The Treaty of Phoenice was signed between the Kingdom of Macedon and Rome in 205 BC, ending the First Macedonian War and seeing Philip renounce his treaty with Hannibal. Merely five years later, Philip’s desires for expansion had again aroused the ire of several Greek states and a second war seemed inevitable. The Aetolian League were joined by Rhodes, Athens, the Kingdom of Pergamon, Sparta, the Illyrians, and finally the Roman Republic. This partnership between the Aetolian League and Rome would come to be a pact with the devil, for as Agelaus had said over a decade earlier, the victor of the Punic Wars will not be content with Italy and Sicily.

The war would not go so well for Philip this time. In a peace treaty of 196 BC, Philip was forced to give up all his territories in southern Greece, Thrace, and Anatolia. His navy was to be destroyed and Macedonia prevented from harvesting timber in its own lands to prevent any future rearmament. Macedonia would also aide Rome in future conquests through the provision of material support.

Philip had two sons at this time, Perseus and the younger Demetrius. Demetrius had been stoking Rome’s fears of a possible resurgence of Philip and his empire with Demetrius hoping to gain Rome’s support and skip over his older brother Perseus in the line of succession. Perseus was keen to this threat to his power and had Demetrius put to death shortly before inheriting the throne from his father in 179 BC. This action was unlikely to put Rome at ease and soon the two powers were at war for the third time.

Rome would finally succeed at ending the Antigonid dynasty of the Kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC. Macedon became a Roman protectorate and was split into four administrative districts with capitals in Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, and Pelagonia. Macedon retained some autonomy during this time and Rome didn’t miss the opportunity to make all aware of this:

It was resolved that the Macedonians and Illyrians should be free peoples, so that it might be clear to all the world that the arms of Rome did not carry slavery to the free, but on the contrary freedom to the enslaved – Livy, History of Rome.

Nonetheless, the Romans intended to stymie Macedon and prevented any of the four districts from trading with each other, limited the mining of gold and silver, and banned marriages between individuals of different districts. During this time, two of the four districts struck silver coins free from any ties to their Roman rulers. One of these coins is pictured above, a tetradrachm of the First Meris (first district) minted at Amphipolis. This specific example may be a local imitation replicating an extant type, the main differences being the less fine portrait of Artemis on the obverse.

These tetradrachms of Macedon were minted for less than twenty years. Andriscus, a Macedonian pretending to be the son of Perseus, claimed the throne of Macedon for himself and waged another war with Rome. His attempts were, however, short-lived. After early successes, Andriscus was defeated and captured by the Romans, who then executed him at the resulting triumph in Rome. Macedonia was made a Roman province and lost its autonomy.

The Aetolians feared little better. After having earlier sided with Rome, they turned and supported Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire in his own war against Rome. Ironically, Antiochus was safeguarding none other than Hannibal at the time. Antiochus would eventually lose his war against Rome and the Aetolians would find themselves in a similar position to Macedon. Only two years after Macedon’s loss of autonomy, Aetolia would follow suit in 146 BC and were incorporated into the province of Achaea. Rome had achieved universal dominion over Greece.