Sivaram N.

The Fourth Macedonian War

The Fourth Macedonian War was the total end of Roman tolerance toward Macedonia. Andriscus a pretender to the throne took control of Macedonia. He was able to because Rome wasn’t interfering in that region much. Andriscus raised an army and defeated a small Roman force. He claimed Thessaly and kept making trouble. The Romans sent Quintus Caecilius Metellus to end the instability in that region by making it a permanent part of Rome. He totally destroyed Andriscus’s army and crushed all Macedonian resistance. Macedonia was no longer an independent state. Rome made Macedonia and Epirus its first Eastern Province. For his services Metellus gained the cognomen Macedonicus for annexing Macedonia. While Metellus was busy with Macedonia the Greeks lead their own small revolt the Greeks wanted independence for the city-states, and they were unhappy about the Roman annexation of Sparta into the Achaean League. The pro-independence leader Critolaus of Corinth began seizing territory, and Metellus moved south to deal with him, when Metellus was called to Italy to receive his cognomen Lucius Mummius crushed all the Greek City-State leagues and totally pacified the Hellenistic nations. He became known as Archaicus for his deeds in Greece. When the Romans pacified Greece and annexed Macedon they had totally crushed most of the resistance the Republic would ever face.

Temple to Apollo in Corinth Courtesy of  Maecenas