First Macedonian War - The War Ends

The War Ends

Although Philip considered Attalus' escape a bitter defeat, it proved to be the turning-point of the war. Attalus was forced to return to Pergamon, when he learned at Opus that, perhaps at the urging of Philip, Prusias I, king of Bithynia and related to Philip by marriage, was moving against Pergamon. Sulpicius returned to Aegina. Free from the pressure of the combined Roman and Pergamon fleets, Philip was able to resume the offensive against the Aetolians. He captured Thronium, followed by the towns Tithronium and Drymaea north of the Cephisus, controlling all of Epicnemidian Locris, and took back control of Oreus.

The neutral trading powers were still trying to arrange a peace. At Elateia, Philip had met with the same would be peacemakers from Egypt and Rhodes, who had been at the meeting in Heraclea, and again in the spring of 207 BC, but to no avail. Representatives of Egypt, Rhodes, Byzantium, Chios, Mytilene and perhaps Athens also met again with the Aetolians that spring. The war was going Philip's way, but the Aetolians, although now abandoned by both Pergamon and Rome, were not yet ready to make peace on Philip's terms. However, after another season's fighting, they finally relented. In 206 BC, the Aetolians, without Rome's consent, sued for a separate peace on conditions imposed by Philip.

The following spring the Romans sent the censor Publius Sempronius Tuditanus with 35 ships and 11,000 men to Dyrrachium in Illiria, where he incited the Parthini to revolt and laid siege to Dimale. However when Philip arrived Sempronius broke off the siege and withdrew inside the walls of Apollonia. Sempronius tried unsuccessfully to entice the Aetolians to break their peace with Philip. With no more allies in Greece, but having achieved their objective of preventing Philip from aiding Hannibal, the Romans were ready to make peace. A treaty was drawn up at Phoenice in 205 BC, the so-called "Peace of Phoenice" formally ended the First Macedonian War.