THE ENCOUNTER TOOK place in the open air on a beach near Thermopylae. Captains and kings did not trust one another, and it was essential to choose a spot where the chances of an ambush were reduced to a minimum. A built-up area was risky, and in any event it would be hard to find a town or city that was reliably neutral. The coast had the advantage that one party could travel to the rendezvous by land and the other on water. This meant that neither could easily pursue and capture the other.
On this occasion, Flamininus and various delegates from Greece, Pergamum, and Rhodes gathered on the beach and waited for Philip to turn up. He arrived in a warship escorted by five galleys. He sailed close to the shore but refused to disembark.
The consul asked, tactlessly, “What are you afraid of?”
“I fear nothing but the gods, but I don’t trust many of those present, especially the Aetolians,” the King replied.
This was an inauspicious beginning, but Flamininus invited the king, who had requested the meeting, to raise whatever topics he wished.
“It is not for me to speak first, but rather for you. Kindly explain what I must do to have peace.”
The consul set out his terms, of which the most important was that Philip should withdraw completely from Greece. Then the other representatives itemized detailed shopping lists. So, for example, the envoy from Pergamum wanted the king to restore the sanctuary of Aphrodite and the Temple of Athena the Bringer of Victory, near Pergamum, both of which he had destroyed during his foray into the kingdom.
A certain Phaeneas from the Aetolian League spoke at great length, making the point, with copious examples, that Philip had a habit of impartially devastating the territories of friends and allies as well as foes. This riled the king, who approached closer to the shore and criticized Phaeneas for speaking in “typically theatrical and Aetolian style.” He went on to reject his charges, while conceding that commanders sometimes had to do things they would rather not do.
Phaeneas, who had very poor eyesight, interrupted and pointed out that words were not the issue: “The truth is that you must either fight and conquer, or else obey those who are stronger than you.”
Philip, who had a reputation for being more satirical than was entirely suitable for a king, could not resist a sarcastic (and un-amusing) joke at the speaker’s expense: “Yes, even a blind man can see that!”
A disjointed conversation followed, in which the king continued to grumble about the Aetolians. He then put a clever question to those at the meeting: “In any case, what is this Greece you want me to evacuate? Most of the Aetolians themselves are not Greek.” He cited other territories that were not regarded as genuinely Hellenic. “Am I allowed to stay in these places?” he asked.
He then turned his attention to the other speakers, dealing brusquely and mordantly with each issue they raised, point by point: “As for the damage done to the sanctuary of Athena and the shrine of Aphrodite, I can’t help with the restoration, but I’ll send some gardeners to look after the place and see to the growth of the trees that were cut down.” Flamininus smiled.
Finally, Philip turned to the consul. “Is it the general’s wish that I should withdraw from those towns and places I myself conquered, or that I should leave those which I inherited from my ancestors?” Flamininus remained silent, although some of his delegates were ready and primed to reply. However, the hour was getting late and Philip concluded by asking all the parties present to give him written statements of their positions. “I am alone and have no one to advise me,” he explained. “I would like to reflect on your various demands.”
The consul was amused by the mockery in Philip’s tone of voice. He replied, “Of course you are alone by this time, Philip, for you have killed off all those friends who could give you good advice.” The king grinned sardonically and said nothing. Everyone agreed to meet again the next day.
The Romans arrived punctually, but there was no sign of the king. They waited all day, and at last the Macedonians arrived just before dusk. Philip said in excuse that he had been delayed studying all the submissions. This was gamesmanship, for what he wanted was to finesse a tête-à-tête with Flamininus. The hour being late, the assembled dignitaries agreed that the two men, accompanied by only a few members of their staffs, should confer privately. The king disembarked and he and the consul talked together for a long time in the fading light.
Flamininus reported back to his delegation on the complicated but limited concessions the Macedonians were prepared to make. All present loudly declared their dissatisfaction with the proposals. Philip could see that an animated discussion was going on and proposed another adjournment to the following day.
The next morning, the king arrived on time. He gave a short speech, in which he said that he would be willing to send an embassy to the Senate for these matters to be determined if agreement was not possible now. Flamininus was happy to concede the point, for he wanted time to arrange for the Senate to approve the extension of his command. One may surmise that the idea of a reference to Rome had been mooted in quiet conversation on the darkened beach the night before.
THE SENATE DEBATED Philip’s peace proposals, rejected them, and gave the consul the extension he was seeking. For all his cleverness, the king’s diplomacy had failed and hostilities resumed. By the spring of 197, Flamininus had won over almost all of Greece, except for the fetters. More than twenty-three thousand Macedonians marched south into Thessaly, where they approached a Roman army of about the same size. The ground was unsuitable for a battle and Philip and Flamininus led their men along each side of a chain of hills called Cynoscephalae (Greek for “dogs’ heads”). They collided more or less by chance. A battle ensued on uneven ground, which suited the flexible legion more than the unwieldy phalanx. A Roman detachment managed to outflank the enemy and fell on their rear. The day was won.
Since the reigns of Alexander the Great and his talented father, Philip, during the fourth century, the Macedonian phalanx had been insuperable. Now, to the amazement of the Hellenic world, it was destroyed as a fighting force. The initiative had shifted decisively to the still unfamiliar invaders from the west.
The ambitious and overbearing Aetolian League, whose soldiers had fought alongside the Romans, wanted to see Philip’s power destroyed, but Flamininus knew better. It was enough that Macedon had been humbled and pushed back behind its borders. Its complete elimination would create a vacuum, upsetting the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean and encouraging Celts in the north to march down into Greece. A tamed Philip was left on his throne, stripped of his external dependencies, including the fetters, and bound into an alliance with Rome. Nothing if not a realist, he accepted his new, reduced status.
The senatorial decree that laid down the peace terms was more than a treaty with the king of Macedon; it was also a manifesto, which announced that Greeks everywhere (that is, in Asia Minor as well as the Balkans) were to be free. Rome was arrogating to itself the authority to determine the governance of Alexander’s fractured empire. It not only decided the fate of Philip, its defeated enemy, but also warned Antiochus, whose path it had never crossed, to behave himself.
But what, exactly, was freedom to mean? As soon as Philip had withdrawn his garrisons from the fetters, the Senate substituted its own. Cynics wondered if one despot was to be replaced with another. Rome wanted to avoid military occupation and direct rule, which would bring much convenience and no obvious advantage, but was worried by a possible threat from Antiochus in the east; without the deterrent fortresses manned by Romans, he might be tempted to invade. Also, there were a number of awkward disputes that only Rome was in a position to settle. An ambitious king of Sparta needed to be restrained. The Aetolians were furious that the Senate had not rewarded them generously enough for their help in the war; they wanted additional territory, even though this was obviously inconsistent with giving the Greek city-states their independence. They put it about that the plan to free Greece was a fraud, claiming, “Flamininus has unshackled the foot of Greece only to put a collar round her neck.”