Year 146 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lentulus and Achaicus. The denomination 146 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Philip V was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon from 221 to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by the Social War in Greece and a struggle with the emerging power of the Roman Republic. He would lead Macedon against Rome in the First and Second Macedonian Wars. While he lost the latter, Philip later allied with Rome against Antiochus III in the Roman-Seleucid War. He died in 179 BC from illness after efforts to recover the military and economic condition of Macedonia and passed the throne onto his elder son, Perseus of Macedon.
Aetolia is a mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, forming the eastern part of the modern regional unit of Aetolia-Acarnania.
Lucius Mummius was a Roman statesman and general. He was consul in the year 146 BC along with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus.
The Second Macedonian War was fought between Macedon, led by Philip V of Macedon, and Rome, allied with Pergamon and Rhodes. Philip was defeated and was forced to abandon all possessions in southern Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor. During their intervention, although the Romans declared the "freedom of the Greeks" against the rule from the Macedonian kingdom, the war marked a significant stage in increasing Roman intervention in the affairs of the eastern Mediterranean, which would eventually lead to Rome's conquest of the entire region.
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. In 172 BC, a Roman commission visited Perseus and required of him concessions which meant the extinction of his independence. Upon his refusal to comply with the demands they returned home and Rome declared war.
Achaia, sometimes spelled Achaea, was a province of the Roman Empire, consisting of the Peloponnese, Attica, Boeotia, Euboea, the Cyclades and parts of Phthiotis, Aetolia and Phocis. In the north, it bordered on the provinces of Epirus vetus and Macedonia. The region was annexed by the Roman Republic in 146 BC following the sack of Corinth by the Roman general Lucius Mummius, who was awarded the surname "Achaicus". Initially part of the Roman province of Macedonia, it was made into a separate province by Augustus.
Nabis was the last king of independent Sparta. He was probably a member of the Heracleidae, and he ruled from 207 BC to 192 BC, during the years of the First and Second Macedonian Wars and the eponymous "War against Nabis", i.e. against him. After taking the throne by executing two claimants, he began rebuilding Sparta's power. During the Second Macedonian War, Nabis sided with King Philip V of Macedon and in return he received the city of Argos. However, when the war began to turn against the Macedonians, he defected to Rome. After the war, the Romans, urged by the Achaean League, attacked Nabis and defeated him. He then was assassinated in 192 BC by the Aetolian League. He represented the last phase of Sparta's reformist period.
Hellenistic Greece is the historical period of Ancient Greece following Classical Greece and between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek Achaean League heartlands by the Roman Republic. This culminated at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC, a crushing Roman victory in the Peloponnese that led to the destruction of Corinth and ushered in the period of Roman Greece. Hellenistic Greece's definitive end was with the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, when the future emperor Augustus defeated Greek Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, the next year taking over Alexandria, the last great center of Hellenistic Greece.
The Illyro-Roman Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Illyrian kingdom under the Ardiaei and Labeatae. 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 Pyrrhic War was largely fought between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been asked by the people of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy to help them in their war against the Romans.
Philopoemen was a skilled Greek general and statesman, who was Achaean strategos on eight occasions.
The Battle of Sellasia took place during the summer of 222 BC between Macedon and the Achaean League, led by Antigonus III Doson, and Sparta under the command of King Cleomenes III. The battle was fought at Sellasia on the northern frontier of Laconia and ended in a Macedonian-Achaean victory.
The Battle of Pydna was fought in 148 BC between Rome and the forces of the Macedonian leader Andriscus. The Roman force was led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus, and was victorious. The battle played an important role in deciding the outcome of the Fourth Macedonian War, and saw the annihilation of the last military-political force of Macedon.
Attalus I, surnamed Soter, was the ruler of the Greek polis of Pergamon and the larger Pergamene Kingdom from 241 BC to 197 BC. He was the adopted son of King Eumenes I, whom he succeeded, and was the first of the Attalid dynasty to assume the title of king, sometime around 240 to 235 BC. He was the son of Attalus and his wife Antiochis.
The Laconian War of 195 BC was fought between the Greek city-state of Sparta and a coalition composed of Rome, the Achaean League, Pergamum, Rhodes, and Macedon.
The Cleomenean War was fought between Sparta and the Achaean League for the control of the Peloponnese. Under the leadership of king Cleomenes III, Sparta initially had the upper hand, which forced the Achaean League to call for help the Macedonian king Antigonos Doson, who decisively defeated Cleomenes in the battle of Sellasia in 222.
The Achaean War of 146 BC was fought between the Roman Republic and the Greek Achaean League, an alliance of Achaean and other Peloponnesian states in ancient Greece. It was the final stage of Rome's conquest of mainland Greece, taking place just after the Fourth Macedonian War.
The 'Battle of Scarpheia took place in 146 BC between forces of the Roman Republic, led by the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, and an Achaean League force led by Critolaos of Megalopolis. The battle was a resounding Roman victory, surprising and destroying the main Achaean force at the outbreak of war and allowing the Romans to bring the conflict to a swift end not long after.
The gens Mummia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned after the Second Punic War, and within a generation, Lucius Mummius Achaicus became the first of the family to obtain the consulship. Although they were never numerous, Mummii continued to fill the highest offices of the state through the third century AD.
