Introduction
After defeating Hannibal, Rome quickly turned its attention to the threat posed by Philip V of Macedonia in the east. Philip, who had allied with Hannibal (214 BC), hoped to unite Greece behind him to overthrow the rising power of the West. But this alliance soon backfired and drew Rome into direct intervention in Greek affairs.
The Second Macedonian War and the Liberation of Greece
The Senate, with shrewd foresight, calmed Philip with a separate peace treaty (205 BC) before sending Scipio to Africa. But immediately after the victory at Zama, the Senate began plotting revenge against Macedonia. In 200 BC, Titus Quinctius Flamininus set out for Greece with an army. Flamininus was a thirty-year-old philhellene and freedom-lover raised in the Scipionic circle.
After several masterly maneuvers, Flamininus defeated Philip at Cynoscephalae (197 BC). He then restored the weakened Philip to a fragile throne and proclaimed the freedom of all Greece, astonishing both Greeks and Romans alike. In 196 BC, at the Isthmian Games, Flamininus’s herald announced the liberation of Greece from Roman, Macedonian, and tributary control, and even from Roman garrisons. According to Plutarch, the roar of joy from the crowd was so loud that crows flying overhead fell lifeless to the ground.
The War with Antiochus III
The freedom of Greece did not last. The Aetolian League, dissatisfied with losing its former cities, invited Antiochus III, the Seleucid king, to “liberate” Greece once more. Antiochus, intoxicated by easy victories in the East, dreamed of extending his power over western Asia. Pergamon, fearing him, appealed to Rome. The Senate dispatched Scipio Africanus and his brother Lucius with an army to Asia. This was the first Roman army to set foot on Asian soil.
The forces clashed at Magnesia (189 BC). Rome won decisively, opening the way for the conquest of eastern Greece. The Romans then turned north, drove the Gauls back to Galatia, and earned the gratitude of the Ionian Greeks.
The Third Macedonian War and the End of Resistance
European Greece did not remain quiet. In 171 BC, Perseus, son of Philip V, allied with the Seleucids and Rhodes and called on the Greeks to revolt against Rome. Three years later, Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeated Perseus at Pydna (168 BC), razed seventy Macedonian cities to the ground, and took Perseus himself captive to Rome.
Rhodes was also punished for aiding Perseus: its tributary cities in Asia were freed, and Delos was established as a free port to rival it. Thousands of Greeks were taken as hostages to Italy, and many died in exile.
The War with the Achaean League and the Destruction of Corinth
Over the next decade, tension between Greece and Rome grew. Cities and factions called on Rome to intervene in order to defeat their rivals. Finally, in 146 BC, the cities of the Achaean League declared a war of Greek liberation. Leaders of the poorer classes seized control of the movement, freed and armed slaves, canceled debts, and promised land redistribution.
The Romans, under the command of Mummius, entered Greece and, exploiting internal divisions, easily defeated the disorganized Greek forces. Mummius burned Corinth to the ground, slaughtered the men, sold the women and children into slavery, and carried off almost all the artworks and movable wealth to Rome. Greece and Macedonia became a Roman province, although Athens and Sparta were allowed to keep their own laws. Greece disappeared from the political stage of world history for two thousand years.
Rome’s Transformation After the Conquests
These victories rapidly transformed Rome. Enormous spoils poured in from Macedonia, Syria, and Spain. The wealthy classes grew richer, but political and moral corruption also increased. Class conflict within Rome intensified, sowing the seeds for future revolutions.
Rome now dominated both the western and eastern Mediterranean. Spain, Sicily, Macedonia, and Greece became Roman provinces. The conquest of Greece not only expanded Roman military power but also flooded Rome with Greek culture, philosophy, and art, causing a profound shift in Roman society, morals, and literature.
Conclusion
Between 201 and 146 BC, Rome, through skillful military strategy and shrewd foreign policy, brought Macedonia and Greece under its control. Flamininus’s proclamation of Greek freedom was a brilliant moment, but the destruction of Corinth and the reduction of Greece to a Roman province revealed that the proclaimed freedom was merely a cover for real Roman domination. These conquests made Rome the undisputed master of the Mediterranean, but they also planted the seeds of corruption, inequality, and internal revolution.