The Second Macedonian War (200–197 BC) was fought between Macedon, led by Philip V of Macedon, and Rome, allied with Pergamon, Rhodes, Athens, Athamania, Dardania, Illyria and since 199 BC, the Aetolian League. Philip V and the king of the Seleucid Empire Antiochus the Great had previously made a pact against the Ptolemaic kingdom (after the death of Ptolemy IV). After the defeat at Cynoscephalae, Philip was forced to abandon Orestis and all possessions in Thessaly and southern Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor.
During their intervention, although the Romans declared the "freedom of the Greeks" against the rule of the Antigonids, the war marked a significant stage in the decline of Macedon and increasing Roman intervention in the affairs of the eastern Mediterranean. This would soon lead to the Roman-Seleucid War for hegemony over the region in 190 BC, and eventually to the gradual conquest of the entire region by Rome until the end of the Hellenistic period.
Background
In 204 BC, King Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt died, leaving the throne to his six-year-old son Ptolemy V. Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus the Great of the Seleucid Empire decided to exploit the weakness of the young king by taking Ptolemaic territory for themselves and they signed a secret pact defining spheres of interest, opening the Fifth Syrian War. Philip first turned his attention to the independent Greek city states in Thrace and near the Dardanelles. His success at taking cities such as Kios worried the state of Rhodes and King Attalus I of Pergamon who also had interests in the area. Asia Minor, besieging the Ptolemaic city of Samos and capturing Miletus. Again, this disconcerted Rhodes and Attalus and Philip responded by ravaging Attalid territory and destroying the temples outside the walls of Pergamon. Philip then invaded Caria but the Rhodians and Pergamenians successfully blockaded his fleet in Bargylia, forcing him to spend the winter with his army in a country which offered very few provisions.
At this point, although they appeared to have the upper hand, Rhodes and Pergamon still feared Philip so much that they sent an appeal to the rising power of Rome, which had just emerged victorious from the Second Punic War against Carthage. The Romans had previously fought the First Macedonian War against Philip V over Illyria, which had been resolved by the Peace of Phoenice in 205 BC. Very little in Philip's recent actions in Thrace and Asia Minor could be said to concern the Roman Republic directly. The Senate passed a supportive decree and Marcus Valerius Laevinus was sent to investigate.
Earlier in 201 BC, Athens' relations with Philip had suddenly deteriorated. A pair of Acarnanians had entered the Temple of Demeter during the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Athenians had put them to death. In response, the Acarnanian League launched a raid on Attica, aided by Macedonian troops which they had received from Philip V. Shortly after this, King Attalus I arrived in Athens with Rhodian ambassadors and convinced the Athenians, who had maintained strict neutrality since the end of the Chremonidean War, to declare war on Macedon in the aftermath of the Cretan War (205-200 BC). Attalus sailed off, bringing most of the Cycladic islands over to his side and sent embassies to the Aetolian League in the hope of bringing them into the war as well. In response to the Athenian declaration of war, Philip dispatched a force of 2,000 infantry and 200 cavalry under the command of Philokles to invade Attica and place the city of Athens under siege.
Rome's intervention (200 BC)
On 15 March 200 BC, new consuls, Publius Sulpicius Galba and Gaius Aurelius Cotta took office in Rome. In light of reports from Laevinus and further embassies from Pergamon, Rhodes, and Athens, the task of dealing with the troubles in Macedonia was allotted to Sulpicius. He called an assembly of the Comitia centuriata, the body with the legal power to make declarations of war. The Comitia nearly unanimously rejected his proposed war, an unprecedented act which was attributed to war weariness. At a second session, Sulpicius convinced the Comitia to vote for war. Sulpicius recruited troops and departed to Brundisium in the autumn, where he added veterans of the Second Punic War who had just returned from Africa to his forces. Then he crossed the Adriatic, landing his troops in Apollonia and stationing the navy at Corcyra.
Siege of Abydos
While these events had been taking place, Philip V himself had undertaken another campaign in the Dardanelles, taking a number of Ptolemaic cities in rapid succession before besieging the important city of Abydos. Polybius reports that during the siege of Abydos, Philip had grown impatient and sent a message to the besieged that the walls would be stormed and that if anybody wished to commit suicide or surrender they had three days to do so. The citizens promptly killed all the women and children of the city, threw their valuables into the sea and fought to the last man.
During the siege of Abydos, in the autumn of 200 BC, Philip was met by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a Roman ambassador on his way back from Egypt, who urged him not to attack any Greek state or to seize any territory belonging to Ptolemy and to go to arbitration with Rhodes and Pergamon. Philip protested that he was not in violation of any of the terms of the Peace of Phoenice, but in vain. As he returned to Macedonia after the fall of Abydos, he learnt of the landing of Sulpicius' force in Epirus.
Philip's invasion of Attica
The Athenians, who were now besieged by Macedonian forces, sent an appeal to the Roman force in Corcyra. Gaius Claudius Centho was sent with 20 ships and 1,000 men to aid them. Philokles and his troops withdrew from Attica to their base in Corinth. In response to a request from Chalcidean exiles, Claudius led a surprise raid on the city of Chalcis in Euboea, one of the key Antigonid strongholds known as the 'fetters of Greece' and inflicting serious damage and heavy casualties.
Philip rushed to Chalcis with a force of 5,000 men and 300 cavalry. Finding that Claudius had already withdrawn, he sped on towards Athens, where he defeated the Athenian and Attalid troops in a battle outside the Dipylon Gate and encamped at Cynosarges. After setting fire to the sanctuaries and tombs outside the city walls, Philip departed to Corinth. From there, Philip went down to Argos where the Achaean League was holding an assembly, which he attempted to bring onto his side in exchange for supporting them in their ongoing conflict with Nabis of Sparta, but he was rebuffed. Joining up with a force of 2,000 men brought by his general Philokles, Philip made a series of three unsuccessful assaults on Eleusis, Piraeus, and Athens and ravaged the territory of Athens. Then he ravaged the sanctuaries throughout Attica and withdrew to Boeotia. The damage to the rural and deme sanctuaries of Attica was severe and marks the permanent end of their use.
Dardanians, Illyrians and Athamanians join the Roman side
Philip spent the rest of the winter preparing for the Roman assault. He sent his young son Perseus with a force to prevent the Romans and Dardanians from advancing over the Šar Mountains into northern Macedonia. Philip had the settlements on the Sporades islands of Peparethos and Skiathos destroyed to prevent enemies using them as naval bases. The Antigonid Macedonian army was gathered at Demetrias.
During this time Sulpicius had established a firm base by the Seman river in Illyria. A force under Lucius Apustius was sent to raid the western border of Macedonia, capturing or razing a number of cities, including Antipatrea and Codrion.
Following this expedition, Sulpicius received the allegiance of the Illyrians under Pleuratus III, the Dardanians under Bato, and the Athamanes under Amynander. The diplomatic efforts of Philip, Sulpicius, and the Athenians centred on the Aetolian League, which seemed inclined to support the Romans but remained neutral at this stage.
Sulpicius' campaign in Upper Macedonia
In the spring of 199 BC, Sulpicius led his troops east through the territory of the Dassaretii, an Illyrian tribe that occupied the area bordering Upper Macedonia. Philip gathered 20,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, recalling the troops he had stationed in the north with Perseus, and marched west. He encamped on a hill near Athacus which overlooked Sulpicius' camp. After a series of indecisive skirmishes (in one of which Philip was nearly captured), news came that the Dardanians had invaded northern Macedonia, and the Macedonians withdrew secretly in the night. When he realised what had happened, Sulpicius set out in pursuit through Pelagonia, found Philip blocking the pass to Eordaea and forced it. Sulpicius ravaged Eordaea, then Elimeia to the south, and then followed the Haliacmon river valley up to Orestis, where he conquered Celetrum and Pelion and then returned to his base. Philip split his force, sending a contingent of his army north to deal with the Dardanian invasion, which it did, while he himself headed south.
First combined Roman-Pergamene-Rhodian naval campaign
At the same time as this land campaign set out, the Roman fleet had left Corcyra under command of Lucius Apustius, rounded Cape Malea, and rendezvoused with King Attalus near Hermione. The combined fleet then launched an assault on the Macedonian military base on the island of Andros and seized it for Pergamon. The fleet was joined by further ships from Issa and Rhodes and headed north to the Chalkidike peninsula where an assault on Cassandreia was a complete failure. They withdrew to northern Euboea, where they besieged and captured Oreus, another key Macedonian naval base. Since it was now autumn and the sailing season was drawing to a close, the contingents of the fleet dispersed back to their home ports.
Aetolian League joins the Roman side
As these campaigns progressed, Damocritus, the strategos of the Aetolian League, had decided that it was time to join the war on the Roman side. Together with King Amynander, he led an invasion of Magnesia and Perrhaebia, then continued to ravage Thessaly. There, Philip suddenly appeared and completely defeated their force. He spent some time besieging the Aetolian city of Thaumaci, but gave up and withdrew as winter approached. He spent the winter training his army and engaging in diplomacy, particularly with the Achaean League.
Villius' campaign against Macedon and Seleucid campaign against Pergamon
In Rome, the new consuls took office on 15 March 199 BC, Publius Villius Tappulus was allotted Macedonia as his province. He crossed the Adriatic to Corcyra, where he replaced Sulpicius in command of the army. On his arrival, Villius faced a mutiny by 2,000 troops, veterans of the Second Punic War who wished to be demobilised. He resolved this, by forwarding their concerns to the Senate, but was left with little time to prosecute a campaign. Philip marched west and encamped on both sides of the Aoös river where it passed through a narrow ravine. Villius marched to meet him but was still considering what to do when he learnt that his successor, Titus Quinctius Flamininus had been elected and was on his way to Corcyra to assume command.
In Asia Minor, Pergamon was invaded by the Seleucid king Antiochus III. As a result, Attalus was not able to assist in the naval war in the Aegean until a Roman embassy forced Antiochus to withdraw.
Flamininus takes command (198 BC)
When the new consuls took office on 15 March 198, the Senate ordered the recruitment of 8,000 new infantry and 800 cavalry for the war. Command in Macedonia was allotted to Flamininus. He was not yet thirty and was a self-proclaimed Philhellene.
Flamininus was delayed by religious matters for some time, but then he recruited the new forces, crossed the Adriatic, and dismissed Villius. The army encamped in the Aous Valley, across the river from Philip's for forty days. At a peace conference, Flamininus announced the Romans' new peace terms. Up to this point, the Romans had merely ordered Philip to stop attacking the Greek cities. Now Flamininus demanded that he should make reparations to all the Greek cities he had harmed and withdraw all his garrisons from cities outside Macedonia, including Thessaly, which had been part of the Macedonian kingdom continuously since 353 BC. Philip stormed out of the meeting in anger and Flamininus decided to attack.
Battle of Aous
In the subsequent Battle of the Aous, Flamininus was victorious despite the advantage the terrain gave to the Macedonian army, when he was shown a pass through the mountains which allowed him to send a force to attack the Macedonians from the rear. The Macedonian force withdrew, suffering 2,000 casualties. Philip was able to gather up the remainder of his army and retreat to Thessaly. There he destroyed the city of Tricca to prevent it falling into Roman hands and withdrew to Tempe.