popularly but erroneously called The Dying Gladiator, is a most interesting memorial of this episode in Greek history.
Macedonia finally came in contact with a new enemy—the great military republic of the West. For lending aid to Carthage in the Second Punic War, she incurred the anger of Rome, which resulted, after much intrigue and hard fighting, in the country being brought into subjection to the Italian power. In the year 146 B.C. it was erected into a Roman province.
The political affairs of Greece proper during the period we are considering were chiefly comprehended in the fortunes of two confederacies, or leagues, one of which was called the Achæan, and the other the Ætolian League. United, these two confederacies might have maintained the political independence of Greece; but that spirit of dissension which we have seen to be the bane of the Hellenic peoples caused them to become, in the hands of intriguing Rome, weapons first for crushing Macedonia, and then for grinding each other to pieces. Finally, in the year 146 B.C., the splendid city of Corinth was taken by the Roman army and laid in ashes. This was the last act in the long and varied drama of the political life of ancient Greece. Henceforth it constituted simply a portion of the Roman Empire.
Conclusion.—We have now traced the political fortunes of the Hellenic race through about seven centuries of authentic history. In succeeding chapters it will be our pleasanter task to trace the more brilliant and worthy fortunes of the artistic and intellectual life of Hellas,—to portray, though necessarily in scanty outline, the achievements of that wonderful genius which enabled her, "captured, to lead captive her captor."
