Popular depictions of the Roman world often show us the picture during the late Republic
or early Empire. But when did Roman domination of the Mediterranean basin become all but
inevitable? How was it that Rome eventually grew to encompass the mighty Hellenistic kingdoms,
and how did the legions come to establish themselves as the dominant military system
for almost a millennia - overshadowing Alexander the Great’s phalanx? You will learn about
that in our new series on the Macedonian Wars.
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The year is 231BC and the Mediterranean world is a land of continuous warfare and political
upheaval. Just ten years earlier, the burgeoning power of the Roman Republic had defeated Carthage
in the First Punic War, establishing naval dominance at sea. In the east, the Hellenistic
kingdoms - Macedon, Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Empire - vie for dominance over their
border territories. Sandwiched between these greater polities are a number of smaller states,
such as Pergamon and the nominally independent Greek city-states. This is the world of the
late 3rd century BC, but soon a series of conflicts between two rising powers - Rome
and Macedon - will change the fate of the region forever.
During this period, Illyria, which encompassed modern Albania and Dalmatia, was regarded
as a thoroughly barbarian region, only half civilised by contact with its Hellenic neighbors.
Though contact with the Greek world had led to a degree of urbanisation in the south and
along the coast, the region in a political sense was still made up of many small tribal
chieftains. The population of Illyria had been regarded since their initial encounters
as turbulent and warlike. From time to time, one of the many Illyrian
tribes would gain temporary hegemony over most of the others, and in the 230s BC this
was the Ardiaei. Ruled by their energetic king, Agron, they had forged a union of not
just their own Illyrian peoples, but also prominent figures, such as Demetrius - the
Greek lord of Pharos. Coinciding with the rise of this new Illyrian
power was the collapse of Epirus, whose once formidable strength had waned and whose monarchy
fell. Taking advantage of this weakness, the Illyrians invaded, and eventually managed
to seize Epirote territory far south of the traditional border, climaxing with the seizure
of Phoenice, the wealthiest city of the kingdom. Despite these successes however, Agron perished
soon after and was succeeded nominally by his son. In reality, it was his wife Teuta
who wielded true power, quickly being appointed regent for her stepson. Her ascension did
not stop Illyrian belligerence, and in her reign piracy increasingly became a major problem
in the Mediterranean. Seizures of more southerly territories in Epirus had allowed the establishment
of more staging points from which brigands could sail. This had been occurring for a
long time already, but the increasing scale of the problem, the increasingly loud complaints
of Roman merchants, and the economic impact of piracy on the Republic prompted the Senate
to act. Uncharacteristically peacefully for the notoriously
combative Romans, the initial senatorial reaction in 230BC was not to send in the legions, but
instead to send a diplomatic embassy of the Coruncanius brothers to investigate the situation.
In the typically harsh style of Roman diplomacy, the Coruncanius brothers protested to Teuta
about the increasing piracy and demanded that it cease immediately. The demand was not negotiable
and the Illyrians would have a chance to comply peacefully - otherwise it would be war.
Teuta refused this demand, either because of her inability to control the actions of
her decentralised tribal allies, or because she simply did not wish to bend to Roman demands.
Whatever the case, this did not please the Romans, a situation made even worse by the
murder of a Roman envoy, possibly by Teuta herself in the midst of the anger of the meeting,
or on the journey home by those very pirates that the embassy had been dispatched to stop.
While the death of the Roman envoy was the immediate trigger for war, the expansion of
the Ardiaei tribe’s power over the region was a deeper geopolitical cause - Rome did
not want any powerful rival in the Adriatic. Late in the campaigning season of 229BC, a
massive Roman force of 22,000 troops and 200 ships bore down on the Illyrians. Though details
of the short campaign are lost, it is known that the Roman expedition was a complete success
from north to south. Teuta’s appointed governor of the recently conquered island of Corcyra
- Demetrius of Pharos - went over to the Roman side almost immediately, while the queen regent’s
forces were defeated in the field. By spring of 228 Teuta had been forced into a peace
treaty with the Romans, breaking her kingdom into weaker segments and forbidding ventures
of piracy into the southern Adriatic Sea. The Romans withdrew their troops and left
behind only their amicitia, or ‘friendship’ - a benign sounding term which would soon
apparently become anything but that. In essence, being a ‘friend’ of Rome included the
de facto conditions of becoming an informal client state.
A primary beneficiary of the peace of 228 was the defector Demetrius of Pharos, who
was granted a small independent principality of his own, sandwiched between the remnant
of the Ardiaean kingdom and the Greek cities. Despite these gains under Roman auspices,
it seems that the ambitious Demetrius was not content to remain in his small kingdom,
and shortly after the peace was finalised, he married Triteuta - the Ardiaean king’s
biological mother. By becoming the young boy’s formal regent in this act, Demetrius of Pharos
effectively recreated the powerful Illyrian kingdom abolished by Rome in the First Illyrian
War. Even more boldly, he began to launch pillaging
raids into the territory of Roman allied tribes. It could be that Demetrius was ‘testing
the water’ and, due to the lack of any Roman response, he believed they either could not
or did not wish to intervene. This was an illusion, as the Romans were instead occupied
by the Roman-Gallic War of 226-222BC, and it would prove to be a fatal illusion for
Demetrius. Further trying his luck, Demetrius set out
with 90 light galleys in the summer of 220BC on a grand piracy expedition, ravaging cities
around the Adriatic Sea in blatant violation of the treaty eight years before. He had finally
gone too far, and Rome decided that their former ally Demetrius now posed the same threat
to Roman interests that Teuta had, and moreover wished to punish their friend for betraying
them and not acting like a friend should. The disproportionately massive Roman action
which began in 219 was probably motivated by the Republic’s desire to swiftly and
decisively conclude the Illyrian situation before a new war with Carthage began, as it
seemed like it might. Demetrius’ strategy was to hold the fortresses of Dimallum and
Pharos itself, but the Romans took the former in only seven days, while a rash sortie by
Demetrius lost him Pharos. The man himself evaded capture because he had placed a squadron
of hidden galleys in a secret cove, fleeing to them when the battle was lost. On these
ships he fled to the south, abandoning his family to Roman imprisonment and his men to
death at Roman hands. Not long after, Demetrius reached the Adriatic
port town of Actium, where the fleet of a great Hellenistic king - Philip V of Macedon
- was anchored. When he arrived, the king welcome Demetrius heartily and he quickly
became a key advisor. Meanwhile, the Romans withdrew all of their soldiers from the region,
leaving no military presence. They once again left only their friendship behind, but had
demonstrated to the great Macedonian kingdom to the south that they had the will to intervene
in the east. Before continuing, we need to reverse time
for a moment and briefly examine the history of Macedon after its would-be conqueror, Pyrrhus
of Epirus, died in Argos. The victor in that battle, Antigonus II Gonatas, was firmly in
control of Macedon by 272, and had also established hegemony over the Greek city-states. Having
gained the loyalty of his turbulent homeland, Antigonus II did his best to maintain it.
He raised a great sacred mound to honour the graves of the Argead house, reorganised the
provincial system to increase its efficiency, and was vigilant in keeping Macedonian coinage
a high-quality currency. Making good use of Macedon’s depleted resources
and funds, Antigonus focused on access and mobility, extensively utilising the Antigonid
fleet and the great naval fortresses of Demetrias, Chalcis and Corinth to ferry troops to strategic
locations. An Athenian-led, Ptolemaic-supported attempt at shaking off Macedonian domination
failed in the Chremonidean War from 267 to 261. Though Antigonus managed to quell this
revolt, crucial fortresses such as Acrocorinth were lost during his reign, which finally
ended in 239BC with his death. His successor - Demetrius II - ruled for a relatively uneventful
decade during which Macedon’s situation weakened ever further, and he died in 229.
The late king’s own son, Philip V, was only a child at the time of his father’s death,
and Macedon could not afford a child ruler in such a perilous time. A regent was clearly
required for the time being, and a distant Antigonid relation was chosen for the task
- Antigonus Doson. As one of the lesser known but more highly competent Macedonian kings
during the 3rd century BC, Antigonus Doson began to raise the young Philip as his own
son, and at the same time energetically set to campaigning in order to beat back Macedon’s
enemies. He first marched north and expelled the Illyrians
from the kingdom, and then struck south and crushed the Aetolian League. After securing
his borders, Antigonus proceeded to renounce all Macedonian claims south of the Thermopylae
pass, wisely hoping to consolidate and stabilise the situation in Macedon itself. The response
of the army was to demand that Antigonus accept the title of king. While he did this, Philip
V’s rights to the throne were not usurped or taken away, and Antigonus swiftly appointed
him the official heir. After another series of victories, which included
the first ever seizure of Sparta by a foreign army, Antigonus III Doson perished in 221,
leaving behind a resurgent, stable and increasingly powerful Macedon to Philip V, who now ascended
to the throne. Soon after taking the throne, Philip V and the Macedonian hegemony were
once again challenged by the Aetolian League and its allies during the Social War of 220-217.
The League believed Philip was too young to be an effective ruler. It was during this
war that Demetrius of Pharos arrived at the royal court.
Cataclysmic events in the west now began to attract wider attention in the Mediterranean
world. The Second Punic War had broken out in 218, and the Carthaginian general Hannibal
had successfully crossed the Alps to invade Italy. There, he had already defeated one
Roman field army at the Trebia River, and in the June of 217, he crushed another at
Lake Trasimene in Etruria [itroria]. Hearing of these massive Roman defeats, Philip V now
began to consider expansion in the west at the expense of an apparently dying Roman Republic.
This new direction was encouraged by Demetrius of Pharos who, after being expelled from his
Adriatic dominion by Rome, now argued that Philip should end the Social War, gain control
of the Illyrian coast and attack Italy himself. Accepting the military status quo and ending
the war in Greece at Naupactus, Philip then drove the Illyrians from Macedon once again,
and in the winter of 217 had a fleet of 100 light warships constructed. In the summer
of 216 the king made his first attempt at securing Illyria’s coastal region, but fled
home upon hearing the news of an approaching Roman fleet.
The decisive Roman defeat at Cannae was another crucial moment, as it prompted Philip to send
envoys to Hannibal asking for a formal alliance - he no doubt wanted to join the ‘winning’
side and make gains at Roman expense. The story goes that the envoy - Xenophanes - was
captured by a Roman praetor on his way to speak with Hannibal, but managed to talk his
way to freedom by stating that he was instead there to make peace with Rome. However, the
unfortunate Xenophanes was captured again on his way back to Macedon with the formal
treaty with Hannibal in his possession. It was in this manner that the Romans learned
of the new threat that faced them. Following the conclusion of the Punic-Macedonian
treaty, Philip aggressed further with new attacks against coastal Illyria, attacking
Corcyra in 215. This intensified in 214 when a major offensive began - Philip’s land
army marched north into Illyria through Epirus, while 120 Macedonian galleys sailed up the
Straits of Otranto. In this campaign Philip swiftly seized Oricum and besieged Apollonia,
who called to Rome for help. With a strengthened Adriatic fleet, the Roman
commander Laevinus now crossed the sea with 55 heavy Roman warships, lifted the siege
of Apollonia and drove the Macedonians away from Oricum - two crucial ports which could
have been used as a staging point for an attack on Italy. After these victories, Laevinus
wintered his fleet in Oricum, while Philip burned his ships and retreated overland to
Macedon. Having been blocked at sea, the Macedonian
king attacked instead over the Pindus mountains, making significant gains in 213 and 212. The
inland Dassaretis, Parthini and Atintani tribal settlements fell to him, without a significant
Roman response. The Republic did not have the land troops to spare for a side-venture
into the eastern Adriatic, as they were still fighting against Hannibal. This situation
changed during the later part of 212 when Philip was once again able to reach the Adriatic.
Having battered his way over land to the coast, he managed to seize the coastal fortress of
Lissus, another possible staging point. It became clear to the Romans that this eastern
threat could no longer be ignored. Neutralising Philip at this point was beyond
Roman military power alone due to the Carthaginian War, so the Senate began to use diplomacy
as a weapon, and started enticing other Greek states to do the neutralising for them. A
treaty was made between the traditionally anti-Macedon Aetolian League and Rome, the
former being convinced of the alliance because of Roman victories in the Punic War during
the summer of 211 at Capua and Tarentum. Terms were generous for the Aetolians - they would
get any captured town or city, but the booty would go to the Romans unless the town was
jointly taken. Another term allowed for the inclusion of other Aetolian allies, such as
Sparta, Elis, Messenia, the Illyrians, and even Pergamum.
The war itself was a disruptive, indecisive slogging match, with the Romans taking several
important centres such as Anticyra, but Philip V making gains against the rest of the coalition.
Attempts at peace talks by non-combatant states failed in 207 due to Rome’s deliberate derailing
actions, but during 206 and 205 they were gradually forced into peace. Though the final
treaty ending the war at Phoenice concluded hostilities for now, it was clear that Rome’s
desire to punish Philip for his attempt at kicking them while they were down was not
yet sated. One thing was certain, however: Rome was ever so slowly winning the Second
Punic War and would soon be able to harness all of its might against Macedon.
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