Second Macedonian War
The Second Macedonian War, fought from 200 to 197 BC, ended Macedonian dominance of Greece and established Rome as the arbiter of the eastern Mediterranean. Rome had finished with Hannibal only a year earlier and its assembly initially refused to vote for another war. Philip V of Macedon had allied with Carthage during the second Punic war and had since agreed with Antiochus III of Syria to divide the possessions of the child king of Egypt, and had attacked Rhodes and Pergamum, both of which appealed to Rome. The senate presented the case as protecting Greek liberty, and the assembly was brought round on a second vote. Two years of inconclusive campaigning in Illyria and Thessaly followed. The decision came in 197 BC at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly, where the armies collided in fog on broken hills. The battle is the classic demonstration of legion against phalanx. Philip's right wing, formed and charging downhill, drove the Roman left back; his left was still coming up in column when the Roman right, with elephants, hit it. An unnamed tribune then took twenty maniples out of the pursuing Roman right and struck the victorious phalanx in the rear, which it could not turn to meet. Philip lost perhaps eight thousand men. At the Isthmian Games in 196 BC Flamininus had a herald proclaim the Greek cities free, and the crowd is said to have cheered so loudly that birds fell. Roman garrisons withdrew, and Roman influence did not. Philip kept his throne and lost his empire, becoming a Roman ally confined to Macedonia. Rome took no territory and left with a network of clients, which is the pattern of its expansion in the east. Antiochus III drew the obvious conclusion too late and was defeated in his turn a few years afterwards.
- Category: War
