This, then, was the end of the kingdom beneath Mount Olympus, which had been the common point of reference for all the Hellenistic kingdoms of the East and had supplied succeeding generations with Greek ideals. It was essentially a nation state, in contrast with the "spear-won" kingdoms of the epigoni (Successors) in which the Macedonians were always a minority of foreign conquerors, a conservative country, certainly, devoted to its traditional institutions, so different from the immense new empires of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, with their heterogeneous populations. Far removed from the deification of leaders, from vainglorious titles, from the appellations and dooms of excess, Macedonia confronted its destiny as once its Stoic king Antigonos II Gonatas had confronted the highest office, which had been bestowed upon him: as glorious slavery!

A menace to the Roman Senate, the land of Alexander was divided into four merides (portitons), or economic and administrative districts, and the possession or sale of landed property between them was forbidden, as was intermarriage. The Macedonians were described as "free" (in reality, under the tutelage of the Romans), paid a tax and were obliged to maintain an army only large enough to protect their own borders against the barbarian tribes of the north. This regime, however, lasted no more than twenty years: anti-Roman sentiments on the one hand, and social friction between the privileged classes and the masses on the other, and above all the deterioration of the internal situation led to the re volt of Andriskos, an adventurer who claimed to be the son of Perseus. With the crushing of his rebellion by the Roman legions (148 BC) Macedonia now belonged to the past, even as a protectorate: the senate decided to turn it into a province (provincia Macedonia)- the first Roman province in the East - and incorporate it into the Roman empire, installing a governor with his headquarters at Thessaloniki and an army. The period from 148 BC to the advent of Augustus (27 BC) was undoubtedly one of the most burdensome for the country which, administratively, now stretched from the Ionian sea to the Nestos river, and from mount Olympus to the source of the Axios river: the continuous incursions of barbarian tribes (Skordiskoi, Bessoi, Thracians) throughout the second century BC, the invasion by the armies of Mithridates VI, supported by the Maidoi, the Dardanians and the Sintoi, at the be ginning of the first, and the upheaval, decimation and ravaging inflicted on it during both the first Civil War (Pompey-Caesar, 49-48 BC) and the second (Brutus/Antony-Octavian, 42 BC), turned the province into a huge battlefield, with severely adverse consequences for the land and its inhabitants.

The construction of the Via Egnatia from Dyrrachion to Byzantium (in a second stage) as a continuation of the Via Apia on the Italian main land, and the settling of colonists (Dion, Cassandreia, Pella, Philippoi) and Italian merchants may have transformed the economic and demographic face of the country, but it did not bring about the latinization of the inhabitants, who retained their Greek personality and speech to the end.

In a pacified empire, living under the protection of the Pax Romana in the rearguard of military enterprises, and a senatorial province from 27 BC to AD 15 and from AD 44 onwards, Macedonia moved onto a different plane. In the "free" cities of Thessaloniki, Amphipolis and Skotoussa, as in the tribute paying (tributaries) cities, the communities in time adjusted to the new state of affairs ordained by Augustus, while preserving their ancient institutions of government (assembly, council and magistrates); new town-plans were laid out, grand building complexes (agoras, temples) now proclaimed the glory of new gods and earthly lords, honorific altars were erected for select members and officials in a display of gratitude, and fine marble funerary buildings were designed to perpetuate the memory of simple mortals and distinguished citizens after their death. And it is the countless inscriptions - often verbose in their attempt to flatter - that preserve names, professions, lists of ephebes, artists' guilds, dedicators, religious associations, immortalizing the passing moment and completing the mosaic of our knowledge of a region of the Ro man world that appears to follow the fortune of a disarmed province. It is the inscriptions that in form us about the existence of koina - those organizations that stood between the Roman ad ministration and the local authorities; about the holding of games called Pythia, Actia, Alexandreia Olympia; about the occasional transit of emperors and their armies, and the anchoring of fleets. And of course, about the preservation in the memory of the Macedonians of the man who glorified their name to the ends of the inhabited world.

Forgotten in its wilderness, the province of Macedonia strengthened the fortifications of its cities - often, indeed, demolishing the adjacent buildings - when, in the middle of the 3rd century, the Carpi, the Goths and the Heruls reached the Aegean, laying everything waste.

In the twilight of the Roman gods, and of all the other deities of oriental or Egyptian origins for whom the country had provided fertile ground on which to establish and disseminate themselves, Christianity offered to Thessaloniki, Philippoi, and Beroia, resignation, redemption and life beyond death, from as early as 50 BC, when saint Paul the Apostle of the Nations preached the new religion. It prepared the ground for the resurrection of the dead and also for the regeneration of the empire. An empire tossing and turning amidst the instability of opportunistic government by a host of ambitious contenders for power, an empire in the chaos of economic decline, threatened with the breaching of the integrity of its borders by the repeated incursions of barbarian tribes, and humbled by heavy defeats on the field of battle.

The assumption of power by Diocletian in AD 280 - an event that formed a landmark in the history of the Roman empire and laid the foundations for a new era - was of the greatest importance for Macedonia, as for the rest of the empire, leading as it did to a way out of the crisis.

Diocletian's administrative changes returned Macedonia to her natural boundaries. Part of the diocese of the Moesia was assigned to the praeses (ruler), who was responsible to the vicarious (vicar), the supreme governor. The situation was standardized first as a result of the changes made by Constantine the Great, according to which Macedonia, along with Thessaly, Epirus Vetus and Epirus Nova, Achaia and Crete formed the diocese of Macedonia, and then in the second half of the 4th century AD when the diocese of Macedonia, Dacia and Pannonia combined to form the prefecture of Illyricum, with its capital at Thessaloniki; there were further changes, however, at the beginning of the 5th century, with Macedonia divided into "Macedonia Prima" and "Macedonia Salutaris".