| The Conquest of Greece
As the constant military conflicts of
the Hellenistic kingdoms raised revenue needs, the tax burden on both
rural and urban populations rose. Meanwhile, the Persians, Parthians,
and Bactrians threatened from the east; and Roman expansionism in
southern Italy and the western Mediterranean set the stage for
repeated clashes between Rome and various Hellenistic rulers. The
vibrancy, resilience, and resourcefulness of the Roman Republic
finally proved to be too much for the fragile kingdoms of the East.
In the fourth and third centuries B.C.,
military conquests in central Italy brought Rome into direct
competition with the city colonies of Magna Graecia in southern Italy,
especially Tarentum (Taranto) and Syracuse. In 280 B.C., Pyrrhus, king
of Epirus, began a long period of confrontation between the Greeks and
the Romans when he fought a series of battles against the Romans in
southern Italy. In this period, however, Rome's major adversary in the
Mediterranean was the powerful empire of Carthage, just across the
Mediterranean in modern Tunisia, with which Rome fought the Punic Wars
over period of forty-five years. Greek forces also became involved in
the campaigns of the Punic Wars, setting the stage for future
conflicts with Rome.
The most important episode occurred
during the Second Punic War (218-207 B.C.). Campaigning in Italy, the
Carthaginian leader Hannibal allied with Philip V of Macedonia, then
the most powerful ruler in the Balkans, to protect supply lines from
North Africa. Rome responded by supporting Philip's many enemies in
the Balkans as they fought the First Macedonian War (215-213 B.C.),
which expanded Roman interests into the Balkans. In the Second
Macedonian War (200-197 B.C.), Rome's first major military expedition
into the Greek world met with brilliant success. Philip lost all his
territory outside Macedonia, and the victorious commander Flamininus
established a Roman protectorate over the "liberated" Greek
city-states. The fortunes of Greece and Rome were henceforth
intertwined for about the next 500 years.
The final incorporation of Greece and
the Greek East into the Roman Empire came in 31 B.C. after the Battle
of Actium, on the western shore of Greece. There, rule of the Roman
Empire was settled when the Roman emperor Octavian defeated the navy
of Mark Antony. Because Antony had based his land forces in Greece,
the victory of Caesar Augustus made the Greek world an integral and
permanent part of the Roman Empire. The yoke of empire on Greece was
relatively light, however, and many Greek cities approved the new
order. Rome demanded only two things from its Greek holdings--
security and revenue.
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