Rome Turns East Quiz | Roman History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Around 229 BC Rome sent two ambassadors to protest to Queen Teuta of Illyria because some of her subjects were engaged in certain unsavory acts. What were some of her subjects doing?

Answer: They were pirates, raiding Roman shipping

Queen Teuta stated that "it was never the custom of royalty to prevent the advantage of its subjects they could get from the sea." One of the ambassadors said, basically, that Rome would make it her business. This angered the Queen so much that she had one of the ambassadors killed and the other captured. Rome sent more than 20,000 troops and the Queen was forced to surrender in 227.

This incident forced Rome, for the first time, to think about its security and the lands to the East.

2. In 217 BC Agelaus of Naupactus warned the Greeks at a conference of all the major Greek cities and leagues of "clouds now gathering in the west, "and that if they did not quit their internecine squabbling and little wars they would lose their freedom. What were the "clouds in the west"?

Answer: The Second Punic War beween Rome and Carthage

It was obvious to Agelaus very early on that the winner of this great war would inevitably cast its eyes to the east if its powerful foe was defeated. His message was meant especially for Philip V of Macedonia, who had kept the Greek states in turmoil and in a weakened condition throughout his reign.

3. In 215 BC, Philip V of Macedon made a fateful decision for his kingdom. What was it?

Answer: He allied Macedon with Carthage against Rome

By 215 Rome had suffered great defeats at Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae, and the alliance must have seemed like a good bet at the time. Rome made cause with the Greek Aetolian League in 211. Later Attalus I of Pergamum intervened on behalf of Rome, but he eventually withdrew in 207, and Philip was the last man standing.

He negotiated a relatively favorable settlement with Rome to end the First Macedonian War at Phoenice in 205. He would not be able to enjoy his relative success for very long. An Eastern monarch had once more gotten the attention of Rome.

4. In early 200 BC, Rome sent two ambassadors to the east to investigate whether it had any interest in an ongoing conflict involving Eastern powers. What was happening?

Answer: Philip V was at war with Pergamum and Rhodes over Ptolemaic lands

By 201 Rome had defeated Carthage and its western flank was secure. But Rhodes and Pergamum sent ambassadors to the Roman Senate to ask for help from the always aggressive Philip. Rome went to investigate, declared Athens, Pergamum, Rhodes and the Aetolian League to be Roman allies, and that Macedon must leave the Greeks alone. Philip rejected the ultimatum and Rome's Second Macedonian War had begun.

5. From 200-198 BC, things went slowly for the Romans under the Consuls Publius Sulpichus Galba and Publius Villius. But beginning in 198 things began to change for Roman fortunes with a new consul? Who was it?

Answer: Titus Quinctius Flamininus

Flamininus was a self professed lover of all things Greek, and was the best man for the job as events would show.

6. In June 197 BC, Flamininus brought Philip V to battle at this place, which means "Dog's Head." Where was this battle?

Answer: Cynoscephalae

The battle itself was almost an accident, with Rome and Aetolian allies against Macedon and its Thessalian cavalry, meeting in hilly country and stumbling upon one another in the fog. But the Roman maniples proved more flexible in hill country than the Macedonian phalanx, and Philip suffered a great defeat and would never again have the influence he had previously had in Greece.

7. In 196 BC, Flamininus had a proclamation read at the Isthmian Games. What did he declare?

Answer: Freedom for the Greeks

The Greeks went wild with joy at the proclamation. However, "Freedom for the Greeks" had long been a venerable propaganda ploy, used at various time by Athens, Sparta and even Alexandrian Successor kingdoms. But in this case, the philohellenic Flamininus meant it. Starting in 194, Rome began pulling out all its legions, and for the first time in a 150 years the Greeks were pretty much left alone from foreign interference.

8. But peace would not last for very long. In 192 BC the Romans found themselves in a war with this great kingdom. Who was it?

Answer: Seleucid Kingdom

The Seleucids were the successors to Alexander the Great's eastern empire centered on a Babylon to Antioch to Asia Minor axis. By the mid 190s,the Aetolians had turned against Rome and began, annoyingly to the Romans, to interfere in the developments of the Peloponnesus and to look to the Seleucids as an ally.

This angered the Achaean League, which moved closer to Rome. Simultaneously Antiochous III began to move his Seleucid forces through western Asia Minor across the Hellespont to western Thrace. Rome, which had only just left Greece in 194, issued an ultimatum to Antiochous that he must leave Thrace and the Asia Minor Greeks to their own affairs. Antiochous responded that he did not presume to tell Rome how to treat the people of Italy and it had no right to tell him how to treat ancestral territories. Rome was now at war with the Seleucid Empire.

9. Antiochous moved his forces south through Greece and was defeated by Rome at this battle in April 191.

Answer: Thermopylae

Like the Spartans in 480 bc, Antiochous decided to defend Thermopylae and like the Spartans his army was outflanked by the Roman army through a mountain pass. This defeat ended Antiochous III's European campaign and he retreated back to Asia Minor. But the Romans were not done with the Seleucid king just yet.

10. Combining their fleets with those of Pergamum and Rhodes, the Romans, under Lucius Scipio, brother of the famous Scipio Africanus, who accompanied his brother, moved into Asia Minor. The Roman and Selucid armies met for the decisive battle at this place.

Answer: Magnesia

After a series of successful naval battle against the Selecids--one of which included the great Hannibal as a Seleucid admiral--the Romans inflicted a crushing defeat on Antiochous' army at Magnesia in 190. The Romans imposed a draconian treaty at Apamea in 188, which forced Antiochous to pull his forces and influence east of the Halycus River and pay a heavy war indeminity.

11. In 189, prior to the conclusion of the Peace at Apamea, but after Antiocous III had requested terms, the Romans, now under a new consul, Gnaeus Manlius Vulso, attacked these people, who had been a threat to the Roman ally Pergamum, for nearly a hundred years, for supplying troops to Antiochous.

Answer: The Galatians

The Galatians or Gauls had been a part of Asia Minor since the 270s when they crossed the Danube and then the Hellespont and settled on central Asia Minor. Vulso defeated them at Mt. Olympus and near Ankara in 189 BC.

12. In 179 BC, the man who had tortured the Greeks for forty years, Philip V , died. Who would replace him as King of Macedon and attempt to restore some of the old Macedonian glory?

Answer: Perseus

While Perseus initially renewed the treaty with Rome, he soon made moves that disturbed the Roman Senate, removing a Roman ally in Thrace, marrying a Seleucid princess and avoiding Roman ambassadors. There was also an attempted assassination of Eumenes II of Pergamum, another Roman ally, and rising conflict between pro-Macedonian and pro-Roman factions in Greek cities. Once again Rome and Macedon were on a collision course and the Third Macedonian War broke out 171.

13. Perseus enjoyed some initial success against Roman armies but in 168 BC, he was defeated by the Romans under this consul. Who led the Roman army to victory at the Battle of Pydna that year?

Answer: Lucius Aemilius Paulas

The Roman victory at Pydna ended Macedon's Argead dynasty, which had ruled it since around 277 BC. The Senate broke up Macedon into four cantons and Macedonian power was broken forever in the Balkan peninsula. Rome took the opportunity also to strengthen all pro-Roman parties throughout Greece. Rome's hold on Greece was growing tighter and tighter.

But worse was to follow for the area.

14. At the end of the Third Macedonian War, the Roman Senate gave permission for Aemillius Paullas to go through Epirus on his way back to Rome and do what?

Answer: Plunder the cities of Epirus

Epirus was a land that stretched along the Adriatic Sea across from Italy. But the Epirots made the mistake of supporting Perseus in his war against Rome, and Roman soldiers felt like they had not received their fair share of the spoils from Macedon. The Roman army sold some 150,000 Epirots into slavery and confiscated the treasure of the Epirot people.

15. In 148 BC, Rome would defeat a Macedonian pretender by the name of Andriscus. But starting in 146, Rome would fight the Achaean War; it would be the last of Rome's wars in Greece and leave no doubt that Rome was in charge in Greece. What was the outcome of this conflict?

Answer: The destruction of Corinth

The Achaean League had been in existence in some form since at least 280 BC. Its members (most prominently Megalopolis and Corinth) exercised considerable sway in the Peloponnesus. Initially the League had worked well with Rome against the Aetolians, Macedonians and the Seleucids.
But increasingly Rome's influence in Greece became more heavy handed, including the taking of some 1000 hostages( most prominently the historian Polybius of Megalopolis) in 167 BC, and the League rebelled in 146. The Roman victory was swift and decisive, with victories at Scarpheia and Corinth. The destruction of Corinth was total. All male inhabitants were put to the sword, all women and children were sold into slavery and all treasure was looted by the Romans.
Agelaus of Naupactas' "clouds in the west" had come to a rest over Greece, and Rome's dominance of an ancient and creative people was now total.
The "Freedom of the Greeks" was no more.

Source: Author Craterus

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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Rome Turns East Trivia Quiz

In the last quarter of the third century BC, Republican Rome began to eye Greece and those lands to the East for influence. Test your knowledge of Roman expansionism in the East from 229-146 BC.

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