it seems, they had recently had to purchase at a great cost, which however they thought was profitably incurred. They lost also a strip of territory in Asia, a part of the coast of Mysia, which they had possessed from time immemorial. Achaeus, from whom they had hoped much, disappointed them, and they were now anxious to have the war ended without further loss and disgrace. The result appears to have been attained partly through the intervention of a Gallic king, Cavarus, the ruler of those Gauls who had settled themselves for a time in Thrace, and compelled the Byzantines to pay tribute. Peace was concluded, and Byzantium was to have all that it had lost in the war restored to it, but to levy no dues for the future on ships entering the Euxine.
In Rome's wars in the East during the second and first centuries B.C., it was hardly possible for such a city to remain neutral. Its situation, in fact, precluded it from neutrality. It brought itself into direct connection with Rome by a treaty in the year 148 B.C. At that time Rome was at war with the pseudo-Philip, as he was called, who pretended to be the son of Perseus of Macedon. From that date the city professed to have been an ally of the Romans, as one of the confederate states which retained their liberties. This the Byzantines regarded as an honourable position. Long afterwards,[1] in Nero's reign, they sent envoys to Rome, asking for some remission of tribute on the ground of the services
