HISTORY
FOREIGN RULE
67 BC
The Romans fi nally
conquer Crete after
invading two years
earlier at Kydonia.
Gortyna becomes
the capital and most
powerful city. The ‘Pax
Romana’ ends internal
wars.27 BC
Crete is united with
eastern Libya to
form the Roman
province of Creta et
Cyrenaica, reorgan-
ising population
centrres and
ushering in a new
era of prosperity.AD 63
Christianity emerges
after St Paul visits
Crete and leaves his
disciple, Titus, to
convert the island.
St Titus becomes
Crete’s fi rst bishop.such reach in such a short space of time. However, despite this powerful,
expanded dynasty, his generals swooped like vultures on the empire and,
when the dust settled, Alexander’s empire was carved up into fractious,
independent kingdoms.
Macedonia lost control of the Greek city-states to the south, which
banded together into the Aetolian League, centred on Delphi, and the Ach-
aean League, based in the Peloponnese. Athens and Sparta joined neither.Foreign Rule
Roman Era
WhileAlexander the Great was forging his vast empire in the east, the
Romans had been expanding theirs to the west, and now they were keen
to start making inroads into Greece. After several inconclusive clashes,
they defeated Macedon in 168 BC at the Battle of Pydna.
The Achaean League was defeated in 146 BC and the Roman consul
Mummius made an example of the rebellious Corinthians by destroy-
ing their city. In 86 BC Athens joined an ill-fated rebellion against the
Romans in Asia Minor staged by the king of the Black Sea region, Mith-
ridates VI. In retribution, the Roman statesman Sulla invaded Athens
and took off with its most valuable sculptures. Greece now became the
Graeco-Roman province of Achaea. Although offi cially under the aus-
pices of Rome, some major Greek cities were given the freedom to self-
govern to some extent. As the Romans revered Greek culture, Athens
retained its status as a centre of learning. During a succession of Roman
emperors, namely Augustus, Nero and Hadrian, Greece experienced a
period of relative peace, the Pax Romana, which was to last until the
middle of the 3rd century AD.The Byzantine Empire & the Crusades
ThePax Romana began to crumble in AD 2 5 0 when the Goths invaded
Greece, the fi rst of a succession of invaders spurred on by the ‘great migra-
tions’ of the Visigoths and then the Ostrogoths from the middle Balkans.
In an eff ort to resolve the confl ict in the region, in AD 324 the Roman
Emperor Constantine I, a Christian convert, transferred the capital of
the empire from Rome to Byzantium, a city on the western shore of the
Bosphorus, which was renamed Constantinople (present-day İstanbul).
While Rome went into terminal decline, the eastern capital began to
grow in wealth and strength as a Christian state. In the ensuing centu-
ries, Byzantine Greece faced continued pressure from the Persians and
Arabs, but it managed to retain its stronghold over the region.
It is ironic that the demise of the Byzantine Empire was accelerated
by fellow Christians from the west – the Frankish Crusaders. The statedBest
Historical
Site
The epic Battle of
Thermopylae, near
today’s Lamia,
saw the Spartans
redefine ‘valour’
as they held out
outnumbered
against king Xerxes’
Persian force.JOHN ELK III / LONELY PLANET IMAGES ©» Tower of the Winds, At h e n s