A religious synod meets in 196 BCE…

The seeds have been sown for the Romans' reentry into the East even before the Romans execute their planned withdrawal from Greece.

Antiochus sets out to recover the ancestral possessions of his kingdom on the western coast of Anatolia and in Thrace.

In response to the Roman demand that he stay out of Europe, the king attempts to negotiate.

Antiochus crosses the Hellespont in 196 BCE into Thrace, where he claims sovereignty over territory that the founding dynast, Seleucus I, had won in the year 281 BCE.

Ptolemy's concessions to the rebels and his eventual suppression of them are inscribed on a basalt tablet (later known as the Rosetta Stone) in a bilingual text dating from 196 in Greek and Egyptian (both hieroglyphic and demotic) and referring to known Greek names.

Made up of three translations of a single passage, written in two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and demotic), and in classical Greek, the Rosetta Stone is carved in a gesture of thanks to the priests for defeating Harmachis, about whose reign little is known as most of the relevant records were destroyed.

The text of the Rosetta Stone is a decree from Ptolemy V, describing the repealing of various taxes and instructions to erect statues in temples.

Discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta, a harbor on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt, it will contribute greatly to the decipherment of the principles of hieroglyphic writing in 1822 by the French scholar Jean-François Champollion.

Comparative translation of the stone will assist in understanding many previously undecipherable examples of hieroglyphic writing.

The King, though at thirteen legally an adult, remains under the control of his guardians and advisers.

To forestall further insurrections in the south, he extends the authority of the governor of Thebes to include all Upper Egypt.

A great portion of the Ptolemaic overseas empire has been permanently lost by about 196.

To shore up and advertise the strength of the ruling house at home and abroad, the administration adopts a series of grandiloquent honorific titles for its officers.

The naval war between the Ptolemaics and the Antigonids has continued intermittently through the second half of the third century BCE, until Philip V of Macedon, the last Antigonid king to attempt to establish a Macedonian thalassocracy, is finally beaten by an alliance between Rhodes and Pergamon.

A monumental column is dedicated to him in front to the large stoa of the upper terrace by the Macedonians by 200 BCE.

It is very probably during one of these episodes that the monumental fountain containing a ship's prow of limestone and the famous Winged Victory were built.

This could actually be a dedication from Rhodes rather than Macedon, as analysis of the limestone used for the prow and the type of vessel indicated that it came from Rhodes.

The eight foot- (two point four meters-) tall marble figure known as the Nike of Samothrace (also called the Winged Victory) depicts the goddess of victory alighting on a ship's prow, with her wings spread and her clinging garments rippling in the wind.

Created by an unknown, presumably Rhodian, sculptor between 220 and 190, modern excavations suggest that the Victory occupied a niche in an open-air theater and also suggest it accompanied an altar that was within view of the ship monument of Demetrius I Poliorcetes (337–283 BCE).

Rendered in white Parian marble, the figure originally formed part of the Samothrace temple complex dedicated to the Great Gods, Megaloi Theoi.

Prominently displayed at the Louvre since 1884, it is one of the world’s most celebrated sculptures.

Philip V, deprived of his Greek possessions, retains his throne and supports Rome against his erstwhile ally Antiochus, whose ambitions he fears.

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.