Hailed as the birthplace of democracy, of western philosophy and arts, the Greek city states had a long tradition of fierce independence. Over the centuries, attempts by one city state or league of city states to dominate all of Greece had been thwarted. In 480 B.C., the emperor of Persia sent a massive army to Thermopylae, with the goal of conquering the Greeks, but even he failed, as did the Kingdom of Macedonia toward the end of the fourth century.
The northern kingdom of Macedonia had been heavily influenced by the Greek language and culture. When Macedonia became the cornerstone of a vast empire under the warrior King Alexander III toward the end of the forth century B.C., Greek civilization followed the flag of Alexander "the Great" eastward. Greek colonies were established across western Asia, Egypt, and northwestern India, and became the foundation of a Hellenistic culture that was to last for centuries.
Through colonization and trade, Roman culture, religion, economics and politics had also been enormously influenced by the Greeks. As Rome expanded, it was increasingly drawn into Greek political conflicts. In the early third century B.C., in the War with Pyrrhus, Rome clashed with the Greek cities of southern Italy. The First Punic War broke out because of Rome's intervention in a war between Greek cities in Sicily. When Macedonia entered the Second Punic War on the side of Carthage, Rome entered for the first time into an alliance with the cities of Illyricum, Thrace, Pergamum and Greece proper.
The First Macedonian War ended when Rome's Greek allies made a sudden separate peace, forcing Rome to accept a disadvantageous truce with Macedonia in the treaty of Phoenice. But Rome was soon drawn into another war in Greece, when Athens, Pergamum, and Rhodes called for help against King Phillip of Macedonia and Antiochus III of Syria. The Romans sent legions to Greece under the command of T. Quinctius Flamininus, defeated the Macedonians, and forced them to recognize the independence of Greece. The Romans were hailed by the Greeks as liberators.
Five years later, however, Rome intervened in Greece again to preserve the balance of power against an alliance of Syria and the Aetolian League. After defeating the Syrians at the battles of Thermopylae and Magnesia, the Romans this time subjugated the cities of Aetolia and forced Syria to give up its possessions west of the Taurus mountains to Pergamum and Rhodes. Increasingly, Rome saw the constant internecine conflict in Greece as a source of instability and danger, and the Greeks came to view the Romans as hostile meddlers and conquerors.
In 171 B.C., Macedonia again took up arms against Rome. In the ensuing conflict, Epirus and numerous cities of Greece were devastated by Roman plunder. After the Roman victory at the battle of Pydna, Macedonia and Illyricum surrendered and were broken up into tributary confederacies. After one final uprising in 149 B.C., Macedonia was subjugated once more and this time made a Roman province. As a dreadful warning to any who might dare rise up against them, the Romans razed the city of Corinth to the ground. They placed the cities of Greece under the administration of the governor of Macedonia, until 127 B.C. when they were finally organized into the province of Achaea.
Even after Rome's conquest of the Greek homeland, and after the Roman Empire absorbed the Hellenistic lands to the east, Greece continued to exert powerful influence on Roman culture through its centers of learning, its philosophy, and its art. The Greek language continued to be the lingua franca of the eastern half of the empire, and Hellenistic culture survived under the aegis of the Byzantine Empire long after the collapse of the western empire in the fifth century A.D.