The Molossians were an ancient Greek tribe and kingdom that inhabited the region of Epirus since the Mycenaean era. On their north frontier, they had the Chaonians and on their southern frontier the kingdom of the Thesprotians. The Molossians were part of the League of Epirus until they sided against Rome in the Third Macedonian War. The result was disastrous, and the vengeful Romans enslaved 150,000 of its inhabitants and annexed the region into the Roman Republic.
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, now shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë and the Acroceraunian mountains in the north to the Ambracian Gulf and the ruined Roman city of Nicopolis in the south. It is currently divided between the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece and the counties of Gjirokastër, Vlorë, and Berat in southern Albania. The largest city in Epirus is Ioannina, seat of the region of Epirus, with Gjirokastër the largest city in the Albanian part of Epirus.
The Third Macedonian War was a war fought between the Roman Republic and King Perseus of Macedon. In 179 BC King Philip V of Macedon died and was succeeded by his ambitious son Perseus. He was anti-Roman and stirred anti-Roman feelings around Macedonia. Tensions escalated and Rome declared war on Macedon.
Antinous' family and that of another chief, Cephalus, were connected with the royal house of Macedonia by friendship, and although he was convinced that the war against Rome would be ruinous to Macedonia and therefore had no intention of joining Perseus, yet Charops, a young man from Epirus, who had been educated at Rome and wished to insinuate himself into the favor of the Romans, spread rumors that Antinous and Cephalus entertained a secret hostility towards Rome. Antinous and his friends at first treated the machinations of Charops with contempt, but when they saw that some of their friends were being arrested and conveyed to Rome, Antinous and Cephalus were compelled, for the sake of their own safety, openly, though unwillingly, to join the Macedonian side of the war, and the Molossians followed their example.
Cephalus is a name, used both for the hero-figure in Greek mythology and carried as a theophoric name by historical persons.
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.
After the outbreak of the war, Antinous died in 168 BCE. Polybius does not state clearly whether Antinous fell in battle, or whether he put an end to his own life in despair.[1]
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Dr Leonhard Schmitz FRSE LLD was a Prussian-born classical scholar and educational author, mainly active in the United Kingdom. He is sometimes referred to in the Anglicised version of his name Leonard Schmitz.
Sir William Smith was an English lexicographer. He also made advances in the teaching of Greek and Latin in schools.
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The Battle of Pydna took place in 168 BC between Rome and Macedon during the Third Macedonian War. The battle saw the further ascendancy of Rome in the Hellenistic world and the end of the Antigonid line of kings, whose power traced back to Alexander the Great. The battle is also considered to be a victory of the Roman legion's flexibility over the Macedonian phalanx's rigidity.
Philip V was king (Basileus) of the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia from 221 to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of the Roman Republic. He would lead Macedon against Rome in the First and Second Macedonian Wars, losing both but allying with Rome in the Roman-Seleucid War towards the end of his reign.
Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, in Sicily. He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies. He was regarded by the ancients as an example of the worst kind of despot—cruel, suspicious and vindictive.
Pyrrhus was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic period. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house, and later he became king of Epirus. He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. His battles, though victories, caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the term Pyrrhic victory was coined. He is the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus was a two-time consul of the Roman Republic and a noted general who conquered Macedon, putting an end to the Antigonid dynasty in the Third Macedonian War.
The Fourth Macedonian War was fought between the Roman Republic and a Greek uprising led by the Macedonian pretender to the throne Andriscus. Pretending to be the son of former king Perseus, who had been deposed by the Romans after the Third Macedonian War in 168 BC, Andriscus sought to re-establish the old Macedonian Kingdom. In the process he destabilised Macedonia and much of the Greek world. Andriscus, after some early successes, was eventually defeated by the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus at the Second Battle of Pydna in 148 BC, and the uprising subsequently collapsed. Two years later Macedonia became a Roman province.
The Macedonian Wars were a series of conflicts fought by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies in the eastern Mediterranean against several different major Greek kingdoms. They resulted in Roman control or influence over the eastern Mediterranean basin, in addition to their hegemony in the western Mediterranean after the Punic Wars. Traditionally, the "Macedonian Wars" include the four wars with Macedonia, in addition to one war with the Seleucid Empire, and a final minor war with the Achaean League. The most significant war was fought with the Seleucid Empire, while the war with Macedonia was the second, and both of these wars effectively marked the end of these empires as major world powers, even though neither of them led immediately to overt Roman domination. Four separate wars were fought against the weaker power, Macedonia, due to its geographic proximity to Rome, though the last two of these wars were against haphazard insurrections rather than powerful armies. Roman influence gradually dissolved Macedonian independence and digested it into what was becoming a leading global empire. The outcome of the war with the now-deteriorating Seleucid Empire was ultimately fatal to it as well, though the growing influence of Parthia and Pontus prevented any additional conflicts between it and Rome.
The Illyrian Wars were a set of wars fought in the period 229–168 BC between the Roman Republic and the Ardiaei kingdom. In the First Illyrian War, which lasted from 229 BC to 228 BC, Rome's concern was that the trade across the Adriatic Sea increased after the First Punic War at a time when Ardiaei power increased under queen Teuta. Attacks on trading vessels of Rome's Italic allies by Illyrian pirates and the death of a Roman envoy named Coruncanius on Teuta's orders, prompted the Roman senate to dispatch a Roman army under the command of the consuls Lucius Postumius Albinus and Gnaeus Fulvius Centumalus. Rome expelled Illyrian garrisons from a number of Greek cities including Epidamnus, Apollonia, Corcyra, Pharos and established a protectorate over these Greek towns. The Romans also set up Demetrius of Pharos as a power in Illyria to counterbalance the power of Teuta.
The Thesprotians were an ancient Greek tribe and kingdom of Thesprotis, Epirus, akin to the Molossians. The poet Homer frequently mentions Thesprotia which had friendly relations with Ithaca and Doulichi. On their northeast frontier they had the Chaonians and to the north the kingdom of the Molossians. The Thesprotians originally controlled the Dodona oracle, the oldest in Greece. Later, they were part of the Epirus until they were annexed into the Roman Empire.
The Chaonians were an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the region of Epirus located in the north-west of modern Greece and southern Albania. On their southern frontier lay another Epirote kingdom, that of the Molossians, to their southwest stood the kingdom of the Thesprotians, and to their north lived the Illyrian tribes. According to Virgil, Chaon was the eponymous ancestor of the Chaonians. By the 5th century BC, they had conquered and combined to a large degree with the neighboring Thesprotians and Molossians. The Chaonians were part of the Epirote League until 170 BC when their territory was annexed by the Roman Republic.
A synedrion or synhedrion is an assembly that holds formal sessions. The Latinized form is synedrium.
Orestis was a region of Upper Macedonia, corresponding roughly to the modern Kastoria regional unit located in West Macedonia, Greece. Its inhabitants were the Orestae, an ancient Greek tribe that was part of the Molossian tribal state, or koinon.
The Epirote League was an ancient Greek coalition, or koinon, of Epirote tribes.
Charops or Charopus is the name of two statesmen in 2nd century BC of the Epirote League, grandfather and grandson; both of them had the patronymic Machatas.
Epirus was an ancient Greek state, located in the geographical region of Epirus in the western Balkans. The homeland of the ancient Epirotes was bordered by the Aetolian League to the south, Thessaly and Macedonia to the east, and Illyrian tribes to the north. For a brief period, the Epirote king Pyrrhus managed to make Epirus the most powerful state in the Greek world, and his armies marched against Rome during an unsuccessful campaign in Italy.
The Antigonid Macedonian army was the army that evolved from the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia in the period when it was ruled by the Antigonid dynasty from 276 BC to 168 BC. It was seen as one of the principal Hellenistic fighting forces until its ultimate defeat at Roman hands at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC. However, there was a brief resurgence in 150-148 during the revolt of Andriscus, a supposed heir to Perseus.
The Achaean War was an uprising by the Greek Achaean League, an alliance of Achaean and other Peloponnesian states in ancient Greece, against the Roman Republic around 146 BC, just after the Fourth Macedonian War. Rome defeated the League swiftly, and as a lesson, they destroyed the ancient city of Corinth. The war ended with Greece's independence taken away, and Greece became the Roman provinces of Achaea and Epirus.
