King Philip V of Macedon confronted Rome in 215 A.D.

Perseus, the son of Philip V, last legitimate Macedonian king, failed to defend his throne and Macedonia from Romans.

This passage describes the peace settlement that was drawn up after the Romans' decisive victory over Philip [V] at Cynoscephalae in 197 B.C. [IN THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR]

44. At this time the ten commissioners who had been appointed to handle the affairs of Greece arrived from Rome bringing the decree of the Senate concerning the peace settlement with Philip. Its principal features were the following. All the rest of the Greeks both in Asia and in Europe were to be free and to enjoy their own laws. Philip was to hand over to the Romans before the beginning of the Isthmian Games[1] those Greeks who were subject to his rule, and also the towns which he had occupied with garrisons. From the towns of Euromus, Pedasa, Bargylia, and Iasus, as well as Abydos, Thasos, Myrina and Perinthus he was to withdraw his garrisons and leave the inhabitants free. Flamininus was to write to Prusias of Bithynia in accordance with the decree of the Senate concerning the liberation of the city of Cius. Within the same time limit Philip was to restore to the Romans all prisoners of war and deserters and to surrender all his warships, with the exception of five light vessels and his huge flagship, in which the men rowed eight to an oar. He was to pay the sum of 1,000 talents, half of it at once and the other half in installments spread over ten years.

45. When the contents of this decree became known in Greece all the city states and peoples took heart and were overjoyed, with the solitary exception of the Aetolians. They were disappointed at not having obtained what they expected, and complained bitterly of the decree, which they said was nothing but a verbal arrangement and ignored practical problems. From the actual terms of the decree they put about interpretations of the probable consequences which were calculated to confuse the minds of those who listened to such forecasts. They maintained that there were two distinct pronouncements in the decree which applied to the various cities garrisoned by Philip: one of these ordered him to withdraw his garrisons and hand over the cities to the Romans, and the other to withdraw his garrisons and set the cities free. The cities to be set free were specifically named and were all of them situated in Asia; it was obvious, therefore that those to be handed over to the Romans were all in Europe, that is to say Oreum, Eretria, Chalcis, Demetrias and Corinth.[2] This was surely a clear indication that the Romans were taking over from Philip the so-called 'fetters of Greece', and that the Greeks were not being given their freedom, but merely a change of masters.

These arguments of the Aetolians were repeated ad nauseam. But in the meanwhile Flamininus left Elateia in Phocis with the ten commissioners, travelled south to Anticyra, and at once sailed across the gulf to Corinth, where he proceeded to confer with the commissioners and consider the settlement of Greece as a whole.

All this while the slanderous comments of the Aetolians were gaining circulation and were beginning to carry some conviction, so that Flamininus felt obliged to address his colleagues and discuss the terms of the settlement in great detail. The gist of his argument was that if they wished to gain universal renown among the Greeks, and to convince the country as a whole that the Romans had originally crossed the Adriatic not to advance their own interests but to secure the liberties of the Greeks, they must withdraw from every place and set free all the cities which were now garrisoned by Philip. As it happened this was the one subject on which there was room for some uncertainty among the commissioners. Decisions had already been reached in Rome on all other issues and the commissioners had instructions on these from the Senate, but because of misgivings about the intentions of Antiochus, the question of the status of Chalcis, Corinth and Demetrias had been left to their discretion to be decided in the light of the situation on the spot; for it was well-known that for some time past Antiochus had been watching for an opportunity to intervene in the affairs of Greece. In spite of this Flamininus succeeded in persuading his colleagues to set Corinth free immediately and hand it over to the Achaeans, while he continued to occupy the Acrocorinth and the cities of Chalcis and Demetrias.

46. By the time that these decisions had been taken the moment for the celebration of the Isthmian Games had arrived. The expectation of what would happen there had attracted men of the highest rank from almost every quarter of the civilized world, and all kinds of reports and speculations concerning the outcome circulated throughout the festival. Some argued that it was impossible for the Romans to withdraw from certain places and cities, and others that they would give up such places as were considered famous, but keep those which were just as serviceable but happened not to possess the same glamour. Indeed these people went so far as to name the places in question out of their own heads, and vied with one another in the ingenuity of their guesswork. In the midst of this atmosphere of uncertainty, and at the moment when the crowd had assembled in the stadium to watch the games and the trumpeter had called for silence, the herald came forward and delivered the following proclamation:

'The Senate of Rome and Titus Quinctius Flamininus the proconsul, having defeated King Philip and the Macedonians in battle, leave the following states and cities free, without garrisons, subject to no tribute and in full enjoyment of their ancestral laws: the peoples of Corinth, Phocis, Locri, Euboea, Phthiotic Achaea, Magnesia, Thessaly and Perrhaebia.'

At the very beginning of this announcement a deafening shout arose, so that some people never heard the proclamation at all, while others were anxious to hear it again. The greater part of the crowd could not believe their ears, for what had happened was so unexpected that it was as if they were listening to the words in a kind of dream. They clamoured and shouted, each of them moved perhaps by a different impulse, for the herald and the trumpeter to come forward into the middle of the stadium and repeat the proclamation; they wished, no doubt, not only to hear the speaker but to see him, so difficult did it seem to believe what he was saying. But when the herald came forward into the centre of the arena, once more silenced the clamour with the help of his trumpeter, and read out exactly the same text, such a tremendous outburst of cheering arose that it is difficult for those who can only read of the event today to imagine how it sounded. When at last the shouting died away nobody paid the least attention to the athletic contests; the cheers of the crowd were replaced by a hubbub of chatter, people discussing the news with their neighbours or soliloquizing aloud, all talking like men beside themselves. Indeed, when the games were over they almost killed Flamininus with the unrestrained vehemence of their joy and gratitude. Some of them yearned to look him in the face and hail him as their saviour, others pressed forward to touch his hand, and the majority threw garlands and fillets upon him, so that between them they almost tore him to pieces. But however extravagant their gratitude may appear to have been, one could say with confidence that it fell far short of the importance of the event itself. For it was a wholly admirable action in the first place that the Roman people and their general should have made the choice to incur unlimited danger and expense to ensure the freedom of Greece, more remarkable still that they devoted to this ideal the force sufficient to bring it about, and most remarkable of all that no mischance intervened to frustrate their intention. Instead, every factor combined to produce this crowning moment, when by a single proclamation all the Greeks inhabiting both Asia and Europe became free, with neither garrison nor tribute to burden them, but enjoying their own laws.

Notes:

1.The Isthmian Games stood third in the order of the great Pan-Hellenic festivals (after the Olympian and the Pythian), and were held in June-July of each alternate year - in June - 196 BC in this case.

2. For the significance of the last three of these see p. 503 (Flamininus and Philp XVIII.11).

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