)
the praetor Juventius appeared with a legion. The latter attacked
the Macedonians with his small force; but he himself fell, his army
was almost wholly destroyed, and the greater part of Thessaly fell into
the power of the pseudo-Philip, who conducted his government there and
in Macedonia with cruelty and arrogance. At length a stronger Roman
army under Quintus Caecilius Metellus appeared on the scene of
conflict, and, supported by the Pergamene fleet, advanced into
Macedonia. In the first cavalry combat the Macedonians retained
the superiority; but soon dissensions and desertions occurred in the
Macedonian army, and the blunder of the pretender in dividing his
army and detaching half of it to Thessaly procured for the Romans an
easy and decisive victory (606). Philip fled to the chieftain Byzes
in Thrace, whither Metellus followed him and after a second victory
obtained his surrender.

Province of Macedonia

The four Macedonian confederacies had not voluntarily submitted to
the pretender, but had simply yielded to force. According to the
policy hitherto pursued there was therefore no reason for depriving
the Macedonians of the shadow of independence which the battle of
Pydna had still left to them; nevertheless the kingdom of Alexander
was now, by order of the senate, converted by Metellus into a Roman
province. This case clearly showed that the Roman government had
changed its system, and had resolved to substitute for the relation
of clientship that of simple subjects; and accordingly the suppression
of the four Macedonian confederacies was felt throughout the whole range
of the client-states as a blow directed against all. The possessions
in Epirus which were formerly after the first Roman victories detached
from Macedonia--the Ionian islands and the ports of Apollonia and
Epidamnus,(16) that had hitherto been under the jurisdiction of the
Italian magistrates--were now reunited with Macedonia, so that the latter,
probably as early as this period, reached on the north-west to a point
beyond Scodra, where Illyria began. The protectorate which Rome claimed
over Greece proper likewise devolved, of itself, on the new governor of
Macedonia. Thus Macedonia recovered its unity and nearly the same limits
which it had in its most flourishing times. It had no longer, however,
the unity of a kingdom, but that of a province, retaining its communal
and even, as it would seem, its district organization, but placed un