In 204 BC, King Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt died, leaving the throne to his six-year-old son Ptolemy V. Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus the Great of the Seleucid Empire decided to exploit the weakness of the young king by taking Ptolemaic territory for themselves and they signed a secret pact defining spheres of interest, opening the Fifth Syrian War.

[1] Philip then invaded Caria but the Rhodians and Pergamenians successfully blockaded his fleet in Bargylia, forcing him to spend the winter with his army in a country which offered very few provisions.

At this point, although they appeared to have the upper hand, Rhodes and Pergamon still feared Philip so much that they sent an appeal to the rising power of Rome, which had just emerged victorious from the Second Punic War against Carthage.

In response to the Athenian declaration of war, Philip dispatched a force of 2,000 infantry and 200 cavalry under the command of Philokles to invade Attica and place the city of Athens under siege.

Polybius reports that during the siege of Abydos, Philip had grown impatient and sent a message to the besieged that the walls would be stormed and that if anybody wished to commit suicide or surrender they had three days to do so.

[6] During the siege of Abydos, in the autumn of 200 BC, Philip was met by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a Roman ambassador on his way back from Egypt,[7] who urged him not to attack any Greek state or to seize any territory belonging to Ptolemy and to go to arbitration with Rhodes and Pergamon.

In response to a request from Chalcidean exiles, Claudius led a surprise raid on the city of Chalcis in Euboea, one of the key Antigonid strongholds known as the 'fetters of Greece' and inflicting serious damage and heavy casualties.

Finding that Claudius had already withdrawn, he sped on towards Athens, where he defeated the Athenian and Attalid troops in a battle outside the Dipylon Gate and encamped at Cynosarges.

From there, Philip went down to Argos where the Achaean League was holding an assembly, which he attempted to bring onto his side in exchange for supporting them in their ongoing conflict with Nabis of Sparta, but he was rebuffed.

A force under Lucius Apustius was sent to raid the western border of Macedonia, capturing or razing a number of cities, including Antipatrea and Codrion.

The diplomatic efforts of Philip, Sulpicius, and the Athenians centred on the Aetolian League, which seemed inclined to support the Romans but remained neutral at this stage.

[13] In the spring of 199 BC, Sulpicius led his troops east through the territory of the Dassaretii, an Illyrian tribe that occupied the area bordering western Macedonia.

After a series of indecisive skirmishes (in one of which Philip was nearly captured), news came that the Dardanians had invaded northern Macedonia, and the Macedonians withdrew secretly in the night.

Sulpicius ravaged Eordaea, then Elimeia to the south, and then followed the Haliacmon river valley up to Orestis, where he conquered Celetrum and Pelion and then returned to his base.

At the same time as this land campaign set out, the Roman fleet had left Corcyra under command of Lucius Apustius, rounded Cape Malea, and rendezvoused with King Attalus near Hermione.

The fleet was joined by further ships from Issa and Rhodes and headed north to the Chalkidike peninsula where an assault on Cassandreia was a complete failure.

Eventually he was forced to abandon this siege and march south into Phocis in order to secure his supply lines and lodgings for winter by capturing Anticyra.

[30] While this campaign was taking place, the consul's brother, Lucius Quinctius Flamininus had taken control of the Roman fleet and sailed to Athens.

[32] The Achaian army joined the other forces besieging Corinth, but after fierce fighting the siege had to be abandoned when 1,500 Macedonian reinforcements commanded by Philokles arrived from Boiotia.

The parties met at Nicaea in Locris in November 198 - Philip sailed from Demetrias, but he refused to disembark and meet Flamininus and his allies on the beach, so he addressed them from the prow of his ship.

Flamininus was eager to take the credit for ending the war, but he did not yet know whether his command would be prolonged and had intended to make a quick peace deal with Philip, if it was not.

[37] Over the rest of the winter, Philip mobilised all the manpower of his kingdom including the aged veterans and the underage boys, which amounted to 18,000 men.

In the Peloponnese, Androsthenes set out from Corinth with a Macedonian army of 6,000 men into the lands controlled by the Achaean League and pillaged the territories of Pellene, Phlius, Cleonae, and Sicyon.

The Achaean general, Nicostratus, who was able to muster 5,000 men, closed off the pass back to Corinth, and defeated the Macedonian forces in detail.

[43] In Acarnania, there had been attempts to switch to the Roman side before the Battle of Cynoscephalae, but the League's assembly had eventually decided against this because of their hostility to the Aetolians.

Despite the efforts of the consul-elect Marcus Claudius Marcellus to prolong the war, the Roman Tribal Assembly voted unanimously to make peace.

He had to surrender his whole navy except for his flagship, while his army was limited to a maximum of 5,000 men, could not include elephants, and could not be led beyond his borders without permission of the Roman Senate.

[49] Over the winter of 197/196 BC, while the peace negotiations were still ongoing, conflict had broken out in Boeotia, leading to the assassination of the pro-Macedonian Boeotarch Brachylles by the pro-Roman leaders Zeuxippus and Peisistratus.

[54] Nevertheless, the Romans kept garrisons in key strategic cities which had belonged to Macedon – Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias – and the legions were not completely evacuated until 194 BC.

Although Flamininus' proclamation had included a list of the communities formerly under Philip's control to which it applied,[55] the Romans quickly assumed (or were thrust into) the role of protector of Greek freedom more generally.