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Macedonia — Lost Glory

	Author: Paradox Interactive Article Type: Developer Feature Publication Date: 2/16/2008 Publisher: Paradox Interactive Related Categories: Roman Empire, Real-time, Strategic, Online or Multi-Player

Macedonia — Lost Glory

In 323 BC, in Babylon, Alexander the Great died. The Macedon King was the greatest conquer the world had ever seen, and a military genius without peer. He turned Macedonia from the most powerful state in Greece into an Empire that stretched to the Indus Valley. However his empire would not last long after his death. With no obvious successor his generals, who history remembers as the Diadochi, would carve up the empire.

The general Cassander would take control of the old Macedonian heartland, however his sons were not of the same mould and his death would herald further warfare. An invasion of Gallic warriors would end the rule of king Ptolemy Keraunos and after a few more short-lived kings the field was whittled down to 2 contenders. On one side you had Antigonus Gonatas, grandson of the Diadochi Antigonus and nephew of Cassander. The other side saw, what many at the time thought, as the military heir of Alexander Phyrrus of Eprius.

Phyrrus was highly successful general but had the weakness of being rash. He would fight along side the Greek cities of Scilly and Southern Italy against the young Roman republic and Carthage. His army included war elephants, which the Roman soldiers had never seen before, and with these he would fight three battles against the Roman republic and be victorious every time but would still lose the war. The victories cost Phyrrus men he could not afford and remarked after the battle of Asculum “one more such victory will utterly undo me” and gave us the term a Phyrric Victory. Having returned from Italy victorious but defeated Phyrrus would enter the struggle for the Macedon throne. His veteran armies, lead by one of the greatest generals, quickly defeated Antigonus and put himself on the Macedon throne. However, Phyrrus would overreach himself again and be sucked into the wars of the Greek states to the south. He would die in 272 BC in an assault on the Greek city of Argos. With his passing the Antigond dynasty would establish itself on the Macedonian throne.

For the next 50 years the Macedonia was involved primarily in Greek affairs as the various small states in the peninsular fought for supremacy. With accession of Phillip V (221 BC) Macedonia had a highly capable and ambitious King. Phillip did have a problem in the shape of Rome. Roman influence had been steadily growing in both Greece and along the Adriatic shore (mainly to protect Roman trading interests). Taking advantage of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy during the second Punic war, Phillip declared war on Rome. With the Roman legions engaged in a desperate defence of Italy it looked like perfect timing. The first Macedonian war saw Phillip fighting Rome’s allies in Greece and after 12 years of fairly inconclusive fighting Phillip was able to force peace but without any gains and more importantly Roman influence was only strengthened.

Realising that Macedonia was not powerful enough to take on Rome and her Greek allies Phillip turned to expanding his realm. Egypt was ruled by a boy king, and was looking weak. So in alliance with the Seleucid Empire, Phillip proceeding to seize nearby Egyptian possessions, these included islands in the Aegean and various cities in Anatolia. This expansion worried other Greek states and in 201 BC war erupted again. A year later Rome joined the war starting the second Macedonian War.

Rome certainly had not forgotten about Phillip attacking them during the dark days of the 2nd Punic war and was looking for any opportunity for revenge, with Carthage defeated Rome could look to settle other scores. The Roman Legions marched into war the name of protecting Greek Liberty, but everyone knew the real reason. It took the Romans just 3 years to overrun Macedonia and Phillip was forced to give up all of the new territory he gained and become a client king of Rome.

The settlement of Greek affairs was a problem for Rome; it wanted both to be not involved in the day-to-day business of Greek affairs and at the same time wished for the region to be stable for Italian merchants. A system of alliances and client kings was set up in the hope that this would keep the peace. The problem was that these client kings did not like each other and wanted to expand at each other’s expense. The system was thus unstable and required constant roman diplomatic intervention. Phillip felt he lost out regularly in these interventions and became fearful for his throne.

At Phillip’s death his son Perseus became king, he did renew the treaty with Rome and then proceeding to try and reduce Roman influence in the region, marriages were made, pro roman rulers ended up being deposed and he even convinced his father to have Rome’s preferred candidate for the Macedonian throne (his brother Demetrius) murdered. He was king for only 8 years when the 3rd Macedonian war broke out. This time the Roman legions would perform surprisingly poorly and the Perseus would enjoy some early success, however, after only 4 years of warfare Macedonian would be defeated and the Antigond dynasty overthrown. Macedonia itself was divided into 4 client republics and the first of the heirs of Alexander would fall to Rome.

The settlement itself did not prove durable and in less than 20 years the roman legions would return to Macedonia for good. A popular uprising lead by a man claiming to be the son of Perseus proved too much to ignore for Rome, the 4th and final Macedonian war began. two years later Macedonia was formally annexed to Rome, and after further two years of fighting against various Greek states, Corinth was sacked and Greece too was annexed to Rome. Roman territory now spread into the eastern Mediterranean.

Considering the shortness of the wars waged (except the 1st one when the Romans were busy else were) the Macedonian state and its Phalanx looked simply outclassed against the Roman Legions. Although the victories of Phyrrus showed that a good commander could defeat the legions with the Hellenistic Phalanx, the Greek states seems to be short of good commanders. In truth though Macedonia did not have the resources to take the Roman republic and her Greek allies. To have had any chance the Macedonian Kings would have had to have expended a lot of blood and treasure uniting the Greek states much earlier. By the time the danger became clear it was already too late.