Battle of Pydna — End of Macedonian Independence
Rome destroyed the Macedonian kingdom at Pydna on 22 June 168 BC in about an hour. Macedon under Perseus had been rebuilding since its defeat in 197, and Rome had decided that a strong Macedon was intolerable regardless of its conduct — which is roughly the pattern of Roman policy in the eastern Mediterranean for the following century. The Third Macedonian War had gone badly for three years under incompetent Roman commanders before Lucius Aemilius Paullus took over. The battle is the classic demonstration of what the legion could do to the phalanx. The Macedonian sarissa phalanx, sixteen ranks deep with pikes some six metres long, was unbreakable from the front and required perfectly level ground to keep its line intact. The Romans gave ground before it initially. As the phalanx advanced over broken country its front developed gaps, and Paullus fed maniples into them, where the pikes were useless and the Roman short sword was not. Some 20,000 Macedonians died and 11,000 were captured against a few hundred Romans. Perseus surrendered and walked in Paullus's triumph. The kingdom Philip and Alexander had built was abolished, divided into four republics forbidden to trade or intermarry with each other, and annexed outright twenty years later. Polybius was among the thousand Achaean hostages taken to Rome afterwards, where he wrote the history explaining to Greeks how Rome had come to rule them, and dated the process from this battle. The battle is also where the Roman practice of settling the east by liquidation rather than by client kingship begins in earnest. Epirus was sacked at the same time and 150,000 people are said to have been enslaved from seventy towns in a single operation.
- Year: 168 BCE
- Category: Military
