Qualla: Battle of Pydna (148 BC)

Battle of Pydna (148 BC): Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Europe_satellite_image_location_map.jpg: NordNordWest derivative work: Victuallers (talk), Public domain. He was a wool-fuller from Aeolis, in modern western Turkey, and he looked enough like the dead Macedonian king Perseus that men who remembered the old royal family agreed to follow him. He called himself Philip, son of Perseus. Modern historians call him Andriscus, the False Philip. For a few astonishing months in the 140s BC, he reconquered Macedonia from the Roman client kings, defeated a Roman legion, and crowned himself in Pella as the last king Macedon would ever have. The Battle of Pydna in 148 BC was where Rome ended the experiment - and not, as a different battle of Pydna twenty years earlier had merely chastened Macedon, but ended it. After this fight the kingdom of Alexander the Great became a Roman province.

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Battle of Pydna (148 BC): Two Battles, One Beach

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Two famous battles bear the name Pydna. The earlier, in 168 BC, is the one most history books mean - Aemilius Paullus's destruction of King Perseus and the Macedonian phalanx, the moment usually cited as the death of Hellenistic kingship. This is the other one, twenty years later...

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Pydna (148 BC): The Pretender

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geographic map of Balkan Peninsula.svg: Ikonact (talk · contribs) derivative work: Buli (talk), CC BY-SA 4.0. Andriscus claimed to be the son of Perseus, the king Aemilius Paullus had paraded through Rome in 167 BC. The real son had died young in Roman captivity. The pretender's first attempts at a rising failed humiliatingly. He fled to Thrace, raised an army among Thracian chieftains w...

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Image: Geographic map of Balkan Peninsula.svg: Ikonact (talk · contribs) derivative work: Buli (talk) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Pydna (148 BC): Metellus Comes North

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Europe_satellite_image_location_map.jpg: NordNordWest derivative work: Victuallers (talk), Public domain. Rome was busy. The Third Punic War was in its final years and Carthage was being slowly strangled to death. Andriscus had even reached out to Carthage for an alliance. The senate could not afford another lost legion in Macedonia. They sent Quintus Caecilius Metellus with a full c...

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Battle of Pydna (148 BC): The Battle Itself

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Europe_satellite_image_location_map.jpg: NordNordWest derivative work: Victuallers (talk), Public domain. We know less about this fight than the first Pydna. Metellus probably deployed in the standard Roman triplex acies - hastati in front, principes behind, triarii in reserve, velites skirmishing forward and Roman and allied cavalry on the flanks. Andriscus had Thracian troops at hi...

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Battle of Pydna (148 BC): The End of Macedon

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Europe_satellite_image_location_map.jpg: NordNordWest derivative work: Victuallers (talk), Public domain. Metellus reorganized Macedonia as a Roman province and became its first governor. The dignity earned him the cognomen Macedonicus. He returned to Rome, celebrated a triumph, and watched Andriscus paraded through the streets in chains. The pretender was then executed - the standar...

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