fixed resolution no longer of crippling but of destroying the Macedonian state. Perseus's repeated proposals for peace during the war had been rejected; and his defeat was followed by the final extinction of the kingdom of Philip and Alexander.[1] Macedonia, though it ceased to exist as a single state, was not, however, definitely constituted a Roman province.[2] On the contrary, the mistake was made of introducing some of the main principles of the provincial system—taxation, disarmament and the isolation of the separate communities—without the addition of the element most essential for the maintenance of order—that of a resident Roman governor. The four petty republics now created were each autonomous, and each separated from the rest by the prohibition of commercium and conubium, but no central controlling authority was substituted for that of the Macedonian king. The inevitable result was confusion 605–8. Macedonia a Roman province. and disorder, resulting finally (149–48) in the attempt of a pretender, Andriscus, who claimed to be a son of Perseus, to resuscitate the ancient monarchy.[3] On his defeat in 148 the senate declared Macedonia province. a Roman province, and placed a Roman magistrate at its head.[4]
From 189 to the defeat of Perseus in 168 no formal change of importance in the status of the Greek states had been made by Affairs in Greece, 565–87. Rome. The senate, though forced year after year to listen to the mutual recriminations and complaints of rival communities and factions, contented itself as a rule with intervening just enough to remind the Greeks that their freedom was limited by its own paramount authority, and to prevent any single state or confederacy from raising itself too far above the level of general weakness which it was the interest of Rome to maintain. After the victory at Pydna, however, the sympathy shown for Perseus, exaggerated as it seems to have been by the interested representations of the womanizing factions in the various states, was made the pretext for a more emphatic assertion of Roman ascendancy. All those suspected of Macedonian leanings were removed to Italy, as hostages for the loyalty of their several communities,[5] and the real motive for the step was made clear by the exceptionally severe treatment of the Achaeans, whose loyalty was not really doubtful, but whose growing power in the Peloponnese and independence of language had awakened alarm at Rome. A thousand of their leading men, among them the historian Polybius, were carried off to Italy (see Polybius). In Aetolia the Romans connived at the massacre by their so-called friends of five hundred of the opposite party. Acarnania was weakened by the loss of Leucas, while Athens was rewarded for her unambitious loyalty by the gift of Delos and Samos.
But this somewhat violent experiment only answered for a time. In 148 the Achaeans rashly persisted, in spite of warnings, Settlement of Greece, 146 = 608. in attempting to compel Sparta by force of arms to submit to the league. When threatened by Rome with the loss of all that they had gained since Cynoscephalae, they madly rushed into war.[6] They were easily defeated, and a “commission of ten,” under the presidency of L. Mummius, was appointed by the senate thoroughly to resettle the affairs of Greece.[7] Corinth, by orders of the senate, was burnt to the ground and its territory confiscated. Thebes and Chalcis were destroyed, and the walls of all towns which had shared in the last desperate outbreak were razed to the ground. All the existing confederacies were dissolved; no commercium was allowed between one community and another. Everywhere an aristocratic type of constitution, according to the invariable Roman practice, was established, and the payment of a tribute imposed. Into Greece, as into Macedonia 587. in 167, the now familiar features of the provincial system were introduced—disarmament, isolation and taxation. The Greeks were still nominally free, and no separate province with a governor of its own[8] was established, but the needed central control was provided by assigning to the neighbouring governor of Macedonia a general supervision over the affairs of Greece. From the Adriatic to the Aegean, and as far north as the river Drilo and Mount Scardus, the whole peninsula was now under direct Roman rule.[9]
Beyond the Aegean the Roman protectorate worked no better than in Macedonia and Greece, and the quarrels and disorders The Roman protectorate in Asia, 189–46 = 565–608. which flourished under its shadow were aggravated by its longer duration and by the still more selfish view taken by Rome of her responsibilities.[10] At one period indeed, after the battle of Pydna, it seemed as if the more vigorous, if harsh, system then initiated in Macedon and Greece was to be adopted farther east also. The levelling policy pursued towards Macedon and the Achaeans was applied with less justice to Rome's two faithful and favoured allies, Rhodes and Pergamum. The former had rendered themselves obnoxious to Rome by their independent tone and still more by their power and commercial prosperity. On a charge of complicity with Perseus they were threatened with war, and though this danger was averted[11] they were forced to exchange their equal alliance with Rome for one which placed them in close dependence upon her, and to resign the lucrative possessions in Lycia and Caria 565. given them in 189. Finally, their commercial prosperity was ruined by the establishment of a free port at Delos,[12] and by the short-sighted acquiescence of Rome in the raids of the Cretan pirates. With Eumenes of Pergamum no other fault could be found than that he was strong and successful; but this was enough. His brother Attalus was invited, but in vain, to become his rival. His turbulent neighbours, the Galatae, were encouraged to harass him by raids. Pamphylia was declared independent, and favours were heaped upon Prusias of Bithynia. These and other annoyances and humiliations had the desired effect. Eumenes and his two successors—his brother and son, Attalus II. and Attalus III.—contrived indeed by studious humility and dexterous flattery to retain their thrones, but Pergamum (q.v.) ceased to be a powerful state, and its weakness, added to that of Rhodes, increased the prevalent disorder in Asia Minor. During the same period we have other indications of a temporary activity on the part of Rome. The frontier of the protectorate was pushed forward to the confines of Armenia by alliances with the kings of Pontus and Cappadocia beyond the Halys. In Syria, on the death of 590. 586. 591. Antiochus Epiphanes (164), Rome intervened to place a minor, Antiochus Eupator, on the throne, under Roman guardianship.[13] In 168 Egypt formally acknowledged the suzerainty of Rome,[14] and in 163 the senate, in the exercise of this new authority, restored Ptolemy Philometor to his throne, but at the same time weakened his position by handing over Cyrene and Cyprus to his brother Euegertes.[15]
But this display of energy was short lived. From the death of Eumenes in 159 down to 133 Rome, secure in the absence of any formidable power in the East, and busy with affairs in Macedonia, Africa and Spain, relapsed into an595–621.
- ↑ Livy xlv. 9.
- ↑ Ibid. xlv. 17, 29; Plut. Aemil. 28; Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, ii. 508; Ihne, Hist. of Rome, iii. 258; Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 316.
- ↑ Polyb. xxxvii. 2; Livy, Epit. l.
- ↑ For the boundaries of the province, see Ptolemy iii. 13; Marquardt, loc. cit., 318 f.
- ↑ Livy xlv. 31.
- ↑ Ibid. Epit. li., lii.
- ↑ Ibid. Epit. lii.; Polyb. xl. 9 seq.; Pausanias vii. 16; Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, iii. 270.
- ↑ Mommsen, loc. cit. note; Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 321 seq.; Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten, iii. 358.
- ↑ North of the Drilo the former kingdom of Perseus's ally Genthius had been treated as Macedon was in 167 (Livy xlv. 26); cf. Zippel, Röm. Herrschaft in Illyrien (Leipzig, 1877). Epirus, which had been desolated after Pydna (Livy xlv. 34), went with Greece; Marquardt i. 319.
- ↑ Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, ii. 510 ff., iii. 274 ff.
- ↑ Livy xiv. 20; Polyb. xxx. 5.
- ↑ Polyb. xxxi, 7. The Rhodian harbour dues suffered severely.
- ↑ Rome had already intervened between Syria and Egypt: Livy xlv. 12; Polyb. xxix. 11, xxxi. 12.
- ↑ Livy xlv. 13, “Regni maximum presidium in fide populi Romani.”
- ↑ Ibid. Epit. xlvi., xlvii.
