The effects of the war on Rome and Italy, on the constitution, on economic and social life, on religion and thought were profound, and it proved to be a turning point not only for them but for the history of the whole ancient world. No contemporary power could endanger the existence of Rome. The Hellenistic monarchies of the east still flourished, but at Rome’s touch they collapsed like a house of cards. German and other barbarian tribes in the north could threaten, and the emergent Parthian empire beyond the Euphrates might at times appear menacing, but for centuries such dangers were held at arms’ length. The establishment of Roman hegemony in the Mediterranean world Roman expansion in the eastern Mediterranean
Just before the Second Punic War, Rome had projected its power across the Adriatic Sea against the Illyrians. As noted, Philip V of Macedonia in turn had joined the Carthaginians for a time during the war in an attempt to stem the tide of Roman expansion but had agreed to terms of peace with Rome’s allies, the Aetolians, in 206 and then with Rome in the Peace of Phoenice of 205. Immediately after the Second Punic War the Roman Senate moved to settle affairs with Philip, despite the war-weary centuriate assembly’s initial refusal to declare war. Historians have debated Rome’s reasons for this momentous decision, with suggestions ranging from a desire to protect Athenians and other Greeks from Philip out of philhellenism to fear of a secret alliance between Philip and the Seleucid king Antiochus III. Yet these suggestions are belied by the fact that Rome later treated the Greek cities callously and that no fear is apparent in Rome’s increasing demands on Philip and in its refusal to negotiate seriously with him through the course of the war. Rather, the Second Macedonian War (200–196) fits the long pattern of Roman readiness to go to war in order to force ever more distant neighbours to submit to superior Roman power.
In the winter of 200–199, Roman legions marched into the Balkans under the command of Publius Sulpicius Galba. During the next two years there was no decisive battle, as the Romans gathered allies among the Greeks—not only their previous allies, the Aetolians, but also Philip’s traditional allies, the Achaeans, who recognized Roman military superiority. The consul of 198, Titus Quinctius Flamininus, took over the command and defeated Philip at the battle of Cynoscephalae in 197. The terms of settlement allowed Philip to remain king of Macedonia but stipulated payment of an indemnity and restrictions on campaigning beyond the borders of his kingdom. Flamininus then sought to win the goodwill of the Greeks with his famous proclamation of their liberation at the Isthmian Games of 196. To lend credibility to this proclamation, he successfully argued against senatorial opposition for the withdrawal of Roman troops from all Greece, including the strategically important “Fetters” (the key garrisons of Acrocorinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias).
Even before the Romans withdrew, the seeds had been sown for their reentry into the East. As an active king, Antiochus III set out to recover the ancestral possessions of his kingdom on the western coast of Anatolia and in Thrace. In response to the Roman demand that he stay out of Europe, the king attempted to negotiate. When the Romans showed little interest in compromise, Antiochus accepted the invitation of Rome’s former allies, the Aetolians, who felt they had not been duly rewarded with additional territory after the victory over Philip, to liberate the Greeks. Upon crossing into Greece, however, the king found no enthusiasm among the other Greeks for a war of liberation and was defeated at Thermopylae in 191 by legions under the command of Manius Acilius Glabrio.
Antiochus returned home to gather a larger army. In 190 Lucius Cornelius Scipio was elected consul in Rome and was authorized to recruit a force for a campaign against Antiochus. Accompanying Lucius as a legate was his brother, the great general Scipio Africanus. In an attempt to avert war, Antiochus offered to accept the earlier Roman terms, only to find that the Romans had now extended their demands to keep Antiochus east of the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia. Unable to accept, Antiochus fought and lost to Scipio’s army at Magnesia ad Sipylum in the winter of 190–189. In the following Treaty of Apamea (188), the Seleucid kingdom was limited to Asia east of the Taurus range and was required to pay an indemnity of 15,000 talents and to give up its elephants and all but 10 ships. Rome punished its opponents, the Aetolians, and rewarded its supporters, notably Pergamum and Rhodes, which were granted new territories, including Greek cities, at the expense of “the liberation of the Greeks.” The consul of 189, Gnaeus Manlius Vulso, came east with reinforcements, took command of the legions, and proceeded to plunder the Galatians of Anatolia on the pretext of restoring order.
The withdrawal of Roman legions this time did not entail the withdrawal of a Roman presence from the Hellenistic East. On the contrary, according to Polybius, the Romans now “were displeased if all matters were not referred to them and if everything was not done in accordance with their decision.” Continuing jealousies and disputes in the Greek world offered Rome opportunities to adjudicate and ultimately to intervene once again. In the Peloponnese the Achaean League was at odds with Sparta, wishing to bring Sparta into the league and to suppress the radical social program of its king, Nabis. Flamininus in 195 supported the independence of Sparta, but in 192 the Achaean leader, Philopoemen, induced Sparta to join the league with a promise of no interference in its internal affairs. When an infringement of the promise prompted the Spartans to secede, Philopoemen in 188 led an Achaean army to take Sparta, kill the anti-Achaean leaders, and force the city back into the league. Although the Senate heard complaints, it took no immediate action. Then, in 184, the Senate reasserted its own terms for settlement but was circumvented by Philopoemen, who reached a separate agreement with the Spartans. The independent-minded Philopoemen died the following year in a campaign by the league to suppress a revolt of Messene. His death led to a change of leadership, as the pro-Roman Callicrates (regarded by Polybius as a sycophant) began a policy of obeying Rome’s every wish.
Meanwhile, tensions between Rome and Philip were increasing. Philip had supported Rome’s war with Antiochus in the hope of recovering Thessalian and Thracian territory, but in this he was disappointed by the Romans. They did, however, return Philip’s younger son, Demetrius, taken to Rome as a hostage in 197—a reward with tragic consequences. During his years as a hostage, Demetrius had made senatorial friendships, which aroused suspicions at home that the Romans would prefer to see Demetrius rather than his elder brother, Perseus, succeed Philip. Philip ordered the death of Demetrius in 181 and then died in 179, leaving his throne to Perseus, the last king of Macedonia.
Perseus’s activism started a stream of complaints to the Senate from neighbouring Greek powers from 175 onward. The king’s real intentions are unclear; perhaps Polybius was right that he wished to make the Romans “more cautious about delivering harsh and unjust orders to Macedonians.” The Senate listened to the unfavourable interpretations of Perseus’s enemies, who claimed that the king’s actions revealed an intent to attack Rome. Like his father, Perseus campaigned to extend Macedonian power to the northeast and south and marched through Greece as far as Delphi. He solicited alliances with the Achaean League and other Greek states, which some of the leaders hostile to Rome would have liked to accept. He arranged dynastic marriages with other Hellenistic kings, taking the daughter of Seleucus IV as his wife and giving the hand of his sister to Prusias II of Bithynia. Although these actions could have been viewed as the behaviour expected of a Hellenistic monarch, Eumenes of Pergamum suggested to the Senate that Perseus was preparing for war against Rome. After the Senate decided on war, it sent Quintus Marcius Philippus to propose a truce and to give Perseus false hopes of negotiation in order to allow the consul of 171, Publius Licinius Crassus, to land his army on the Illyrian coast unhindered—a ploy decried by some older senators as “the new wisdom.”