Roman Expansion After the Second Punic War

After the Second Punic War, Rome chose to intervene in Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor.

Rome had begun to create borders abroad that served its interests by being ill-defined -- borders that kept various powers at odds with each other and wanting to maintain Rome's favour.

Roman diplomacy had been growing increasingly devious and self-serving. Rome favoured oligarchies against democrats, its Senate never having approved of the authority of the masses.

Rome allied itself with Rhodes, Pergamum and other Greek cities hostile to Antiochus III, who had expanded his rule from Syria and Palestine into Thrace and Asia Minor. Together they defeated Antiochus and his allies in the year 190 BC. Antiochus agreed to Rome's demand that he withdraw from Asia Minor. He agreed to surrender Hannibal, and he agreed to pay a great sum to Rome as tribute.

Those Greek cities that had allied themselves with Antiochus were forced into an alliance with Rome, and they were made to agree to give no aid to forces hostile to Rome or to allow such forces to cross their territory.

When the people of Sardinia and Corsica rose against Rome in an attempt to re-establish their independence, Rome sent armies against them. Rome did not wish to tolerate any example of defiance. It crushed the uprisings and made slaves of 80,000 Sardinians, glutting its slave market and making "as cheap as a Sardinian" a common expression among the Romans.

By the mid-170s, Macedonia had recovered from its defeat by Rome two decades before, and the king, Perseus, allied with Thracian and Illyrian chieftains. He gave refuge to reform-minded exiles and those fleeing debt, and across Greece he became known as a champion of the poor. Rome's Senate decided that it was in Rome's interest to destroy Perseus.

In the autumn of 172 Rome deceived Perseus by granting him a truce. As planned, Rome spent the winter preparing for war. And early in 171, on the pretext that Perseus had attacked some allies of Rome in the Balkans, the Senate declared war against him. As before, Rome had complete control of the seas, and its troops slightly outnumbered those of Macedonia. Rome's elastic military formations and forged steel swords proved superior to Macedonia's rigid formations of pikemen and its cast iron swords. In one great battle in 168, Rome destroyed Perseus' army, and Perseus died in a Roman prison three years later.

The Republic of Epirus had given Perseus no effective help during the war, but because it had allied itself with Perseus, the Romans attacked its towns and villages and carried away 150,000 people whom they sold into slavery.

Rome attempted to eliminate Macedonian kings and to weaken Macedonia by dividing it into four republics. Rome forbade the divided areas to have contacts with each other. It demanded half of what the four republics collected in taxes, and Rome took possession of Macedonia's mines and forests. It was the beginning of Roman annexations east of the Adriatic.

With cooperation from wealthy Greeks, Rome moved to extend its authority over Greece. Roman sympathisers among the Greeks gave the Romans reports as to who was anti-Roman, and the Romans deported the denounced people in great number. In helping conservative politicians in one city, Roman soldiers invaded an assembly and murdered five hundred office-holders who had been reported to be anti-Roman.

From Perseus' archives, the Romans discovered letters disclosing that he had had secret support from high-ranking officials in the Achaean League cities in Peloponnesus. In response, the Romans rounded up close to nine hundred Achaean leaders and intellectuals, including the historian Polybius, and shipped them back to Italy, keeping them for a trial that was never held.

Rhodes and Pergamum also suffered. Unhappy with Rhodes and Pergamum for having made a deal with Perseus, Rome let Pergamum's neighbours attack and harass it. And, from Rhodes, Rome took Caria, Lycia and the island of Delos. The trade of Rhodes fell as much as eighty-five percent, which benefited Roman competitors. And the sea-going piracy that Rhodes had successfully repressed as a naval power started rising again.

Then came the third war against Carthage and a showdown with the enemies it had created from Hispania to Greece.

Based on article appears in Frank Eugene Smitha's Macrohistory.