Macedonian Wars: First Roman Intervention in the Hellenic Affairs

[Music] 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 this 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 millennium overshadowing Alexander the Great's balance you will learn about that in our new series on the Macedonian wars lip surf is a new free browser extension that lets you control the web with your voice you can watch kings and Generals while you eat playing pausing or even liking subscribing and commenting on the video without getting your keyboard covered in chicken wing grease watch how I do this without my hands hey lip surf YouTube click search dictate kings and Generals submit scroll down click Thomas Cochran pause little down click subscribe don't be shy in requesting new features join us on the forum where you can be part of this new casual voice control community lip surf has raving reviews in the Chrome Web Store and almost perfect five-star rating it only takes 30 seconds to download and get started for free so go do it by the link in the description the year is 231 BC and the Mediterranean world is a land of continuous warfare and political upheaval just 10 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 told me he chipped and the Seleucid Empire vie for dominance over their border territories sandwiched between these great apologies are a number of smaller states such as Pergamon and the nominally independent at 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 civilized by contact with its Hellenic neighbors though contact with the Greek world had led to a degree of urbanization 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 230 s bc this was the RDA 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 Pharaohs 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 emirate territory far south of the traditional border climaxing with the seizure of foe in EK 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 tutor who will did 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 Emperor's 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 [Music] uncharacteristically peacefully for the notoriously combative Romans the initial senatorial reaction in 230 BC was not to send in the legions but instead to send a diplomatic embassy of the Curan Canas brothers to investigate the situation in the typically harsh style of Roman diplomacy the Koren Canas brothers protested to Tudor 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 Cheeta refused this demand either because of her inability to control the actions of her decentralized 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 to to 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 idea a tribes power over the region was a deeper geopolitical cause Rome did not want any powerful rival in the Adriatic [Music] late in the campaigning season of 229 BC a massive room enforce 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 suitors appointed governor of the recently conquered island of corcyra demetrius of Pharos went over to the Roman side almost immediately while the Queen Regent forces were defeated in the field by spring of 228 Tudor 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 [Music] the Romans withdrew their troops and left behind only their Alocasia or friendship a benign sounding term which would soon apparently become anything but that in essence being a friend of Rome included the Inca facto conditions of becoming an informal client state a primary beneficiary of the piece of 228 was the defector Demetrius of Pharos who was granted a small independent principality of his own sandwiched between the remnant of the idea yen 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 marries tutor the ardian Kings biological mother by becoming the young boys formal Regent in this act demetrius of Pharos effectively recreated the powerful illyrian kingdom abolished by rome in the 1st 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 believes 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 - 26 - 222 BC and it could prove to be a fatal illusion for demetrius further trying his luck Demetrius set out with 90 light galleys in the summer of 2 20 BC on a grand Irish the 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 shooter 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 Demetrios his strategy was to hold the fortresses of dim alum and Pharaohs itself but the Romans took the former in only seven days while a rash sortie by Demetrius lost him Pharaoh's 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 the 5th of Macedon was anchored when he arrived the King welcomed 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 kinetise 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 honor the graves of the Argueta house reorganized the provincial system to increase its efficiency and was vigilant in keeping macedonian coinage a high-quality currency making good use of macedon depleted resources and funds Antigonus focused on access and mobility extensively utilizing the Antigone fleet and the great naval fortresses of demetrius Kelsie's and corinth to ferry troops to strategic locations an athenian Laird's Ptolemaic supported attempt at shaking off macedonian domination failed in the Cremona D in war from 267 to 261 though Antigonus managed to quell this revolt crucial fortresses such as acro Corinth were lost during his reign which finally ended in 239 bc with his death his successor demetrius ii ruled for a relatively uneventful decade during which Macedon situation weakened even further and he died in 229 the late Kings own son Philip v was only a child that's 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 Antigone's relation was chosen for the task Antigonus Ghassan as one of the lesser known but more highly competent Macedonian Kings during the 3rd century BC Antechinus das on 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 enemies he first marched north and expelled the illyrians from the kingdom and then struck south and crushed the Italian league after securing his borders Antigonus proceeded to renounce all Macedonian claims south of the Thermopylae Pass wisely hoping to consolidate and stabilized 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 the fifths 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 the third dose on 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 the fair and the Macedonian hegemony were once again challenged by the Italian league and its allies during the social war of 222 217 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 into 18 and the Carthaginian general Hannibal had successfully crossed the Alps to invade Italy there he had already defeated one Roman field army at the tre be a river and in the June of 217 he crushed another at Lake Trasimene in at roar iya 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 age 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 now practice 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 two sixteen the King made his first attempt at securing Illyria's coastal region but fled home upon hearing news about approaching Roman fleet the decisive Roman defeat at kanae was another crucial moment as it's 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 envoys and often ease 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 unfortunates Anopheles 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 Philips land army marched north into Illyria through Epirus while 120 Macedonian galleys sailed up the Straits of a Trento in this campaign Philip swiftly seized Oracle and besieged Apollonia who called to Rome for help with a strengthened Adriatic fleet the Roman commander Levinas now crossed the sea with 55 heavy Roman warships lifted the siege of Apollonia and drove the Macedonians away from Oracle to crucial ports which could have been used as a staging point for an attack on Italy after these victories ravenous wintered his fleet in Oracle 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 Deseret asst affinis and adding tiny tribal settlements fell to him without a significant Roman response the republic did not have the land troops to spare for a site venture into the eastern adriatic as they were still fighting against Hannibal this situation changed during the later part of 2:12 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 Lysias another possible staging point it became clear to the Romans that this eastern threat could no longer be ignored neutralizing 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 neutralizing for them a treaty was made between the traditionally anti Macedonian Italian League and Rome the former being convinced of the alliance because of Roman victory within the Punic War during the summer of two eleven at Capua and Tarentum terms were generous for the Italians 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 Italian allies such as Sparta Ellis messenia illyrians and even Pergamum the war itself was a disruptive indecisive slogging match with the Romans taking several important centres such as antequera but philips v making games against the rest of the coalition attempts at peace talks by non-combatants States failed in 207 due to Rome's deliberate derailing actions which during 206 and 205 they were gradually forced into peace though the final treaty ending the war at foa nikkei 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 new videos in our series on the Macedonian Wars are on the way so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have pressed the Bell button we would like to express our gratitude to our patreon supporters and channel members who make the creation of our videos possible now you can also support us by buying our merchandise by the link in the description this is the kings and Generals channel and we will catch you on the next one

Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 949,376

Keywords: rome, Pyrrhus, Pyrrhic, Rome, Roman, diadochi, kings and generals, alexander, epirus, macedon, greece, ancient rome, ancient greece, roman republic, ancient history, full documentary, decisive battles, documentary film, animated documentary, historia civilis, military history, roman empire, world history, animated historical documentary, macedonian wars, roman army, ancient battles, roman battles, julius caesar, history lesson, history documentary, roman legion vs macedonian phalanx

Id: 59HLvgN8d4Q

Length: 19min 41sec (1181 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019