Eighteenth installment of “Archienemies de Roma “. Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló.
Our archenemy today was one of the last Hellenistic kings to face the incipient power of a republic of shepherds and farmers that was inexorably becoming the hegemonic state of the Mediterranean.
Philip
Philip V born in 238 BC His father was Demetrius II, grandson of the legendary Demetrius Poliorcetes, one of the most prominent rulers of Antigonid Macedonia. When Philip was only nine years old, his father died, leaving his uncle Antigonus as regent of the kingdom. At the young age of seventeen, Philip inherited the kingdom from his uncle, thus becoming the youngest monarch of his day. According to the chronicles, he was a daring and handsome man, a warrior of proven bravery during the wars in Greece who inevitably came to be compared to the great Alexander.
After actively participating in the Hellenic League conflict, his hegemonic aspirations made him look towards neighboring Rome and his possessions in Epirus and Illyria. Her situation encouraged it. Hannibal roamed freely through a devastated Italy, an ideal context to launch a series of offensives aimed at expanding through the eastern Adriatic without excessive resistance. He was wrong. His campaigns in Illyria were unsuccessful, losing his fleet in the attempt, save for the taking of the city of Lissus .
Faced with so much misfortune, Philip thought it convenient to sign a mutual support treaty with Rome's greatest enemy of all time, Hannibal Barca , who, after the Cannae disaster , was then owner and lord of southern Italy. This “axis of evil ” for the Roman Republic it was not in practice as lethal as its promoters intended, since the tense that both leaders agreed on was neutralized shortly after when the Aetolian League declared itself a friend of Rome, and Philip's insidious rival came into play as champion of the world Hellenic, Attalus of Pergamon.
The confusion that prevailed in the eastern Mediterranean at that time made both Philip and the Roman consuls on duty and their Greek allies seek an agreed solution to the conflict. Thus ended the First Macedonian War , more like a truce than a peace. Rome's fixation on Carthage, ready to make up for Cannae's affront in Punic territory, made its pact with Antiochus III Megas did not attract excessive attention from the Senate, being fruitful for the ambitions of both sovereigns by seizing the Egyptian domains of Anatolia from the inexperienced Ptolemy V.
After the overwhelming victory of Zama , battle that marked the end of the Second Punic War, the Senate of Rome lengthened its shadow towards Greece. Philip's pact with Antiochus, as well as the request for help from Rhodes and Pergamon, allies of Rome and enemies of Antiochus, provoked the declaration of the Second Macedonian War in 200 BC
After three years of campaigns without conclusive success by anyone, the Macedonian phalanxes and the Roman legions commanded by the consul Tito Quincio Flamininus they were found in the Sierra de Cinoscéfalos (Thessaly). With equal forces, except for the twenty elephants that Flamininus led, both formations faced each other with the balance of five thousand Macedonians dead and a thousand captives. The tactics of harassment and flight in the Iberian style, added to the charge of elephants that split the phalanx in two, ultimately meant the first defeat of the, to date, invincible and static phalanx against a more agile and more agile way of fighting. just as disciplined, the Roman legion.
The defeat of Cinoscéfalos it was a severe setback for the impetuous Philip; in addition to dismantling his fleet and paying Rome an indemnity of a thousand talents of silver (extrapolating to current amounts, over five million Euros ), he had to hand over as a hostage his own son Demetrius . Since Falminino's sweeping campaign, Philip was an exemplary ally for Rome, helping her against Nabis of Sparta and his former partner Antiochus III, an action that earned him the forgiveness of part of the debt and the return of his son.
Macedonian cooperation was not enough for many of the more skeptical members of the Senate to give up their misgivings about Philip's veiled intentions. The king devoted his efforts to strengthening his power in the Balkans, an action that upset the neighborhood, especially Pergamon. The intrigue took over the Macedonian court. Perseus , second son of Philip and jealous of his older brother, instigated his father about Demetrius's intentions to agree with Rome on his abdication to be crowned later as client king of the Republic. That lie propagated by Perseus led his brother to the gallows in 180 BC
Battle of Pydna
The order of execution of his own son irrevocably undermined the king's health, knowing in his last days the truth and the unjust death of his firstborn. Philip died at Amphipolis a year after those terrible events, perhaps saddened by being a witness and an accomplice in the death of his son... and that of his kingdom. Perseo was the last king of macedonia. A short time later, the consul Lucio Emilio Paulo defeated him at Pidna . He was paraded through the streets of Rome as part of the spoils of the Third Macedonian War and his days ended two years later in a villa in Alba Fucens . Thus ended the lineage of Antigonus the One-eyed, diadochus of the great Alexander, and the independence of the kingdom of the Sun of Vergina.