How did Rome Expand into Greece and Hispania? - History of the Roman Empire - Part 5

by Panzer
The outbreak of three Punic Wars marked an attention-grabbing period of Roman history
that at times even overshadowed the contemporary events outside of the Carthaginian-Roman conflict.
Another pesky rival of the Romans came in the form of the Illyrians,
though they were not a competition for Rome in the same way as Carthage.
Instead, the Illyrians posed a threat through piracy in the Adriatic, which eventually became
an annoyance for the Romans...
The first time these tensions boiled over was in 229 BC when these people were mostly
united under Queen Teuta, who had started to turn a blind eye, to say the least, to
increasing piracy throughout the Adriatic.
Rome at first ignored this as well, but once it began to impact Roman trade, the Senate
opted to intervene through diplomacy.
When this led to a Roman envoy being killed on the order of the queen, war became inevitable…
The short Roman campaign of revenge saw a victory by the co-consuls and their troops
in Illyricum, and Teuta eventually being cornered into signing a peace treaty that handed over
some of her territories to Rome while Illyrian fleets were forced to remain north of Lissus
if in groupings larger than 2 ships at a time.
Rome hoped that this would resolve the piracy issue, but the rule would shortly be broken
nevertheless.
Around the time of the First Illyrian War, however, the Romans had additionally been
fighting with the Gallic tribes of Northern Italy, some of which had actually seized and
sacked Rome itself back in 390 BC.
By now, in 225 BC, the Gauls of Northern Italy and their Gallic allies across the Alps hoped
to end a long-running back and forth with Rome by repeating the successes of 390 BC.
Instead, the Romans had been heavily prepared and routed the aggressors at the Battle of
Telamon and the following campaigns that suppressed any remaining resistance -
By 220 BC, the Illyrian ruler Demetrius of Pharos, who had previously cooperated with
the Romans, wanted to begin expanding his own power in spite of the prior peace agreement.
Demetrius thus led a fleet of 90 ships south of Lissus and attempted to seize more territory,
but he was quickly stopped by the Romans who instead captured Dimale and crushed the resistance
at Pharos.
Demetrius eventually gave up and sought refuge in Macedon, ending the Second Illyrian War,
but only causing a break in hostilities - not an end.
As if the Romans had not been preoccupied with enough wars already, they would simultaneously
end up fighting a series of wars with Macedon.
The first of these clashes began during the Second Punic War after Philip The Fifth of
Macedon decided to officially align with Carthage under the command of the renowned Hannibal.
Hoping only to keep the former busy so they wouldn’t intervene on behalf of Carthage,
Rome sent some troops to clash with the Macedonians along the Adriatic until the Punic War was
coming to an end.