Perseus’s initial success against the Roman army in Thessaly in 171 did not alter the massive imbalance of power, and the Romans again refused the king’s offer to negotiate. Over the next three years Roman commanders devoted more effort to plunder than to the defeat of Perseus. In a notorious incident, the praetor Lucius Hortensius anchored his fleet at Abdera, a city allied with Rome, and demanded supplies. When the Abderitans asked to consult the Senate, Hortensius sacked the town, executed the leading citizens, and enslaved the rest. When complaints reached the Senate, weak attempts were made to force the Roman commanders to make restitution. In 168 the experienced Lucius Aemilius Paullus was reelected consul and sent out to restore discipline. He quickly brought the Third Macedonian War to an end by defeating Perseus in the Battle of Pydna in June 168. Perseus was deposed, and Macedonia was divided into four republics, which were forbidden to have relations with one another; they paid tribute to Rome at half the rate they had previously paid to the king.
In 167 Rome proceeded to punish those who had sided with Perseus (such as the Illyrian Genthius), those whose loyalty had wavered (such as Eumenes), and even those who had contemplated acting as mediators in the war (such as the Rhodians). In Illyria, Paullus, on instructions from the Senate, swept through the countryside enslaving 150,000 inhabitants from 70 Epirote towns. In Achaea, 1,000 leading men suspected of Macedonian sympathies were taken as hostages to Rome. (Among them was Polybius, who befriended the noble Scipionic family and wrote his great history of the rise of Rome with the aid of privileged access to the views of the senatorial leadership.) Eumenes was refused a hearing before the Senate on his visit to Italy. His fall from favour prompted his enemies to dispute his territory, and in 164 a Roman embassy in Anatolia publicly invited complaints against the king. Rhodes had thrived as the leading trade centre of the eastern Mediterranean, using its considerable resources to control piracy, but now Rome undermined its economy and power by making the island of Delos a free port, thereby depriving Rhodes of its income from harbour dues. Territory in Lycia and Caria on the mainland, granted to Rhodes in 189, was now taken away. But the far harsher proposal in the Senate to declare Rhodes an enemy and to destroy it was opposed by senior senators such as Cato the Censor and was voted down. As a result of the weakening of Rhodes, piracy became rampant in the eastern Mediterranean (the young Julius Caesar was captured by pirates). During the next century Roman senators did not find the political will to suppress the piracy, perhaps in part because it served their interests: pirates supplied tens of thousands of slaves for their Italian estates and disrupted the grain trade, thus raising prices for their produce in Rome.
The arrangements of 167 served the Roman policy of weakening the powers of the eastern Mediterranean. In the previous year Rome had also intervened to stop Seleucid expansion into Egypt. In a famous episode, the Roman ambassador Gaius Popillius Laenas delivered to Antiochus IV the Senate’s demand that the king withdraw from Egypt. When the king requested time for consultation, Popillius “drew a circle around the king with a stick he was carrying and told him not to leave the circle until he gave his response. The king was astonished at this occurrence and the display of superiority, but, after a brief time, said he would do all the Romans demanded.”
The power vacuum fostered by the Romans was not ultimately conducive to stability. An adventurer, Andriscus, claiming to be descended from the Macedonian dynasty, was able to enter the Macedonian republics without serious resistance. He was successful enough in raising an army to defeat the first Roman force sent against him in 149 under the command of the praetor Publius Iuventius Thalna (who was killed). A second Roman army under Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated the pretender in 148. With the death of Callicrates, leadership of the Achaean League passed to Critolaus and Diaeus, outspoken proponents of Greek independence from Rome. In 147 a Roman embassy was sent to intervene in the affairs of the league by supporting the secession of Sparta and also by calling for the detachment of Corinth and Argos from the league. The embassy provoked a violent reply. When further negotiations were blocked by Critolaus, Rome declared war on the Achaeans in 146, citing as reason the ill-treatment of their embassy. Metellus (now with the appellation of “Macedonicus”), having delayed with his army, marched against Critolaus and defeated him in Locris. Then Lucius Mummius Archaicus, consul of 146, took over the command and defeated Diaeus and the remaining Achaeans. The Senate ordered Mummius to teach a lesson to the Greeks: the venerable city of Corinth was sacked, its treasures taken to Rome, and its buildings burned to the ground.
The nature of Roman domination in the East began to change decisively after these wars: in place of influence through embassies, arbitration of disputes, and the occasional military incursion came direct rule. Macedonia was annexed as a province, to be governed and taxed by a Roman proconsul, who also watched over the Greek cities to the south, where the leagues were disbanded. Farther east, the kingdom of Pergamum was added as the province of Asia, as a bequest to the Roman people from Attalus III in 133. Roman expansion in the western Mediterranean
If Roman military intervention in the east was sporadic in the 2nd century, campaigning in northern Italy and Spain was nearly continuous. During Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, the Insubres and Boii, Gallic peoples in the Po valley, had joined the Carthaginians against Rome. In 200 the Gauls and Ligurians combined forces and sacked the Latin colony of Placentia in an attempt to drive the Romans out of their lands. In the following years consular armies repeatedly attacked the Gauls. In 194 Lucius Valerius Flaccus won a decisive victory over the Insubres, and in 192 the leading Boii under severe pressure went over to the Roman side, signaling the coming defeat of their tribe. Following their victories, the Romans sent thousands of new colonists to the Po valley to reinforce the older colonies of Placentia and Cremona (190) and to establish new colonies, notably Bononia (189) and Aquileia (181).
During the same period the Romans were at war with the Ligurian tribes of the northern Apennines. The serious effort began in 182, when both consular armies and a proconsular army were sent against the Ligurians. The wars continued into the 150s, when victorious generals celebrated two triumphs over the Ligurians. Here also the Romans drove many natives off their land and settled colonies in their stead (e.g., Luna and Luca in the 170s).
As a result of the Second Punic War, Roman legions had marched into Spain against the Carthaginians and remained there after 201. The Romans formalized their rule in 197 by creating two provinces, Nearer and Further Spain. They also exploited the Spanish riches, especially the mines, as the Carthaginians had done. In 197 the legions were withdrawn, but a Spanish revolt against the Roman presence led to the death of one governor and required that the two praetorian governors of 196 be accompanied by a legion each. The situation was serious enough for the consul of 195, Cato the Censor, to be sent to Spain with two legions. From Cato comes the earliest extant firsthand account of Roman conquest. His comments show that he prided himself on his bravery and lack of greed as compared with other Roman commanders. Yet his narrative must overstate the extent and decisiveness of his success because fighting persisted for years to come, as later Roman governors sought to extend Roman control over more Spanish peoples—the Celtiberi of northeastern Spain, the Lusitani of modern-day Portugal, and the Vettones and Vaccaei of northwestern Spain. In 177 Tiiberius Sempronius Gracchus celebrated a triumph over the Celtiberi. The size of the Roman forces was probably then reduced from four to two legions, and from 173 to 155 there was a lull in the regular campaigning. During these decades Spanish peoples brought complaints to Rome about corrupt governors.