The young Roman general Titus Quinctius Flaminius, a military tribune during the Second Punic War, has had a distinguished military career.

Elected quaestor in 205, he exercised the authority (imperium) of a praetor at Tarentum in southern Italy, and he twice (202, 200) has been involved in the distribution of lands to victorious troops.

These veterans help elect him consul for 198.

A philhellene, he goes to Greece with a fresh army to continue the Second Macedonian War.

After an initial victory over Philip, Flaminius devotes himself to winning over the Greek cities and leagues by diplomacy andin the case of the Achaean League, by force.

Flamininus has made allies of most of Greece by spring 197 BCE.

When the Aetolian cavalry prevails against the isolated Philip's forces at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly, the single decisive battle of the war, in which the Macedonian phalanx of heavy infantry had shown that it was hard to beat if it kept its ranks but vulnerable if it did not, …

Nabis had acquired Argos from Philip of Macedon, who was then still at war with Rome; he retains it by coming to terms with Flamininus.

Flamininus frustrates the attempts of his allies, the Aetolian League, to dominate other Greek cities.

At the Isthmian Games of 196 in a spectacular ceremony reported by the Greek historian Polybius, Flamininus proclaims all Greeks in Europe and Asia free and autonomous.

The inclusion of the Greek cities of Asia is meant to subvert Syrian influence.

To lend credibility to this proclamation, he successfully argues against senatorial opposition for the withdrawal of Roman troops from all Greece, including the strategically important “Fetters” (the key garrisons of Acrocorinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias).

Flamininus in reality has ushered them from Macedonian control into the fold of a Roman protectorate.

A cold war ensues, in which both sides claim to champion Greek freedom while negotiating for a realistic diplomatic solution.

Flaminius now accuses Nabis of tyranny, …

…takes Gythium in Laconia, and …

…forces Nabis to surrender Argos.

He assigns authority over a war-weakened Sparta’s seaports to the Achaean League as a reward for military assistance, but does not grant it possession.

Larissa, the chief town of Thessaly, has remained under Macedonia control from 344 BCE.

Rome makes it capital of the reorganized Thessalian League in 196 BCE.

The Peloponnesian towns on the coast of Laconia freed by Rome become members of the Achaean League, which is at odds with Sparta, wishing to bring Sparta into the league and to suppress the radical social program of its king, Nabis.

Flamininus in 195 supports the independence of Sparta.

All Roman troops are withdrawn in 194 BCE from Greece, where Flamininus is given divine honors.

Euboea comes under Roman rule; a priesthood to Flamininus is set up at Chalcis (which still survived in Plutarch's time), and a paean is composed to Titus, Zeus, and Roma, ending “Hail Paean Apollo, hail Titus our Savior” (or “Liberator”).

Flamininus' success is built on an ambiguity, however.

For Greeks, the proclamation of freedom means self-rule, but in Roman law a freed slave (libertus) becomes the client of his former master and still owes his patron respect and political obedience.