Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/777

Rh MACEDONIAN WARS.] ROME 753 had already (191) crossed the ^Egean, and in concert with the fleets of Pergamum and Rhodes worsted the navy of Antiochus. In 190 the new consul L. Scipio, accom- panied by his famous brother, the conqueror of Africa, led the Roman legions for the first time into Asia. At Magnesia, near Mount Sipylus in Lydia, he met and defeated the motley arid ill-disciplined hosts of the great king. 1 For the first time the West, under Roman leader- ship^ successfully encountered the forces of the East, and the struggle began which lasted far on into the days of the emperors. The terms of the peace which followed the victory at Magnesia tell their own story clearly enough. There is no question, any more than in Greece, of annexation ; the main object in view is that of secur- ing the predominance of Roman interests and influence throughout the peninsula of Asia Minor, and removing to a safe distance the only Eastern power which could be considered dangerous. 2 The line of the Halys and the Taurus range, the natural boundary of the peninsula east- ward, was established as the boundary between Antiochus and the kingdoms, cities, and peoples now enrolled as the allies and friends of Rome. This line Antiochus was for- bidden to cross ; nor was he to send ships of war farther west than Cape Sarpedon in Cilicia. Immediately to the west of this frontier lay the small states of Bithynia and Paphlagonia and the immigrant Celtic Galatse, and these frontier states, now the allies of Rome, served as a second line of defence against attacks from the east. The area lying between these " buffer states " and the JEge&n was organized by Rome in such a way as should at once reward the fidelity of her allies and secure both her own paramount authority and safety from foreign attack. Pergamum and Rhodes were so strengthened the former by the gift of the Chersonese, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Mysia, and Lydia, the latter by that of Lycia and Caria as not only amply to reward their loyalty, but to constitute them effective props of Roman interests and effective barriers alike against Thracian and Celtic raids in the north and against aggres- sion by Syria in the south. Lastly, the Greek cities on the coast, except those already tributary to Pergamum, were declared free, and established as independent allies of Rome. In a space of little over eleven years (200-189) Rome had broken the power of Alexander's successors and established throughout the eastern Mediterranean a Roman protectorate. It remained to be seen whether this protec- torate could be maintained, or whether Rome would be driven to that policy of annexation which she had adopted from the first in Sicily and Spain. It was in the western half of the protectorate in Euro- pean Greece that the first steps in the direction of annexa- tion were taken. The enthusiasm provoked by the libera- taken by feelings of dissatisfied ambition or sullen resent- ment. Internecine feuds and economic distress had broiight many parts of Greece to the verge of anarchy, and, above all, the very foundations of the settlement effected in 197 were threatened by the reviving power and aspirations of Macedon. Loyally as Philip had aided Rome in the war with Antiochus, the peace of Magnesia brought him nothing but fresh humiliation. He was forced to abandon all hopes of recovering Thessaly, and he had the mortification to see the hated king of Pergamum installed almost on his borders as master of the Thracian Chersonese. Resistance at the time was unavailing, but from 189 until his death (179) he laboured patiently and quietly to increase the internal resources of his own king- dom, 3 and to foment, by dexterous intrigue, feelings of 1 Livy (xxxvii. 40) describes the composition of Autiochus's army. 2 Livy, xxxvii. 55, xxxviii. 38 ; Polyb., xxi. 17. 3 Livy, xxxix. 24 sq. hostility to Rome among his Greek and barbarian neigh- bours. His successor, Perseus, his son by a left-handed alliance, continued his father's work. He made friends among the Illyrian and Thracian princes, connected him- self by marriage with Antiochus IV. of Syria and with Prusias of Bithynia, and, among the Greek peoples, strove, not without success, to revive the memories of the past glories of Greece under the Macedonian leadership of the great Alexander. 4 .The senate could no longer hesitate. They were well aware of the restlessness and discontent in Greece ; and after hearing from Eumenes of Pergamum, and from their own officers, all details of Perseus's intrigues and preparations they declared war. 5 The struggle, in spite of Perseus's courage and the incapacity at the outset of the Roman commanders, was short and decisive. The sympathy of the Greeks with Perseus, which had been encouraged by the hitherto passive attitude assumed by Rome, instantly evaporated on the news that the Roman legions were on their way to Greece. No assistance came from Prusias or Antiochus, and Perseus's only allies were the Thracian king Cotys and the Illyrian Genthius. The victory gained by L. ^Emilius Paulus at Pydna (168) 586. ended the war. 6 Perseus became the prisoner of Rome, and as such died in Italy a few years later. 7 Rome had begun the war with the 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 extinc- tion of the kingdom of Philip and Alexander. 8 Mace- donia, though it ceased to exist as a single state, was not definitely constituted a Roman province. 9 On the con- trary, the mistake was made of introducing some of the main principles of the provincial system taxation, dis- armament, 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 autonom- ous, and each separated from the rest by the prohibition of commercium and connubium, but no central controlling authority was substituted for that of the Macedonian king. The inevitable result was confusion and disorder, resulting finally (149-146) in the attempt of a pretender, Andriseus, 605-8. who claimed to be a son of Perseus, to resuscitate the Mace- ancient monarchy. 10 On his defeat in 146 the senate R ^n hesitated no longer, and Macedonia became a Roman pro- province, vince, with a Roman magistrate at its head. 11 The results of the protectorate in Greece, if less Affairs in dangerous to Roman supremacy, were quite as unfavour- Greece - able to the maintenance of order. But from 189 to the 565-587. defeat of Perseus in 167, no formal change of importance in the status of the Greek states was made by Rome. The senate, though forced year after year to listen to the mutual recriminations and complaints of rival communi- ties and factions, contented itself as a rule with interven- ing just enough to remind the Greeks that their freedom was limited by its own paramount authority, and to pre- vent 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, exag- gerated as it seems to have been by the interested repre- sentations of the Romanizing factions in the various states, 4 Livy, xlii. 5. 5 Livy, xlii. 19, 36. 6 Livy, xliv. 36-41 ; Plut., Mrnil., 15 sq. 7 Diod., xxxi. 9 ; Livy, xlv. 42 ; Polyb., xxxvii. 16. 8 Livy, xlv. 9. 9 Livy, xlv. 17, 29 ; Plut., ^Emil., 28 ; Mommsen, R. G., i. 769 ; Time, R. G., iii. 216 ; Marquardt, Rom. Staaisverw. , i. 160. 10 Polyb., xxxvii. 2 ; Livy, Epit., 1. 11 For the boundaries of the province, see Ptolemy, iii. 13 ; Mar- quardt, loc. cit., 161. XX. 95
 * tion of the Greeks had died away, and its place had been