In the autumn of 200, consul Galba started the Second Macedonian War by landing his legions in the Roman possessions of today’s Albania. Immediately after, his successful invasion of Macedonia caused the Aetolians, breaking the peace with Philip, to return to the Roman alliance (199). Macedonian symmetry had remained neutral, but neutrality, benevolent at first towards Philip, was becoming more benevolent towards the Romans as the superiority of their forces was demonstrated. And the important but not decisive victory of Flaminino at the passes of the Aoo (198) was enough for the symmetry to undoubtedly fall apart, and, one before the other then, the allies declared themselves for Rome. Among them the Achaeans, who most of all had benefited from the military aid of the Macedonians. It was the first time, after the Persian invasions, that the foreigner had taken hold in Greece. And while then with the firm will of union and resistance, which manifested itself among the Greeks, the political history of Greece as a nation began, so now, with the lack of will to union at the decisive moment, that history virtually closed.. The will to unite was lacking in part because the contrast with the Romans in customs and civilization was far from being as profound as that with the Persians, in part because now almost everywhere in Greece selfish minorities of landowners oppressed a less affluent mass. that, in the conditions in which it was reduced, was not interested in the fate of the country. It was added that the Romans ably resumed the policy successfully attempted in the century. IV from Persia and then from the Hellenistic monarchies, to guarantee local autonomies, dissolving those major aggregations that involved renunciations and sacrifices, to which the Greeks, while acknowledging the necessity from time to time, had not adapted except with extreme reluctance. The disintegration that was thus renewed was to reduce Greece to impotence just as the peace of Antalcid had risked to reduce it. But then the protection of the great king, due to the military impotence of Persia, was purely nominal, and in its own warrior bourgeoisie, from which the king himself recruited the core of his armies, Greece had the guarantee of independence. Now, with the decline of the bourgeoisie and the waning of the military spirit, the Greeks no longer had that guarantee, which, moreover, would hardly have sufficed against a power of the first order such as Rome was. Thus, from now on, Greek history is reduced to a series of struggles in which individual Greek states, not helped at all, or helped completely ineffectively by their compatriots, face Rome, and Rome breaks them down separately, with a minimum, unparalleled effort. not even remotely what it had taken to subjugate Carthage. Meanwhile Macedonia, left alone, was won in the decisive battle of Cinoscefale (197) and forced to a peace in which it renounced all its Greek possessions and, except for ten triremes, its navy. In the Isthmias of 196, to the immense enthusiasm of the Greeks gathered for the feast, Flaminino proclaimed free all the cities and peoples taken from Philip. Then he faced and conquered Sparta, who, under Nabis, it had restored a considerable military power, and forced it to humble itself before Rome and to cede territory to the Achaean league, but without destroying its independence so as not to give the Achaeans too much power. Then he embarked for Italy, leaving not even a Roman garrison in Greece. It seemed that Greece, without Roman or Macedonian presidencies, all organized into free republics, was freer than before. In reality there was no political link between the republics and, since they were all friends and allies of Rome, the arbiter of their disputes were the Romans. According to insidewatch, the most industrious allies of the Romans and their most effective auxiliaries in the victory of Cinoscefale had been the Aetolians, faithful to their anti-Macedonia policy, which dates back to the death of Antigono Gonata. But the Romans had not waged the war for the advantage of the Aetolians and it was therefore natural that they had not bothered to give the league the increases it hoped for. Hence, shortly after, the need for a new Roman intervention in Greece. In fact, the Aetolians, while they themselves took up arms to gain ground in the regions snatched from Philip (192), called Antiochus of Syria to Greece, who had antagonized Rome for the menacing Roman diplomatic intervention which seemed not to allow him to carry out the he had been waiting for years with tenacity and energy to renew the ancient power of the Seleucids. But Antiochus could only intervene with few forces and the Aetolians found themselves isolated, or almost isolated, in Greece, having declared themselves to be the two major Greek powers, Macedonia and the Romans. Achaia. In fact, if the Greek national sentiment had not risen in favor of Philip, who had nevertheless tenaciously fought the Romans for years, it was natural that it would not rise in favor of the Aetolians, who had hitherto been the most ardent allies of Rome against the own countrymen. With this, Antiochus not being able to commit fully to Greece, the fate of the struggle was decided even before it began.
