closely they associated themselves with the Egyptian policy directed
to that object, is shown by the remarkable offer which after the end
of the war with Carthage they made to king Ptolemy III. Euergetes,
to support him in the war which he waged with Seleucus II. Callinicus
of Syria (who reigned 507-529) on account of the murder of Berenice,
and in which Macedonia had probably taken part with the latter.
Generally, the relations of Rome with the Hellenistic states became
closer; the senate already negotiated even with Syria, and interceded
with the Seleucus just mentioned on behalf of the Ilians with whom
the Romans claimed affinity.

For a direct interference of the Romans in the affairs of
the eastern powers there was no immediate need. The Achaean league,
the prosperity of which was arrested by the narrow-minded coterie-
policy of Aratus, the Aetolian republic of military adventurers, and
the decayed Macedonian empire kept each other in check; and the Romans
of that time avoided rather than sought transmarine acquisitions.
When the Acarnanians, appealing to the ground that they alone of all
the Greeks had taken no part in the destruction of Ilion, besought
the descendants of Aeneas to help them against the Aetolians, the
senate did indeed attempt a diplomatic mediation; but when the
Aetolians returned an answer drawn up in their own saucy fashion,
the antiquarian interest of the Roman senators by no means provoked
them into undertaking a war by which they would have freed the
Macedonians from their hereditary foe (about 515).

Illyrian Piracy
Expedition against Scodra

Even the evil of piracy, which was naturally in such a state of