Titus Quinctius Flamininus

Titus Quinctius Flamininus

Titus Quinctius Flamininus (* around 230 BC; † 174 BC ) was a Roman politician and general, best known for his victory over Macedonia in the Second Macedonian-Roman War . He belonged to the family of the Quinctii Flaminini and had a brother who was about a year older, Lucius Quinctius Flamininus .

Flamininus served in several functions as a soldier in the last years of the Second Punic War and as a decemvir for the settlement of veterans after the war . Around 200/199 BC He was quaestor and was already 198 BC. Chr. To consul , chosen even though he of the other offices cursus honorum had not dressed and was only about 30 years old.

As consul he took over the supreme command in the war against Philip V of Macedonia, which he kept as proconsul in the following years . In June 197 BC He achieved the decisive victory over Philip in the battle of Kynoskephalai . He made a peace with the king in which Macedonia promised to withdraw from Greece .

At the Isthmian Games in the spring of 196 BC BC Flamininus proclaimed the autonomy of the Greek poleis . He received numerous honors from the Greeks, including his portrait on gold coins. In the following years he stayed in Greece to settle minor conflicts.

194 BC After a campaign against the Spartan King Nabis , Flamininus withdrew with his troops from Greece and celebrated a triumph in Rome . 189 BC He became a censor . In the following years he was diplomatically active several times in the Eastern Mediterranean, for example as an envoy to King Prusias I of Bithynia to demand the extradition of Hannibal .

Flamininus is remembered as one of the most important Roman Philhellenes , even if the Roman Republic pursued a stronger power politics against Greece in the following decades. Emperor Nero referred in his declaration of freedom for the Greeks in 67 AD (also in the Isthmia) to the model of Flamininus.

The most important sources for the life of Flamininus are the corresponding books in the historical works of Polybius and Titus Livius as well as Plutarch's biography.

A son or nephew of the same name was born in 150 BC. BC Consul, whose son, who was also called Titus Quinctius Flamininus , dressed in 123 BC. The consulate.

swell

• Polybios , Historien XVIII.1-12.18-27.33-39.

literature

• Linda-Marie Günther : Titus Quinctius Flamininus - Greek friend based on feeling or calculation? In: Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp , Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp (ed.): From Romulus to Augustus. Great figures of the Roman Republic. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46697-4 , pp. 120-130.
• Rene Pfeilschifter : Titus Quinctius Flamininus. Investigations into the Roman politics of Greece (= Hypomnemata . No. 162). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-25261-7 .

Web links

Commons : Titus Quinctius Flamininus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Titus Quinctius Flamininus in the catalog of the German National Library