Rome proceeds in 167 BCE to punish…

Rome proceeds in 167 BCE to punish those who had sided with Perseus (such as the Illyrian Genthius), those whose loyalty had wavered (such as Eumenes), and even those who had contemplated acting as mediators in the war (such as the Rhodians).

Enslavement is a common fate for the defeated: the Romans had enslaved five thousand Macedonians in 197 BCE; five thousand Histri (Illyrians of Istria) in 177 BCE; and in 174 BCE an unspecified number of Sardinians, but so many that “Sardinian” will become a byword for “cheap” slave.

These are only a few examples for which the sources happen to give numbers.

More slaves flood into Italy after Rome destabilizes the eastern Mediterranean in 167 BCE, enslaving one hundred and fifty thousand Epirotes in this year, giving pirates and bandits the opportunity to carry off local peoples of Anatolia and sell them on the block at Delos by the thousands. (Delos, independent since 322 BCE, comes under Roman rule in 166 BCE.)