КРАЈ АХАЈСКОГ САВЕЗА
The End of the Achaean League

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the circumstances surrounding the beginning of the so-called Achaean war (146 BC) and the subsequent dissolution of the Achaean league by the Romans. The causes of these events, motives and explanations behind them are a source of confusion and disagreement for modern historians. The main reason for this is rather problematic, occasionally even contradictory, nature of the main sources, the book 38 of Polybius’ Histories and a segment of the book 7 of Pausanias’ Description of Hellas. In this paper the claim is made that the Achaean war was essentially a Roman surprise attack directed against a federation of city-states that displayed tendency for independence that was far too strong, at least from the Roman standpoint. Both Polybius and Pausanias (whose account is based on Polybius) describe and interpret events from a position that is distinctively pro-Roman. Polybius was not able to surmount political and ideological obstacles that stood in the way of objective analysis of the events. As in other places in his work, he decided that any serious critique of the Roman state, its representatives and their actions, is something completely unacceptable. Instead, the reader is presented with a contradictory narrative in which causes and effects switched places, the aggressor is painted as a neutral and well-meaning party, while the victims are forced to take the blame.

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