Appian, Romaika, 2nd Century AD

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  • Soldier of Macedon
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 13670

    Appian, Romaika, 2nd Century AD

    Appian lived between 95 AD and 165 AD, and was an author who was born in Alexandria while it was under the Roman Empire. He wrote a history of Rome in Greek called the 'Romaika', which includes details and chronologies of lands and peoples that the Romans had been in contact with, including their invasion of the Balkans and the fall of Macedonia in antiquity. Below are some quotes of his Macedonian Wars, and my comments.



    By the year 215 BC Rome was in the process of establishing control over the the kingdoms and states in southern Europe, western Asia and northern Africa. Macedonian king Phillip V sent an embassy to Hannibal of Carthage, a threat to Rome at the time, for the purpose of mutual cooperation;
    [1] The Romans paid no attention to Philip, the Macedonian, when he began war against them. They were so busy about other things that they did not even think of him, for Italy was still scourged by Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, and they were at war in Africa, Carthage, and Spain, and were restoring order in Sicily. Philip himself, moved by a desire of enlarging his dominions, although he had suffered nothing whatever at the hands of the Romans, sent an embassy, the chief of which was Xenophanes, to Hannibal in Italy, proposing to aid him in Italy if he would promise to assist him in the subjugation of Greece. Hannibal agreed to this arrangement and took an oath to support it, and sent an embassy in return to receive the oath of Philip. A Roman trireme intercepted the ambassadors of both on their return and carried them to Rome. Thereupon Philip in his anger attacked Corcyra, which was in alliance with Rome.
    The Romans ensured that no conclusive agreement would be reached, however, they could not pose a serious challenge to Phillip until around 211-212 BC, when the Greeks again rose up against their Macedonian overlords and allied their Aetolian League with Rome. The Achaeans, who were supposed to be allies of Macedonia, did not render help to Phillip. Although some switched sides due to personal agendas, without the Greeks, the Romans could not have achieved their objectives against the Macedonians. The First Macedonian War ended in 205 BC, with a Roman withdrawal, and an onslaught by the Macedonians against the Aetolians. The 'Treaty of Phoenice' acknowledged the right of the Macedonian kingdom to retain its former possessions, while Phillip, for his part, severed ties with Hannibal. In 201 BC, Rome commenced a Second Macedonian War upon information received by Pergamon and Rhodes, again with the assistance of Greeks. From the year 198 BC, Flaminius became the new consul in charge of affairs concerning Macedonia and Greece, and earned the trust and respect of the Greeks after proving himself to be sympathetic to their cause, becoming a people’s favourite.
    [6] Philip, king of Macedonia, had a conference with Flamininus, which had been brought about by the ambassadors of the Epirots. Flamininus ordered Philip to retire from Greece, not on account of the Romans, but of the Greek cities themselves and to make good the damage he had done to the aforesaid cities.
    During Flaminius’ initial period of control in the region, the Greeks were apprehensive due to injustices done by the Roman commander Sulpicius. Nevertheless, the Romans continued their crusade of liberating the Greeks from the Macedonian yoke. At the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, the Macedonians were defeated, and a year later the 'Treaty of Tempea' was established by Rome.
    [8] The greater part of them preferred the alliance of Philip and sided against the Romans on account of certain outrages against Greece committed by Sulpicius, the former commander.

    [9] When this was done the Greeks asked the Roman Senate to require Philip to remove from their country the three garrisons which he called "the fetters of Greece": the one at Chalcis, which threatened the Boeotians, the Euboeans, and the Locrians; the one at Corinth, which closed the door of the Peloponnese; and the third at Demetrias, which lay, as it were, in ambush for the Aetolians and the Magnesians.

    [10] Philip, being defeated again, sent a herald to Flamininus to sue for peace, and again Flamininus granted him a conference, whereat the Aetolians were greatly displeased and accused him of being bribed by the king, and complained of his sudden change of mind as to all these matters. But he thought that it would not be to the advantage of the Romans, or of the Greeks, that Philip should be deposed and the Aetolian power made supreme. Perhaps, also, the unexpected greatness of the victory made him satisfied.

    Having agreed upon a place where Philip should come, he directed the allies by cities to deliver their opinions. Some of them were disposed to be moderate, viewing suspiciously the mysteries of fortune as evinced in the calamities of Philip, and considering this disaster that had befallen him due not so much to weakness as to bad luck. But Alexander, the presiding officer of the Aetolians, said, "Flamininus cannot be ignorant that this victory will be of no advantage to the Romans or the Greeks unless the kingdom of Philip is overthrown."

    [11] Flamininus replied, "Alexander cannot be ignorant of the custom of the Romans, who never destroy an enemy at once, but have spared many offenders, as recently the Carthaginians, restoring their property to them and making allies of those who had done them wrong. You forget also that there are many barbarous tribes on the border of Macedonia, who would make easy incursions into Greece if the Macedonian kings were taken away. Wherefore, I think that the Macedonian government should be left to protect you against the barbarians, but Philip must retire from those Greek places that he has hitherto refused to give up, and must pay the Romans 200 talents for the expenses of the war, and give hostages of the most noble families, including his own son, Demetrius. Until the Senate ratifies these conditions there shall be an armistice of four months."

    [12] Philip accepted all these conditions, and the Senate, when it learned the facts, ratified the peace, but considered the terms granted by Flamininus too lenient, and, accordingly, decreed that all the Greek cities that had been under Philip's rule should be free, and that he should withdraw his garrisons from them before the next celebration of the Isthmian games; that he should deliver to Flamininus all his ships, except one with six benches of oars and five small ones with decks; that he should pay the Romans 500 talents of silver down, and remit to Rome 500 more in ten years, in annual installments; and that he should surrender all prisoners and deserters in his hands. These conditions were added by the Senate and Philip accepted them all, by which it was made plain that those named by Flamininus were much too lenient. They sent to him as counselors ten men (as was customary at the end of a war), with whose aid he should regulate the new acquisitions.
    Greece was now free from the Macedonians, and from that point onward, Phillip could not and did not seek action beyond Macedonia. After all of the conditions put on Phillip, the Romans still expected the Macedonians to defend their former possession (Greece) against attackers from beyond Macedonia.
    [13] When he had arranged these things with them he went to the Isthmian games, and, the stadium being full of people, he commanded silence by trumpet and directed the herald to make this proclamation, "The Roman people and Senate, and Flamininus, their general, having vanquished the Macedonians and Philip, their king, order that Greece shall be free from foreign garrisons, not subject to tribute, and shall live under her own customs and laws."
    Greece was under foreign, Macedonian customs and laws since Phillip II. With the coming of their Roman saviours, the Greek were now free from Macedonian domination. Plutarch gives an elaborate picture of the relationship between Flaminius and the Greeks:

    Plutarch, Lives, Flaminius, 1st-2nd century What Titus Quintius Flamininus, whom we select as a parallel to Philopœmen, was in personal appearance, those who are curious may see by the brazen statue of him, which stands in Rome near that of the great Apollo, brought from Carthage, opposite to the Circus Maximus, with

    It is true that the kingdom of Macedon furnished supplies enough to Philip for actual battle with the Romans; but to maintain a long and lingering war, he must call in aid from Greece; must thence procure his supplies; there find his means of retreat; Greece, in a word, would be his resource for all the requisites of his army......

    And when afterwards, on Philip’s professing a desire for peace, Titus made a tender to him of peace and friendship, upon the condition that the Greeks be left to their own laws, and that he should withdraw his garrisons, which he refused to comply with, now after these proposals, the universal belief even of the favorers and partisans of Philip, was, that the Romans came not to fight against the Greeks, but for the Greeks, against the Macedonians. Accordingly, all the rest of Greece came to peaceable terms with him..........

    .......having vanquished king Philip and the Macedonians, restored the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Eubœans, Achæans of Phthiotis, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians to their own lands, laws, and liberties; remitting all impositions upon them, and withdrawing all garrisons from their cities......A shout of joy followed it, so loud that it was heard as far as the sea. The whole assembly rose and stood up; there was no further thought of the entertainment; all were only eager to leap up and salute and address their thanks to the deliverer and champion of Greece.
    Returning to Appian. Philip and the Macedonians supported the Romans against both the Spartans and against Antiochus III between 195 BC and 189 BC. Demetrius was freed and returned to Macedonia by the Romans in return for Phillip's assistance, and the country once again began to restore its strength under an assertive government. Rome remained suspicious, especially due to jealous accusations from Macedonia's neighbours and rivals. Phillip, growing with confidence, had no intention of honouring his agreement with the Romans in the long term, having thus set about trying to form alliances through diplomacy and force in the areas formerly governed by the Macedonian kingdom. Some accepted his advances, others didn't. Greeks, as ever, were involved in anti-Macedonian activity.
    [15] That (Syrian) war being ended, many of the Greeks charged Philip with doing or omitting various things, in disregard of the orders given by Flamininus when he settled the affairs of Greece. To answer these charges Demetrius went as an envoy to Rome on his father's behalf.........the Senate, having regard to his late zeal in the matter of Antiochus, said that it would pardon him, but added that it did so on account of Demetrius. Philip......was indignant and angry, but concealed his feelings for a time. Afterwards, in a certain arbitration before the Romans, they transferred much of his territory to King Eumenes (II Soter of Pergamon), seeking all the time to weaken him. Then, at once, he began secretly preparing for war.

    [16] Philip utterly destroyed all forces that sailed against him, lest the Romans should say that the Macedonian power was weakening.
    Demetrius began to advocate a submissive policy towards the Romans because of their support for his accession as the next king after his father. This came much to the anger of his older brother Perseus and the regret of his father Phillip. In 180 BC, Demetrius was executed for treason, and a grieving Philip died a year later in 179 BC at Amphipolis due to ill-health. Perseus was now king of Macedonia. He worked on local dissent in the Balkans against the Roman occupiers, taking a less aggressive approach towards his neighbours, unlike Macedonian kings before him. By the year 172 BC, animosity between the Greeks and Romans flared up due to colonial mistreatment, while Eumenes was instigating troubles betwee the Romans and Macedonians.
    [17] The Romans were suspicious of Perseus on account of his rapidly growing power, and they were especially disturbed by his nearness to the Greeks and their friendship for him, due to hatred of the Romans, which the Roman generals had caused. Afterward the ambassadors, who were sent to the Bastarnae, reported that they had observed that Macedonia was strongly fortified and had abundant war material, and that its young men were well drilled; and these things also disturbed the Romans.

    When Perseus perceived this he sent other ambassadors to allay the suspicion. At this time also Eumenes (II Soter), king of that part of Asia lying about Pergamum, fearing Perseus on account of his own former enmity to Philip, came to Rome and accused him publicly before the Senate, saying that he had always been hostile to the Romans; that he had killed his brother for being friendly to them; that he had aided Philip in collecting material for war against them, which material, when he became king, he did not desist from collecting, but added much more to it; that he was conciliating the Greeks in every possible way and furnishing military aid to the Byzantines, the Aetolians, and the Boeotians; that he had possessed himself of the great stronghold of Thrace and had stirred up dissensions among the Thessalians and the Perrhaebi when they wanted to send an embassy to Rome.

    [19] The Senate, in fact, did not like to have on their flank a sober-minded, laborious, and popular king, an hereditary enemy to themselves, attaining eminence so suddenly. So, making a pretended accusation of the things alleged by Eumenes, they decided to make war against Perseus, but kept the matter a secret among themselves.........

    [20] Other causes besides this were advanced by the Romans for a war against Perseus, although it had not yet been decreed, and ambassadors were sent to the allied kings, Eumenes, Antiochus (III the Great of Syria), Ariarathes (IV Eusebes of Cappadocia), Massinissa (of Numidia), and Ptolemy (VI Philometor) of Egypt, also to Greece Thessaly, Epirus, Acarnania, and to such of the islands as they could perhaps draw to their side. This specially troubled the Greeks, some because fond of Perseus as a Philhellene, and some because compelled to enter into agreement with the Romans.
    Perseus was considered a 'friend of Hellenes' by some Greeks as he had not attacked or subjugated them, essentially due to his animosity and pre-occupation with the Romans. When Macedonian representatives arrived in Rome they had an ambassador speak on behalf of Perseus at the Senate, to address the lies of Eumenes:
    [23] How many Greeks, how many barbarians, have sent ambassadors to you to complain against Eumenes, to all of whom he is an enemy because so base a man……..Eumenes, moved by hatred, envy, and fear, does not scruple to make it a crime on the part of Perseus that he is liked by so many people, that he is a Philhellene, and that he leads the life of a temperate ruler, free from drunkenness and luxury.

    [25] When the ambassadors had thus spoken, the Senate gave them no answer, but made a public declaration of war, and the consul ordered the ambassadors to depart from Rome the same day and from Italy within thirty days. The same orders were proclaimed to all Macedonian residents.....
    When the war began the Macedonians were initially victorious, defeating the Romans somewhere around a place called Callinicus. In 171 BC, the Macedonian king decided to mock the defeated Roman consul Publius Licinius Crassus during an exchange of messages:
    [26] After his victory Perseus, either to make sport of Crassus, and by way of joke, or to test his present state of mind, or fearing the power and resources of the Romans, or for some other reason, sent messengers to him to treat for peace, and promised to make many concessions which his father, Philip, had refused. In this promise he seemed to be rather joking with him and testing him. But Crassus replied that it would not be worthy of the dignity of the Roman people to come to terms with him unless he should surrender Macedonia and himself to them. Being ashamed that the Romans were the first to retreat, Crassus called an assembly, in which he praised the Thessalians for their brave conduct in the catastrophe, and falsely accused the Aetolians and the other Greeks of being the first to fly; and these men he sent to Rome.
    The Romans, however, were not to be outdone. They invaded Macedonia again in 169 BC, this time gaining several victories over Perseus' soldiers and subjugating large swathes of the Macedonian population. Resistance to Roman rule came with pressures that eventually saw a change of character in Perseus:
    [29] ......somebody ran to Perseus, while he was refreshing himself with a bath, and told him (that the Romans were approaching). He sprang out of the water, exclaiming that he had been captured before the battle.

    [30] ........having already gradually plucked up courage after his flight.....by a sudden change, he became cruel and reckless toward everybody.....
    [32] Genthius, king of a tribe of Illyrians bordering on Macedonia, having formed an alliance with Perseus in consideration of 300 talents, of which he had received a part down, made an attack upon Roman Illyria......When Perseus learned this he decided not to pay the rest of the money, thinking that now the Romans would make war on him for this outrage. He also sent legates to the Getae on the other side of the Danube, and he offered money to Eumenes if he would come over to his side, or negotiate for him a peace with Rome, or help neither party in the contest........Perseus, learning that 10,000 foot and as many horse were coming to him as mercenaries from the Getae, began forthwith to despise Eumenes, and said that he would pay nothing for his neutrality......one of the things that he hoped for took place: Eumenes fell under suspicion at Rome.
    Perseus began to make terrible decisions, and the incident with the Getae proved to be by far the worst, as it basically cost the independence of Macedonia.
    [33] When the Getae had crossed the Danube, it was claimed that there was due to Cloelius, their leader, 1,000 gold staters and, also, ten to each horseman and five to each foot-soldier, the whole amounting to a little over 150,000 pieces of gold........he ordered them to go back to Perseus.........

    [34] Cloelius, seeing the messengers returning, asked in a loud voice whether they had brought the gold, and when they wanted to talk about something else he ordered them to speak of the gold first. When he learned that they did not have it, he led his army home without waiting to hear another word from them. Thus Perseus deprived himself of this powerful force of auxiliaries, which had opportunely arrived. He was so foolish, also, that while wintering with a large army at Phila he made no incursion into Thessaly, which furnished supplies to the Romans, but sent a force to Ionia to prevent the bringing of supplies to them from that quarter.
    On the 22nd June 168 BC, the Macedonian and Roman armies met at Pydna in a decisive confrontation in favour of the latter, ending the Third Macedonian War. Perseus and the royal family were taken back to Italy as hostages while Macedonia was completely conquered, enslaved, and then segregation into into four separate republics or cantons subject to Rome. A Fourth Macedonian War arose in 150 BC led by Andriscus, a pretender to the Macedonian throne that claimed to be Perseus' son. Although scoring some early victories, his forces were eventually defeated in 148 BC by the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus at the Battle of Pydna. In 146 BC, Macedonia became absorbed in the Roman Empire as a province. Greeks in the Achaean League, who had also revolted against the Roman occupation were soundly defeated by the army under Lucius Mummius at the Battle of Corinth, which was afterwards razed and destroyed. Carthage suffered a similar fate shortly afterwards. What began with a war between Macedonians and Romans in conjunction with Greeks, ended with the subjugation of both Macedonia and Greece.
    [35] Paullus alluded to this among other things in his address to the people.......Five days I was on the road from Corcyra to Delphi, where I sacrificed to the god. In five days more I arrived in Thessaly and took command of the army. Fifteen days later I overthrew Perseus and conquered Macedonia..........he died not long after.
    The Roman Paullus sacrificing to 'the' god at Delphi, most likely Zeus. The Romans, like the Macedonians, shared commonalities with the Greeks and other worshippers of the ancient religion consisting of 12 gods. The claim to mythical descent by the Macedonians is also cited in a text that emboldened the Romans:
    [2] The Sibylline books induced the Romans to make war against Philip by these lines: "The Macedonians boast their descent from Argive kings. Philip will be the arbiter of weal or woe to you. The elder of that name shall give rulers to cities and peoples, but the younger shall lose every honor, and shall die the subject of a western race."
    Appian, a Greek-speaking Roman, is another example of an author from antiquity that recorded the animosity between Macedonians and Greeks in the post-Alexandrian era. He did not consider the Macedonians as Greeks, and this is made even more clear in the below quotes, which are from his Illyrian Wars.


    [5] in conjunction with the Celts, certain Illyrian tribes, especially the Scordisci, the Maedi, and the Dardani again invaded Macedonia and Greece together……Scipio, made war against the Illyrians, on account of this temple robbery, as the Romans now held sway over the Greeks and the Macedonians.
    Macedonia/Macedonians and Greece/Greeks. Clear distinction. This aside, the glorious ancient kingdom of Macedon was no more, the Greeks being chiefly responsible for the assistance rendered to the Romans, who seized complete control of the region.
    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.
  • TrueMacedonian
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 3810

    #2
    SoM this was a noteworthy topic that I am surprised no one commented on.

    The grks have decided to write their own history on Philip V on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_V_of_Macedon

    in it they write "he was inevitably compared to Alexander the Great and was nicknamed the darling of all Greece (Greek: ἐρώμενος ἐγένετο τῶν Ἑλλήνων).[1][2][3]"

    and these are the links they used for "1,2,3"

    1.^ Polybius, 7.12, on Perseus
    2.^ Polybius, 7.11.8 (Greek text)), on Perseus
    3.^ Shipley, p. 56.

    The first two links are one and the same and the third link has no other title except a last name and page number

    But the point being that this one line is taken out of context completely and ignores when this label was applied.

    According to Peter Green's The Hellenistic Age "Philip, known on his ascension as 'the darling of the Greeks' soon became notorious for savagery in the field as well for political unreliability."

    Here's what Polybius has to say about Philip V after using such a "hyperbolical phrase" where he says "I think it has been said of Philip with very great propriety, that his beneficent policy had made him "The darling of all Greece."



    Philip Begins To Become A Tyrant

    In the course of my history of the Aetolian war, where I had to relate the violent proceedings of Philip in destroying the colonnades and other sacred objects at Thermus; and added that, in consideration of his youth, the blame of these measures ought not to be referred to Philip so much as to his advisers; I then remarked that the life of Aratus sufficiently proved that he would not have committed such an act of wickedness, but that such principles exactly suited Demetrius of Pharos; and I promised to make this clear from what I was next to narrate.

    I thereby designedly postponed the demonstration of the truth of my assertion, till I had come to the period of which I have just been speaking; that, namely, in which with the presence of Demetrius, and in the absence of Aratus, who arrived a day too late, Philip made the first step in his career of crime; and, as though from the first taste of human blood and murder and treason to his allies, was changed not into a wolf from a man, as in the Arcadian fable mentioned by Plato, but from a king into a savage tyrant.

    A "hyperbolical phrase" that Polybius thought was being used for Philip V because of his policies made him on his ascension, as Peter Green notes, "The darling of all Greece". Which by the way does not mean this qualified him as an ethnic "Greek" but of course to our southern neighbors they find this as ample qualification. Well the "Darling of all Greece" would become the savage tyrant who would later on state: http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-...=Polyb.%2018.5

    What is this Greece, pray, from which ye bid me depart? How do you define it? Why, most of the Aetolians themselves are not Greeks; for neither the Agrai, nor the Apodoti, nor the Amphilochi are counted as Greek. Do you then give up those tribes to me?"
    Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

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