Roman Arbitrations between Philip V and His Neighbours in the 180s BC

Abstract The settlement imposed by Titus Quinctius Flamininus in 196 after the Second Macedonian War effectively restricted Macedonia to its ancient boundaries. However, Philip V rebuilt Macedonian power and influence relatively quickly. His success in doing so naturally provoked fear and apprehension among his neighbours, particularly those states which had been rivals of the Macedonian kings in central Greece for centuries. These fears resulted in concerted diplomatic efforts in the mid-180s when a series of embassies from the central Greek states, as well as Pergamum and the Thracian cities of Aenus and Maronea, arrived in Rome to lodge complaints against the Macedonian king; Philip, of course, sent his own envoys to explain and justify his activities. Both ancient sources and modern scholarship take Rome’s response to these embassies – the dispatch of a series of commissions and ultimately declarations that Philip should vacate the cities which he had occupied – as indicative of a desire to limit and even humiliate Philip V and Macedonia. In this article, I examine Rome’s responses to the Greek embassies to show that they were not motivated so much by a desire to weaken Macedonia as by a desire to maintain post-war settlements.