Latin
Lines 1.13-1.18
Greek and Roman Historians, The Hellenistic World 1.13-18
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Independent Islands e. g. Cyprus and Rhodes. Rhodes was to become the chief commercial centre in the Aegean, also controlling some territory in Asia Minor, and very rich.
One by one, these Hellenistic kingdoms and cities fell under the sway of Rome. Phillip V of Macedon has unwisely allied himself with Carthage during the Second Punic War. Rome engaged in three Macedonia Wars (215-207 B. C., 200-197 B. C., 169-167 B. C.), the last of which witnessed the destruction of the Macedonian Kingdom.
Following the destruction of Macedon in 166 B. C., the Greek cities remained juridically independent but dependent in practice on Roman favor. Their failure to understand clearly the new power arrangements led to the Achaean War and the destruction of Corinth in 146 B. C.
The Seluecid Kingdom, under Antiochus the Great, had attempted to fill the "vacuum" left by Macedon's destruction, but was defeated by Roman arms in the 190's B. C. and pushed back into Syria. There it remained a secondary power, slowly desintegrating until it was finally abolished by Pompey the Great in 63 B. C.
The Kingdom of Pergamum was willed to the Roman People by its last king, Attalus III, in 133 B. C. The other independent kingdoms of Asia Minor quickly become client states of Rome. Mithridates the Great of Pontus led the final resistance to Rome in the East, fighting a series of wars in the 1st century B. C. before being finally defeated by Pompey the Great in 63 B. C.
No significant power existed in the Mediterranean basin independent of Rome by the 1st century B. C., when Rome entered its period of civil wars and began its transition to Empire.