 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
| Second Macedonian War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theMacedonian Wars | |||||||||
 The campaigns and battles of the Second Macedonian War | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Macedonia Boeotian League Acarnanian League | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Publius Sulpicius Galba Titus Quinctius Flamininus Attalus I Bato of Dardania Pleuratus III | Philip V of Macedon | ||||||||
TheSecond Macedonian War (200–197 BC) was fought betweenMacedon, led byPhilip V of Macedon, andRome, allied withPergamon andRhodes. Philip was defeated and was forced to abandon all possessions in southernGreece,Thrace andAsia Minor. During their intervention, although the Romans declared the "freedom of the Greeks" against the rule from theMacedonian kingdom, the war marked a significant stage in increasing Roman intervention in the affairs of the easternMediterranean, which would eventually lead to Rome's conquest of the entire region.
In 204 BC, KingPtolemy IV Philopator ofEgypt died, leaving the throne to his six-year-old sonPtolemy V. Philip V of Macedon andAntiochus the Great of theSeleucid Empire decided to exploit the weakness of the young king by taking Ptolemaic territory for themselves and they signed a secret pact defining spheres of interest, opening theFifth Syrian War. Philip first turned his attention to the independentGreekcity states inThrace and near theDardanelles. His success at taking cities such asKios worried the state ofRhodes and KingAttalus I ofPergamon who also had interests in the area.
Asia Minor, besieging the Ptolemaic city ofSamos and capturingMiletus. Again, this disconcerted Rhodes and Attalus and Philip responded by ravaging Attalid territory and destroying the temples outside the walls of Pergamon.[1] Philip then invadedCaria but the Rhodians and Pergamenians successfully blockaded his fleet inBargylia, forcing him to spend the winter with his army in a country which offered very few provisions.
At this point, although they appeared to have the upper hand, Rhodes and Pergamon still feared Philip so much that they sent an appeal to the rising power ofRome, which had just emerged victorious from theSecond Punic War against Carthage. The Romans had previously fought theFirst Macedonian War against Philip V overIllyria, which had been resolved by thePeace of Phoenice in 205 BC. Very little in Philip's recent actions in Thrace and Asia Minor could be said to concern the Roman Republic directly. The Senate passed a supportive decree andMarcus Valerius Laevinus was sent to investigate.[2]
Earlier in 201 BC,Athens' relations with Philip had suddenly deteriorated. A pair ofAcarnanians had entered the Temple of Demeter during theEleusinian Mysteries and the Athenians had put them to death. In response, theAcarnanian League launched a raid onAttica, aided by Macedonian troops which they had received from Philip V. Shortly after this, King Attalus I arrived in Athens with Rhodian ambassadors and convinced the Athenians, who had maintained strict neutrality since the end of theChremonidean War, to declare war on Macedon. Attalus sailed off, bringing most of theCycladic islands over to his side and sent embassies to theAetolian League in the hope of bringing them into the war as well. In response to the Athenian declaration of war, Philip dispatched a force of 2,000 infantry and 200 cavalry under the command of Philokles to invade Attica and place the city of Athens under siege.[3]
On 15 March 200 BC, new consuls,Publius Sulpicius Galba andGaius Aurelius Cotta took office in Rome. In light of reports from Laevinus and further embassies from Pergamon, Rhodes, and Athens, the task of dealing with the troubles in Macedonia was allotted to Sulpicius. He called an assembly of theComitia centuriata, the body with the legal power to make declarations of war. The Comitia nearly unanimously rejected his proposed war, an unprecedented act which was attributed towar weariness. At a second session, Sulpicius convinced the Comitia to vote for war.[4] Sulpicius recruited troops and departed toBrundisium in the autumn, where he added veterans of theSecond Punic War who had just returned from Africa to his forces. Then he crossed theAdriatic, landing his troops inApollonia and stationing the navy atCorcyra.[5]
While these events had been taking place, Philip V himself had undertaken another campaign in theDardanelles, taking a number of Ptolemaic cities in rapid succession before besieging the important city ofAbydos.Polybius reports that during the siege of Abydos, Philip had grown impatient and sent a message to the besieged that the walls would be stormed and that if anybody wished to commit suicide or surrender they had three days to do so. The citizens promptly killed all the women and children of the city, threw their valuables into the sea and fought to the last man.[6] During the siege of Abydos, in the autumn of 200 BC, Philip was met byMarcus Aemilius Lepidus, a Roman ambassador on his way back from Egypt,[7] who urged him not to attack any Greek state or to seize any territory belonging to Ptolemy and to go to arbitration with Rhodes and Pergamon. Philip protested that he was not in violation of any of the terms of the Peace of Phoenice, but in vain. As he returned to Macedonia after the fall of Abydos, he learnt of the landing of Sulpicius' force in Epirus.[8]
The Athenians, who were now besieged by Macedonian forces, sent an appeal to the Roman force in Corcyra. Gaius Claudius Centho was sent with 20 ships and 1,000 men to aid them. Philokles and his troops withdrew from Attica to their base inCorinth. In response to a request from Chalcidean exiles, Claudius led a surprise raid on the city ofChalcis inEuboea, one of the key Antigonid strongholds known as the 'fetters of Greece' and inflicting serious damage and heavy casualties.[9]
Philip rushed to Chalcis with a force of 5,000 men and 300 cavalry. Finding that Claudius had already withdrawn, he sped on towards Athens, where he defeated the Athenian and Attalid troops in a battle outside theDipylon Gate and encamped atCynosarges. After setting fire to the sanctuaries and tombs outside the city walls, Philip departed to Corinth. From there, Philip went down toArgos where theAchaean League was holding an assembly, which he attempted to bring onto his side in exchange for supporting them in their ongoing conflict withNabis of Sparta, but he was rebuffed. Joining up with a force of 2,000 men brought by his general Philokles, Philip made a series of three unsuccessful assaults onEleusis,Piraeus, and Athens and ravaged the territory of Athens. Then he ravaged the sanctuaries throughout Attica and withdrew toBoeotia.[10] The damage to the rural anddeme sanctuaries of Attica was severe and marks the permanent end of their use.[11]
Philip spent the rest of the winter preparing for the Roman assault. He sent his young sonPerseus with a force to prevent the Romans and Dardanians from advancing over theŠar Mountains into northern Macedonia. Philip had the settlements on theSporades islands of Peparethos andSkiathos destroyed to prevent enemies using them as naval bases. The Macedonian army was gathered atDemetrias.[12]
During this time Sulpicius had established a firm base by theSeman river in Illyria. A force underLucius Apustius was sent to raid the western border of Macedonia, capturing or razing a number of cities, includingAntipatrea andCodrion. Following this expedition, Sulpicius received the allegiance of theIllyrians underPleuratus III, theDardanians underBato, and theAthamanes underAmynander. The diplomatic efforts of Philip, Sulpicius, and the Athenians centred on theAetolian League, which seemed inclined to support the Romans but remained neutral at this stage.[13]
In the spring of 199 BC, Sulpicius led his troops east through the territory of theDassaretii, an Illyrian tribe that occupied the area bordering western Macedonia.[14] Philip gathered 20,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, recalling the troops he had stationed in the north with Perseus, and marched west. He encamped on a hill near Athacus which overlooked Sulpicius' camp. After a series of indecisive skirmishes (in one of which Philip was nearly captured), news came that the Dardanians had invaded northern Macedonia, and the Macedonians withdrew secretly in the night.[15] When he realised what had happened, Sulpicius set out in pursuit throughPelagonia, found Philip blocking the pass toEordaea and forced it. Sulpicius ravaged Eordaea, thenElimeia to the south, and then followed theHaliacmon river valley up toOrestis, where he conqueredCeletrum andPelion and then returned to his base.[16] Philip split his force, sending a contingent of his army north to deal with the Dardanian invasion, which it did, while he himself headed south.
At the same time as this land campaign set out, the Roman fleet had leftCorcyra under command of Lucius Apustius, roundedCape Malea, and rendezvoused with King Attalus nearHermione. The combined fleet then launched an assault on the Macedonian military base on the island ofAndros and seized it for Pergamon. The fleet was joined by further ships fromIssa and Rhodes and headed north to theChalkidike peninsula where an assault onCassandreia was a complete failure. They withdrew to northern Euboea, where they besieged and capturedOreus, another key Macedonian naval base. Since it was now autumn and the sailing season was drawing to a close, the contingents of the fleet dispersed back to their home ports.[17]
As these campaigns progressed,Damocritus, thestrategos of the Aetolian League, had decided that it was time to join the war on the Roman side. Together with King Amynander, he led an invasion ofMagnesia andPerrhaebia, then continued to ravageThessaly. There, Philip suddenly appeared and completely defeated their force. He spent some time besieging the Aetolian city ofThaumaci, but gave up and withdrew as winter approached. He spent the winter training his army and engaging in diplomacy, particularly with the Achaean League.[18]
In Rome, the new consuls took office on 15 March 199 BC,Publius Villius Tappulus was allotted Macedonia as his province. He crossed the Adriatic to Corcyra, where he replaced Sulpicius in command of the army.[19] On his arrival, Villius faced a mutiny by 2,000 troops, veterans of the Second Punic War who wished to be demobilised. He resolved this, by forwarding their concerns to the Senate, but was left with little time to prosecute a campaign.[20] Philip marched west and encamped on both sides of theAoös river where it passed through a narrow ravine. Villius marched to meet him but was still considering what to do when he learnt that his successor,Titus Quinctius Flamininus had been elected and was on his way to Corcyra to assume command.[21]
In Asia Minor, Pergamon was invaded by the Seleucid king Antiochus III. As a result, Attalus was not able to assist in the naval war in the Aegean until a Roman embassy forced Antiochus to withdraw.[22]
When the new consuls took office on 15 March 198, the Senate ordered the recruitment of 8,000 new infantry and 800 cavalry for the war. Command in Macedonia was allotted to Flamininus.[23] He was not yet thirty and was a self-proclaimedPhilhellene.
Flamininus was delayed by religious matters for some time, but then he recruited the new forces, crossed the Adriatic, and dismissed Villius. The army encamped in the Aous Valley, across the river from Philip's for forty days.[24] At a peace conference, Flamininus announced the Romans' new peace terms. Up to this point, the Romans had merely ordered Philip to stop attacking the Greek cities. Now Flamininus demanded that he should make reparations to all the Greek cities he had harmed and withdraw all his garrisons from cities outside Macedonia, including Thessaly, which had been part of the Macedonian kingdom continuously since 353 BC. Philip stormed out of the meeting in anger and Flamininus decided to attack.[25]
In the subsequentBattle of the Aous, Flamininus was victorious despite the advantage the terrain gave to the Macedonian army, when he was shown a pass through the mountains which allowed him to send a force to attack the Macedonians from the rear. The Macedonian force collapsed and fled, suffering 2,000 casualties. Philip was able to gather up the survivors and retreat to Thessaly.[26] There he destroyed the city ofTricca to prevent it falling into Roman hands and withdrew toTempe.[27]
After the Roman victory, the Aetolians led a rapid attack throughAinis and intoDolopia, while King Amynander attacked and capturedGomphi, in the south-western corner of Thessaly. Meanwhile, Flamininus enteredEpirus, which now joined the Roman side. Together with Amynander, he entered Thessaly.[28] The army did not encounter much resistance at first, but he became caught up in a prolonged siege atAtrax. Eventually he was forced to abandon this siege and march south intoPhocis in order to secure his supply lines and lodgings for winter by capturingAnticyra.[29] He then besieged and capturedElateia.[30]
While this campaign was taking place, the consul's brother,Lucius Quinctius Flamininus had taken control of the Roman fleet and sailed to Athens. He rendezvoused with the Attalid and Rhodian fleets near Euboea.Eretria was taken after fierce fighting andCarystus surrendered, meaning that the entire island of Euboea was now under Roman control. The fleet travelled back around Attica toCenchreae and placedCorinth under siege.[31]
From there, Lucius, Attalus, the Rhodians, and the Athenians sent ambassadors to theAchaian League in order to bring them into the war on the Roman side. The league held an assembly atSicyon to decide how to respond, which was extremely contentious. On the one hand, the Achaians were still at war with Sparta and they were allied to Macedonia, but on the other hand their new chief magistrateAristaenus was pro-Roman and the Romans promised to give the city of Corinth to the League. The representatives ofArgos,Megalopolis, andDyme, which all had particularly strong ties with Philip, left the meeting. The rest of the assembly voted to join the anti-Macedonian alliance.[32]
The Achaian army joined the other forces besieging Corinth, but after fierce fighting the siege had to be abandoned when 1,500 Macedonian reinforcements commanded by Philokles arrived fromBoiotia.[33] From Corinth, Philokles was invited to take control of Argos by pro-Macedonians in the city, which he did without a fight.[34]
Over the winter of 198/197 BC, Philip declared his willingness to make peace. The parties met atNicaea inLocris in November 198 - Philip sailed from Demetrias, but he refused to disembark and meet Flamininus and his allies on the beach, so he addressed them from the prow of his ship. To prolong the proceedings, Flamininus insisted that all his allies should be present at the negotiations. He then reiterated his demands that Philip should withdraw all his garrisons from Greece, Illyria, and Asia Minor. Philip was not prepared to go this far and he was persuaded to send an embassy to the Roman Senate. When this embassy reached Rome, the Senate demanded that Philip surrender the "fetters of Greece," Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth, but Philip's envoys claimed they had no permission to agree to this, so the war continued.[35]
According to Polybius and Plutarch, these negotiations were manipulated by Flamininus - Philip's overtures had come just as elections were being held in Rome. Flamininus was eager to take the credit for ending the war, but he did not yet know whether his command would be prolonged and had intended to make a quick peace deal with Philip, if it was not. He therefore dragged out the negotiations until he learnt that his command had been prorogued and then had his friends in Rome scupper the meeting in the Senate.[36]
Once this had become clear, Philip attempted to free up his forces by handing the city of Argos over to Nabis of Sparta, but Nabis then engineered a revolution in the city and organised a conference with Flamininus, Attalus and the Achaeans atMycenae, at which he agreed to stop attacking the Achaeans and to supply troops to the Romans.[37]
Over the rest of the winter, Philip mobilised all the manpower of his kingdom including the aged veterans and the underage boys, which amounted to 18,000 men. To these he added 4,000peltasts from Thrace and Illyria, and 2,500 mercenaries. All these forces were gathered atDion.[38] Reinforcements were sent to Flamininus from Italy, numbering 6,000 infantry, 300 cavalry, and 3,000 marines.[39]
At the start of spring, Flamininus and Attalus went toThebes to bring the Boeotian League into the coalition. Because Flamininus had managed to sneak 2,000 troops into the city, the assembly of the League had no choice but to join the Roman coalition. At the assembly, King Attalus suddenly suffered astroke while giving a speech and was left paralysed on one side. He was eventually evacuated back to Pergamon, where he died later that year.[40]
In June 197 BC, Flamininus marched north fromElateia throughThermopylae. En route, he was joined by forces from Aetolia,Gortyn in Crete, Apollonia, and Athamania.[41] Philip marched south into Thessaly and the two armies encamped opposite each other nearPherae. Both armies relocated to the hills aroundScotussa. Contingents of the opposing armies came into contact with one another in theCynoscephalae hills, leading to a fullbattle. In what proved to be the decisive engagement of the war, thelegions of Flamininus defeated Philip'sMacedonian phalanx. Philip himself fled on horseback, collected the survivors, and withdrew to Macedonia. Philip was forced to sue for peace on Roman terms.[42]
At the same time as this campaign was taking place in Thessaly, three other campaigns occurred in Achaea, Acarnania, and Caria - in all of which the Macedonians were defeated.
In the Peloponnese, Androsthenes set out from Corinth with a Macedonian army of 6,000 men into the lands controlled by the Achaean League and pillaged the territories ofPellene,Phlius,Cleonae, andSicyon. The Achaean general, Nicostratus, who was able to muster 5,000 men, closed off the pass back to Corinth, and defeated the Macedonian forcesin detail.[43]
In Acarnania, there had been attempts to switch to the Roman side before theBattle of Cynoscephalae, but the League's assembly had eventually decided against this because of their hostility to the Aetolians. Lucius Flamininus therefore sailed to the Acarnanian capital ofLeucas, and launched an all-out assault, which proved very difficult. Thanks to traitors inside the city, it was eventually captured. Shortly after this, news of the Battle of Cynoscephalae arrived and the rest of the Acarnanians surrendered.[44]
In Asia Minor, the Rhodians led a force of 4,500 mercenaries (mostly Achaeans) into Caria to recapture theRhodian Peraia. A battle took place with the Macedonian forces in the area atAlabanda, in which the Rhodians were victorious. The Rhodians then recaptured their Peraia, but failed to takeStratonicea.[45]
An armistice was declared, and peace negotiations were held in theVale of Tempe. Philip agreed to evacuate the whole of Greece and relinquish his conquests in Thrace and Asia Minor.[46] Philip had to rush off almost immediately after the agreement of terms to deal with an invasion of Upper Macedonia by the Dardanians.[47]
The treaty was sent to Rome for ratification. Despite the efforts of the consul-electMarcus Claudius Marcellus to prolong the war, the RomanTribal Assembly voted unanimously to make peace. The Senate sent ten commissioners to advise on the final peace terms, includingPublius Sulpicius Galba and Publius Villius Tappulus.[48]
On the advice of these men, the final peace was made with Philip in spring 196 BC. Philip had to remove all his garrisons in Greek cities in Europe and Asia, which were to be free and autonomous. Philip had to pay a war indemnity of 1,000 talents - half paid immediately and the rest in ten annual instalments of 50 talents. He had to surrender his whole navy except for his flagship, while his army was limited to a maximum of 5,000 men, could not include elephants, and could not be led beyond his borders without permission of the Roman Senate.[49]
Over the winter of 197/196 BC, while the peace negotiations were still ongoing, conflict had broken out in Boeotia, leading to the assassination of the pro-MacedonianBoeotarch Brachylles by the pro-Roman leaders Zeuxippus and Peisistratus. There was a strong popular backlash, resulting in the murder of about 500 Roman soldiers who had been billeted in Boeotia. Roman forces invaded Boeotia, but the Athenians and Achaeans managed to negotiate a settlement.[50]
At the initial peace negotiations, a rift opened up between Flamininus and the Aetolians, since the latter wanted harsher peace terms imposed on Philip than Flamininus was willing to countenance and desired the return of a number of cities that they had previously controlled in Thessaly but Flamininus refused to back them.[51] The Aetolians began to claim that the Romans planned to retain garrisons in the "fetters of Greece" and replace the Macedonians as overlords of Greece.[52] The growing Aetolian hostility to the Romans was expressed openly to one of the ten Roman commissioners at a meeting ofDelphian Amphictyony in 196 BC.[53] This conflict would ultimately lead to theAetolian War in 191 BC.
%2c_late_1st_century_BC%25E2%2580%2593early_1st_century_AD%2c_Louvre_Museum_(7462828632).jpg)
At theIsthmian Games of May 196 BC, Flamininus proclaimed the 'Freedom of the Greeks' met with general rejoicing of those who were attending the Games. The proclamation listed the free communities as follows: .[54] Nevertheless, the Romans kept garrisons in key strategic cities which had belonged to Macedon –Corinth,Chalcis andDemetrias – and the legions were not completely evacuated until 194 BC.
The extent of this grant of freedom was not entirely clear. Although Flamininus' proclamation had included a list of the communities formerly under Philip's control to which it applied,[55] the Romans quickly assumed (or were thrust into) the role of protector of Greek freedom more generally. The rhetoric of Greek freedom was almost immediately employed by the Romans and their allies to justify diplomatic and military action elsewhere, with theWar against Nabis of Sparta, which was undertaken in 195 BC, ostensibly for the sake of the freedom of Argos.[56]
The initial background to the whole war had been the alliance of Antiochus III and Philip V against Ptolemy V and while the war had been raging in Greece, Antiochus III had completely defeated the Ptolemaic forces in Syria at theBattle of Panium. Since Philip had surrendered his claim to the communities in Asia Minor that had formerly been under Ptolemaic control, Antiochus III now advanced into Asia Minor to take them over for himself.[57] The conflicts arising from this would lead to the outbreak of theRoman–Seleucid War in 192 BC.
