Macedonia (Roman province)
Macedonia was a province of ancient Rome, encompassing the territory of the former Antigonid Kingdom of Macedonia, which had been conquered by the Roman Republic in 168 BC at the conclusion of the Third Macedonian War. The province was created in 146 BC, after the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon, the last self-styled King of Macedonia in the Fourth Macedonian War. The province incorporated the former Kingdom of Macedonia with the addition of Epirus, Thessaly, and parts of Illyria, Paeonia and Thrace.
During the Republican period, the province was of great military significance, as the main bulwark protecting the Aegean region from attacks from the north. The Via Egnatia, which crossed the province from west to east was of great strategic importance, providing the main overland link between Rome and its domains in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this period, campaigns against the Dardani and Scordisci to the north and the Thracians to the east were nearly constant. By the first century BC, the province notionally extended to the Danube.
Macedonia was a central theatre for several campaigns of the civil wars at the end of the Republic, including the Battles of Pharsalus and Philippi. During the Second Triumvirate, it fell within Marc Antony's sphere. Several important Roman military colonies were established in Macedonia in this period. After the province came under the control of Augustus following the Battle of Actium in 30 BC, the northern sections were split off as the provinces of Moesia, Dalmatia and Pannonia, meaning that the province lost much of its military role in defending the Danube border, but it remained important for supply purposes and as a source of military manpower. Until AD 15 and again after AD 44, Macedonia was a senatorial province, governed by a proconsul.
Throughout the Imperial period, Macedonia was a prosperous region with several thriving cities, notably Thessalonica and Philippi. These communities were organised in a similar way to other cities of the Roman Empire and were largely self-governing. Greek was the main language of the region, but Latin was used for official purposes and in the Roman colonies. There were substantial Christian communities in the province by the mid-first century AD.
In late antiquity, the province was split into several smaller units, but the old provincial capital, Thessalonica, became the regional centre for the Balkan region and was briefly an Imperial capital under Licinius. The provincial system gradually faded away, until it was replaced altogether by the theme system in the mid-seventh century AD, but the region continued to form part of the Eastern Roman Empire until the end of the fourteenth century.
History
Macedonian Wars
The Romans clashed with the Macedonian kingdom in three wars in the early third century BC. After defeating Perseus in the Third Macedonian War, Rome abolished the Macedonian monarchy and divided Macedon into four client republics, called, with capitals located at Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, and Pelagonia, which were members of a federal league, the League of the Macedonians. Numismatic evidence indicates that the cult of Roma was introduced at this time, being depicted on coins of Amphipolis, Pella, and Thessalonica in this period. Thessaly had been separated from the Macedonian monarchy already, following the Second Macedonian War and a separate Thessalian League was created with Roman permission in 194 BC, with Zeus Eleutherius and Athena Itonia as its patron deities. Its coinage superseded that of the individual Thessalian cities and continued until the end of the first century BC.The kingdom was briefly reunited in 150 BC by the pretender Andriscus, leading to the Fourth Macedonian War. After defeating Andriscus near Pydna in 148 BC, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus made Macedonia into Rome's fifth provincia - the first new province since the creation of Hispania Ulterior and Citerior in 197 BC. Surviving sources do not explicitly discuss how or why it was decided to convert the region into a permanent province. A number of factors may have been involved, including increased familiarity with territorial expansion, the proven failure of the previous system to maintain the peace, the desire for a new base from which further military expeditions could be undertaken in order to acquire booty and triumphs, and the desire for further tax revenue. The four republics continued to exist as subdivisions of the province, as did the federal league. The date of the establishment of the province in autumn 148 BC is indicated by the epoch date of the provincial era, but in practice it may have been a gradual process.
Republican province
At its creation, the province of Macedonia encompassed Macedon itself, Paeonia and parts of Illyria, Thessaly to the south, and Epirus to the west. Notionally, the northern border ran from Lissus on the Adriatic coast, eastwards until it reached the Hebrus river, which formed the eastern border with Thrace. These borders were only loosely defined and dependent on the military competence of the governors, with Cicero claiming that "for the governors of Macedonia, the borders were always the same as those marked by swords and shields." The capital was Thessalonica and the governor held proconsular status.Two years after the foundation of the new province, in 146 BC, Romans defeated the Achaean League in the Achaean War and gained control of the rest of Mainland Greece. Scholars disagree on whether or not Achaia was formally incorporated into the province of Macedonia following this defeat, but intermittent interventions in Achaian affairs by the governors are attested.
Via Egnatia
Sometime after 146 BC, Gnaeus Egnatius initiated the construction of the Via Egnatia, a Roman road, which began at Dyrrhachium on the Adriatic coast opposite the terminus of the Via Appia in Italy, stretched across the Pindus mountains and continued through Macedonia to Thessalonica, and from there to Cypsela, on the east bank of the Hebrus river. This stretch was completed by 120 BC; it followed a pre-existing route, but was a more solid, level road than the previous road, with a width of between three and six metres. A second road from the Adriatic coast at Apollonia, which joined the main Via Egnatia somewhere inland was added shortly after 120 BC. Later in the second century BC, the eastern end of the road was extended all the way to the Byzantium. The road was important for military and economic purposes, providing the main overland link between Rome and its domains in the Eastern Mediterranean.Northern and eastern campaigns
Macedonia was of central importance to Roman military strategy in this period as a bulwark against attacks from the north. The Dardani to the northwest, had initially supported the Romans in their conquest of Macedonia, but after 148 BC, they increasingly came into conflict with the Romans. There were also occasional conflicts with the Thracians to the east. However, the key enemy of the Romans in this period were the Scordisci, a Celtic group that largely supplanted the Dardanians as the most powerful group in the central Balkans. They first invaded Macedonia in 149 BC during the Fourth Macedonian War and had to be driven out by Metellus.In the first years of the province two pretenders attempted to restore the Macedonian kingdom. The first, Alexander, invaded from Thrace in 148 BC and was defeated by Metellus. The second, referred to in the sources as 'Pseudo-Philip' or 'Pseudo-Perseus' also invaded from the east, in 143 or 142, with an army of up to 16,000 men, but was defeated by the quaestor Tremellus Scrofa. The Scordisci invaded in 141 BC and defeated a Roman army commanded by Decimus Junius Silanus Manlianus or, less likely, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica. In belated response to this defeat, Marcus Cosconius launched an attack on the Scordisci in 135 BC, defeating them in Thrace. The delay may have been because Roman attention was focussed on the construction of the Via Egnatia.
In 119 BC, the Scordisci invaded again, ravaging the area near Stobi. The praetor Sextus Pompeius met the forces in battle and was killed, leaving his quaestor Marcus Annius to regroup and drive the Scordisci out, defeating a second invasion with the help of the Thracians. Following this set-back, a series of consuls were sent to Macedonia, apparently to settle the threat from the Scordisci decisively. The first of these, Quintus Fabius Maximus Eburnus arrived in 115 BC but his activities are not attested. In 114 BC, his successor, Gaius Porcius Cato launched a large-scale invasion, but he was defeated and nearly the whole army was killed. The Romans dispatched several further commanders, Gaius Caecilius Metellus Caprarius in 113 BC and Marcus Livius Drusus in 112, who inflicted defeats on the Thracians and the Scordisci respectively. From 110 to 107 BC, Marcus Minucius Rufus campaigned against the Scordisci and the Bessian tribe of Thracians to the east, bringing an end to their raids for about twenty years.
After this, the Romans turned their attention to the eastern border. The Romans defeated some Thracians under an unnamed commander in 104 BC. In 101 or 100 BC, Titus Didius conquered an area referred to as the "Caenic Chersonese". Another unnamed commander defeated the Maedian Thracians in the east and the Dardanians in the northwest in 97 BC. Gaius Sentius was defeated by the Maedi in 92 BC and was involved in a conflict with a Thracian king called Sordinus in 89 BC, only achieving victory after a struggle. From 87 BC onwards, Thracian forces allied with Mithridates VI attacked Macedonia, as part of the First Mithridatic War. In that year, Gaius Sentius' legate Quintus Bruttius Sura repulsed an invasion from the Mithridatic general Archelaus. In 84 BC a force of Scordisci, Dardianians and Maedi penetrated all the way to Delphi and sacked the sanctuary, before they were violently expelled by Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus.
File:Scythia Minor map-en.svg|thumb|350px|right|Map of Scythia Minor, showing the main area of Scythian habitation in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC and the Greek coastal cities of Istros, Tomis, Callatis, Dionysoupolis, and Odessus.
In the aftermath of the Mithridatic Wars, the Romans again launched a concerted military effort in the region. Before the war, governors had tended to be praetors or propraetors, usually in office for a single year. Henceforth, they were consuls or proconsuls and often held command for several years. Appius Claudius Pulcher had some success in the Rhodope Mountains in 77 BC, but was replaced after his death from illness by C. Scribonius Curio, who was given a force of five legions. He campaigned from 75 to 74 BC, becoming the first Roman commander to lead an army to the Danube and reduced the Dardanians to submission. Between 73 and 71 BC, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus led another force of five legions against the Bessi and entered Moesia, bringing the Greek cities on the west coast of the Black Sea under Roman control and campaigning against the Getae all the way to the mouth of the Danube. These campaigns were intended to secure the northern border so that Macedonia and Greece would no longer be threatened by raids and to put Rome in a better position to confront Mithridates VI in future conflicts. Efforts to consolidate these enormous conquests continued for decades, often meeting with rebuffs, most notably the two campaigns of Gaius Antonius Hybrida in the north ca. 62-61 BC, in which he was defeated disastrously by the Dardianians and at the Battle of Histria by the Bastarnae.
The governorship of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus from 57 to 55 BC is the subject of Cicero's In Pisonem, in which Caesoninus is accused of corruption, abuse, and murder of the provincials on a grand scale, as well as shaving sparked another invasion by the Dardianians and Bessi that even placed Thessaloniki under siege, but the speech may not give an accurate picture of Caesoninus' conduct.