Titus Quinctius Flamininus (c.
228 BC –
174 BC) was a
Roman politician and general instrumental in the Roman conquest of
Greece.
Member of the
gens Quinctia, he served as a military
tribune in the
Second Punic war and in 205 BC he was appointed
propraetor in
Tarentum. He was a
curule aedile in
Rome in 203 BC and a
quaestor in 199 BC. He became
consul in 198 BC, despite being only about thirty years old, younger than the constitutional age required to serve in that position. As Livy records, two tribunes,
Marcus Fulvius and
Manius Curius publicly opposed his candidacy for consulship, as he was just a quaestor, but the Senate overrode the opposition and he was elected along with
Sextus Aelius Paulus.
After his election to the consulship he was chosen to replace
Publius Sulpicius Galba who was consul with Gaius Aurelius in 200 BC, according to Livy, as general during the
Second Macedonian War. He chased
Philip V of Macedon out of most of
Greece, except for a few fortresses, defeating him at the
Battle of the Aous, but as his term as consul was coming to an end he attempted to establish a peace with the Macedonian king. During the negotiations, Flamininus was made
proconsul, giving him the authority to continue the war rather than finishing the negotiations. In 197 BC he defeated Philip at the
Battle of Cynoscephalae in
Thessaly, the Roman
legions making the
Macedonian phalanx obsolete in the process. Philip was forced to surrender, give up all the Greek cities he had conquered, and pay Rome 1,000
talents, but his kingdom was left intact to serve as a buffer state between
Greece and
Illyria. This displeased the
Achaean League, Rome's allies in Greece, who wanted Macedon to be dismantled completely.
During the period from 197 to 194 BC, from his seat in Elateia, Flamininus directed the political affairs of the Greek states. In
196 BC Flamininus appeared at the
Isthmian Games in
Corinth and proclaimed the freedom of the Greek states. He was fluent in
Greek and was a great admirer of Greek culture, and the Greeks hailed him as their liberator; they minted coins with his portrait, and in some cities he was deified. According to
Livy, this was the act of an unselfish Hellenophile, although it seems more likely that Flamininus understood freedom as liberty for the aristocracy of Greece, who would then become clients of Rome, as opposed to being subjected to Macedonian rule.
With his Greek allies, Flamininus plundered Sparta, before returning to Rome in triumph along with 1200 freed slaves who had been taken captive and sold in Greece during the
Second Punic War.
Meanwhile,
Eumenes II of
Pergamum appealed to Rome for help against the
Seleucid king
Antiochus III. Flamininus was sent to negotiate with him in 192 BC, and warned him not to interfere with the Greek states. Antiochus did not believe Flamininus had the authority to speak for the Greeks, and promised to leave Greece alone only if the Romans did the same. These negotiations came to nothing and Rome was soon at war with Antiochus. Flamininus was present at the
Battle of Thermopylae in 191 BC, in which Antiochus was defeated.
In 183 BC he was sent to negotiate with
Prusias I of
Bithynia in an attempt to capture
Hannibal, who had been exiled there from
Carthage, but Hannibal committed suicide to avoid being taken prisoner. Although nothing is known of him after this, Flamininus seems to have died around 174.
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