Kłopotliwi sojusznicy, czyli jeszcze raz o problemie grecko-rzymskich traktatów z I wojny macedońskiej

Among many controversies that arouse over the treaties concluded by Rome with Greek states during the First Macedonian War there is one which merits special attention — the problem of their planned duration. The provisions included in the inscription of an alliance between the Aetolian League and Rome in 211 BC, and the way in which they were narrated by Livy seem to indicate that the alliance was formed for a specific war. They concerned a distribution of spoils, purposes and size of the aid, without clauses on protection or others regulating the mutual cooperation after the war. But a careful reading of the rest of Livy’s work and that of Polybius, especially on the Aetolian–Roman conflicts in 197-193 over the cities seized from Macedonia, clearly shows that both the authors regarded the settlement as permanent. In all preserved historical sources the Romans never stated the alliance had been concluded exclusively for the duration of the First Macedonian War, despite the fact that it would be the easiest way to refute arguments of the Aetolians, based on the provisions of the treaty. Livy and Polybius share the view that also the city–states of Elis, Messene and Sparta entered into perpetual alliances with Rome, on similar terms and at the same time as the Aetolian League. The most instructive is the case of Sparta, which during its conflict with Rome in 195 invoked the treaty — just as during the conflicts with the Aetolians, the Romans, instead of denying the further duration of the alliance sought to prove that it was the other party who had broken off the alliance. But a contradiction between the provisions of the Aetolian–Roman treaty and a literary tradition is only apparent. Although those provisions seem to indicate that the treaty was to remain in force for a specified period of time, they do not exclude a permanent alliance. In the time of the ancient Greeks it was not unusual to combine elements of a permanent treaty with those of limited duration, as testified by some others preserved Greek alliance treaties. Evidently, the lost part of the inscription containing the text of the Aetolian–Roman alliance included eternal clauses omitted by Livy in his writings as they seemed unimportant for his narrative on the First Macedonian War