FLAMININUS, TITUS QUINCTIUS

born c. 227 BC died 174 Roman general and statesman whose skillful diplomacy enabled him to establish a Roman protectorate over Greece. During the Second Punic War (218201) he was military tribune under Marcus Claudius Marcellus (208) and propraetor extra ordinem at Tarentum (205204). As consul in 198 he sought to win Greek support for Rome's struggle against Philip V of Macedonia (Second Macedonian War, 200196). Arriving in Greece, he realized that future peace depended on breaking Philip's power, not merely humbling him. He secured the backing of the Achaean League and then opened peace negotiations with Philip at Nicaea in Locris. Though proposals were submitted to the Senate, the talks broke down, and fighting resumed until Flamininus' victory at Cynoscephalae (197). The peace terms proposed by the general and adopted by the Senate specified that Philip could retain his throne but must abandon all his dependencies outside Macedonia. At the Isthmian Games at Corinth in 196, Flamininus proclaimed that all Greeks in Europe and Asia were to be free and governed by their own laws. For this deed he was hailed in many Greek cities as a saviour and accorded homage alongside the gods. After checking the ambitions of the Spartan tyrant Nabis, the Roman forces finally withdrew from Greece in 194. In 193, Flamininus supported the Roman championship of Greek autonomy in Asia Minor. He attempted to rally the Greeks against the Seleucid king Antiochus III, and to counter the pro-Seleucid policy of the Aetolians. When the Aetolians called on Antiochus for aid, Flamininus persuaded the Achaean League to declare war on both parties. After the defeat of Antiochus by a Roman army at Thermopylae (191), Flamininus helped to re-establish peace in Greece. In 189 he served as censor, and in 183 he was sent to Prusias, king of Bithynia, to demand the surrender of the Carthaginian general Hannibal.