The War Between The Romans, And Philip King Of Macedon, Which Intervened Between The Second And Third Punic War, First Afforded The Former An Opportunity And An Excuse For Interfering In The Affairs Of Greece.

Till the time of Philip, the father of Alexander, Macedonia does not appear to have had any connexion with

The rest of this celebrated portion of the ancient world; the Greeks, indeed, regarded its inhabitants as savages; but from that period, Macedonia became the most important and influential state in Greece. Its boundaries varied at different periods of its history: it seems originally to have been bounded on the east by the Egean Sea; on the south by Thessaly and Epirus; on the west by the Ionian Sea; and on the north by the river Strymon, at the mouth of which, as has been already mentioned, the Athenians founded one of their most flourishing and useful colonies. The princes of Macedonia viewed with jealousy, but for a long time were unable to prevent the states of Greece from forming colonies in the immediate vicinity of their dominions: their union, however, with the king of Persia, when he first fixed his ambition on Greece, was rewarded by a great accession of territory, which enabled them to contest the possession of the sea-coasts with the most powerful of the Greek republics. They then extended their territories to the Eastern Sea, but there were till the reign of Philip, the father of Alexander, several nations between them and the Adriatic, all of which were subdued by him; and thus this sea became their western boundary.

Some of the most celebrated cities of Macedonia were founded by foreign nations. Epidamnus, which was seated at the entrance of the Ionian Gulf, was a colony of the Corcyrians: it was the occasion of a fierce naval war between them and the Corinthians, generally called the Corinthian war. Apollonia, distant seven miles from the sea, on the river Laus, was a Corinthian colony: it was renowned for its excellent laws. On another part of the coast of the Adriatic were the sea-ports of Elyma and Bullis. The district of Paraxis, which was full of gulfs and inlets formed by the Egean Sea, had several ports, but none of any repute. From this description of Macedonia and its principal sea coasts and ports, it is evident that it possessed many advantages for commerce and naval affairs, which, however, were never embraced till the period when the Romans first turned their thoughts to Greece. Had its sovereigns been disposed to engage in commerce, the Adriatic, with its extensive and safe haven of Epidamnus, in which there were several ports, would have opened the trade to Italy; the Egean Sea, still more advantageous, would have secured the trade of Greece and Asia, by means of its spacious bays, one of which, the Sinus Thermaeus, was at least sixty miles long.

The produce of Macedonia also would have favoured its commerce; the soil was every where fruitful, and, especially near the sea, abounding in corn, wine, and oil:

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