Titus Flamininus

Titus Quinctius Flamininus
Coin of Titus Quinctius Flamininus. British Museum
Consul of the Roman Republic
In office 198 BC – 198 BC
Preceded by	Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Publius Villius Tappulus
Succeeded by	Gaius Cornelius Cethegus and Quintus Minucius Rufus
Censor of the Roman Republic
In office 189 BC – 189 BC
Preceded by	Sextus Aelius Paetus Catus and Gaius Cornelius Cethegus
Succeeded by	Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Cato the Elder
Personal details
Born	c. 229 BC. Rome, Roman Republic
Died	174 BC Rome

Titus Quinctius Flamininus (/ˌflæmɪˈnaɪnəs/ FLAM-i-NY-nəs; c. 229–174 BC) was a Roman politician and general instrumental in the Roman conquest of Greece.

A member of the patrician gens Quinctia, and brother to Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, he served as a military tribune in the Second Punic war and in 205 BC he was appointed propraetor in Tarentum. He was a quaestor in 199 BC. He became consul in 198 BC, despite being only about thirty years old, younger than the constitutional age required to serve in that position. As Livy records, two tribunes, Marcus Fulvius and Manius Curius, publicly opposed his candidacy for consulship, as he was just a quaestor, but the Senate overrode the opposition and he was elected along with Sextus Aelius Paetus.

After his election to the consulship he was chosen to replace Publius Sulpicius Galba who was consul with Gaius Aurelius in 200 BC, according to Livy, as general during the Second Macedonian War. He chased Philip V of Macedon out of most of Greece, except for a few fortresses, defeating him at the Battle of the Aous, but as his term as consul was coming to an end he attempted to establish a peace with the Macedonian king. During the negotiations, Flamininus was made proconsul, giving him the authority to continue the war rather than finishing the negotiations. In 197 BC he defeated Philip at the Battle of Cynoscephalae in Thessaly, the Roman legions making the Macedonian phalanx obsolete in the process. Philip was forced to surrender, give up all the Greek cities he had conquered, and pay Rome 1,000 talents, but his kingdom was left intact to serve as a buffer state between Greece and Illyria. This displeased the Achaean League, Rome's allies in Greece, who wanted Macedon to be dismantled completely.