76Chapter 4presence and, in the dark days after the battle of Can-
nae, declared war against Rome in alliance with
Carthage. His action had little effect on the outcome of
the war, but it was remembered. Many prominent Ro-
mans had grown enamored of Greek culture. Rome was
still in many ways a crude place. It had yet to develop a
literature of its own, and wealthy families relied upon
Greek tutors to educate their sons. Some of these boys,
including Scipio Africanus and most of his extended
family, grew up to become ardent Grecophiles. Even
hard-bitten traditionalists such as Cato spoke Greek
and were familiar with Greek literature. The appeals of
Rhodes and other Greek communities for protection
against Philip therefore fell upon sympathetic ears.
In the war that followed, seapower gave Rome a
decisive advantage, while the Roman maniples outma-
neuvered the Macedonian phalanx at the battle of
Cynoscephalae (197 B.C.). Philip was forced to retreat
within his borders. He became a staunch ally of Rome
and for the remainder of his reign concentrated on re-
building the shattered Macedonian economy. The
Greek leagues were left intact.
The Romans then turned their attention to Anti-
ochus III. The Seleucid monarch had by this time
achieved his goals in Palestine and Asia Minor. Egged
on by Hannibal, who had taken refuge at his court, and
by the Aetolian League, which had turned against
Rome as soon as it was delivered from Philip, he took
advantage of Macedonian weakness to cross the Helles-
pont and annex Thrace. This time, the Senate was less
eager for war. Efforts to remove Antiochus from Europe
by negotiation failed. He was routed in 191 B.C. at the
historic site of Thermopylae by a Roman force under
Cato. In the winter of 190–189 B.C. a second Roman
army marched into Asia to defeat him again near
Sardis. Antiochus abandoned all thought of Europe and
surrendered most of his lands in Asia Minor to Rome’s
ally, Pergamon. The Romans kept nothing, but in 133
B.C. the childless Attalus III of Pergamum bequeathed
the entire kingdom to Rome in his will.
The defeat of the two Hellenistic kingdoms proved
that Rome was the dominant power in the Mediter-
ranean world. Greece, meanwhile, remained unstable.
Rome was forced to intervene repeatedly in Greek af-
fairs, and with each new intervention, the Senate’s im-
patience grew. Two main factions emerged. The
Grecophile Scipios and their allies still hoped to
achieve a settlement based on friendship with the
Greek leagues. Their views have been preserved by
Polybius (c. 200–c. 118 B.C.), an Achaean Greek who
wrote the history of Rome’s wars in Greece and with
Carthage and who was an important example of Greek
influence on Roman thinking. The opposing faction
was headed by Cato (see illustration 4.7), who was im-
mune to any form of sentimentality and wanted an end
to adventures in the east. He thought that contact with
Greeks was corroding the traditional Roman values that
he had extolled in his writings and, though he had no
desire to annex Greek territory, was prepared to end
their mischief-making by any means possible.
Cato’s views gradually prevailed. Philip V’s son,
Perseus, allowed Pergamum to maneuver him into an-
other disastrous war with Rome. The Romans defeated
him at Pydna in 168 B.C. and divided Macedon intoIllustration 4.7
Marcus Porcius Cato.This bust, like that of Scipio
Africanus, was carved after its subject’s death. It captures the
power of the great orator’s personality and agrees with literary
descriptions of his appearance. As a defender of traditional Ro-
man values, Cato was the mortal enemy of the hellenizing Scip-
ios and ultimately triumphed over them in the Senate. He failed,
however, in his efforts to restrict the spread of Greek ideas.