Saturday, April 28, 2012


 …and now Macedonia

           Becoming a superpower, going from prewar isolationism to being an arbiter in world affairs presented USA after the war with many bewildering problems. On the one hand, they were being asked for support, military or economic,  all over the world, on the other hand, they were being accused of being imperialistic and overbearing. After the 2nd Punic war, the Romans, basically rustic peoples from central Italy, were asked to adjudicate and help with Mediterranean problems. However, there was one problem, which the Romans felt that cannot be put off any longer…
Roman street

            During the struggle for their very existence with Hannibal, the Romans did not have much time, energy, money and manpower to do something about the treacherous Philip V. of Macedonia. Their strategy was to have a navy in the Adriatic and to protect their mercantile beachhead in Illyria, and to make allies with the Aetolian League, an alliance of Greek city-states, who opposed Philip of Macedon. This way Philip was quite occupied with Greece and his lofty notion to stab the Romans in the back had to take back seat. Philip made peace with the Romans in 205 BC. It was a properly hostile peace, because Philip was well aware that the Romans did not forgive him.

             Philip cast about for other allies, since he felt that he would need them eventually. He found one in Antiochus of Syria, another remnant of Alexander the Great’s empire. Their secret deal was to divide the possessions of Egypt, where inter family strife between the Ptolemies made Egypt an easy target. Philip moved on to Thracia and control of shipping from Black Sea to Mediterranean. This did not sit well with the island of Rhodes, a small republic with a powerful navy, and by 201 BC Philip was so embroiled in war with Pergamum in Asia Minor and Rhodes, that the Greek city-states on the Greek mainland, that were under the Macedonian thumb,  promptly rebelled and sent for help to Rome. A bunch of diplomats from Athens, Pergamum and Rhodes arrived in Rome in the same year to secure Roman help. Mainly dressed as bums, with dishevelled hair as proper supplicants were supposed to look. 
The many layers of Rome, from the late Republican
pavement to the baroque dome from 17th cent.AD

             The Roman Senate preferred inaction, telling to the supplicants that the Senate would give their messages ‘earnest attention’. The Senators stirred themselves into sending an embassy to Philip to raise his awareness about the fact that some of the Greek states, threatened by him, were Roman allies, and Rome took a dim view of his actions. Philip rejected the embassy’s demands and sent an army to Attica, the territory of Athens.

            A declaration of war was sought from the Roman Assembly and rejected by nearly all voting tribes. Livy attributes this to the activities of certain Tribune of the Plebs, but a better explanation could be that the Romans were exhausted by the long war with Hannibal and did not want to go to another war.

            The consul Sulpicius Galba called another Assembly. There he spoke shortly, but forcefully, explaining that they are not asked if they wanted war, but only if they wanted war in Italy again, because Philip is not giving them choice – either they would face him in Greece, or in Italy. To drive his point home, Galba reminded the Assembly about another ally who vainly asked for their help, the Saguntines. He also did not neglect to point out that if they stopped Hannibal then, the whole bloody mess of 2nd Punic war could have been avoided and the war could have been fought in Spain.
Ruins of Republican Temples in the middle of modern
Rome

            The Assembly was properly shamed and voted for war with Macedon. It is not clear how bright was Philip. The Roman veterans from the Punic war were so experienced and probably could have eaten him for breakfast. If they were led better, that is. Galba was not the right general and there was a stalemate for 2 years until the philhellenic consul T. Quinctius Flaminius arrived on the scene and took over. Flaminius led two veteran legions into Thessaly with allied Aetolian troops. There, at Cynoscephalae he confronted Philip. In the clash between the Macedonian phalanx and Roman legions, the Roman flexibility won the day in 197 BC.
Titus Quinctius Flaminius

            That was probably the only time, when the hardheaded, ruthless and pragmatic Roman senators, Roman people and Roman consul succumbed to idealism. Cowed by Greek culture and history, Flaminius came to Isthmian Games (competition of the Olympic Games) where the Greeks from various cities were discussing the fact that they exchanged one master – Macedon, for another – Rome. There Flaminius had heralds announce the Freedom of Greece.  Macedon had to leave Greece, of course. But the Romans took away their legions and just left for Italy with nary a Roman soldier in sight… the Greek city-states were free, like before the time of Alexander the Great.


           Which fact they used with brilliant ineptitude, because they returned to their time-honoured traditions, that is, fighting among themselves. The Seleucid ruler of Syria, Antiochus,  was extremely disgusted with the defeat of his Macedonian ally. He was under the impression that only post-alexandrian states may fight among themselves.  In this cooperative spirit, he started to send money to Greek city-states disappointed that the Romans did not give them the right and help to annex some of their neighbours. The idea was to give some problems to the Romans around Dyrrhachium (today Durres in Albania). Titus Flaminius traveled to see Antiochus and explained to him, that the Romans did not like his actions at all, and that he should not mix himself into Greek politics, since the Greeks themselves manage to do enough mixing. Antiochus somehow did not believe him and took his army to Greece, where he was promptly defeated at Thermopylae, and later in Asia Minor, at Apamea, by the Romans who had to deploy the legions rapidly back to Greece.
Antiochus


            After the defeat, as a part of the peace agreement, he was supposed to pay indemnity and damages, but had no money and therefore he turned to Egypt to conquer it and to pay the indemnity from the spoils…


"At this time the ten commissioners who were to decide the affairs of Greece arrived from Rome bringing the senatus-consultum about the peace with Philip. Its principal contents were as follows: All the rest of the Greeks in Asia and Europe were to be free and subject to their own laws" wrote the careful Greek historian Polybius in 2nd cent. BC.




1 comment:

  1. Dear Eva; I was waiting for the conclusion of the Punic wars; your parallel, that a republic emerges from victorious war much much stronger is fascinating and truly consolation for any future conflicts (like looming war on Iran's nuclear ambition). Can't wait for more of your intelligent interpretation of clasical history paralleled with modern events.

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