The End of an Era? Athens After Empire

[MegaArgus1]

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/178132

But what was Athens like after the Classical period? Alexander the Great’s father Philip II had imposed Macedonian rule over Greece in 338 when he defeated a coalition Greek army at Chaeronea (in Boeotia). That rule continued for almost two centuries until Macedonia fell to the new power of the Mediterranean, Rome, which made Greece part of its empire in 146 (dates are BC). Commonly called the “Hellenistic” period, from Alexander’s death in 323 to Rome’s conquest of Egypt in 30 (which gave Rome mastery of the entire Mediterranean), Hellenistic Athens is normally viewed as a sad relative of its Classical self – subjected to outside rule; its democracy curtailed; its military next to nothing; its economy shattered; its population cowed; its intellectual and cultural life stifled; even aspects of its culture appropriated by the Romans for their own needs.
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Athenians fought their Macedonian masters when they could, no matter the odds, and sided with foreign rulers against Rome, in the hope of regaining freedom and restoring democracy. They were subjected to Macedonian garrisons in the port of Piraeus and in the city itself, and under Rome were forced to share the Acropolis, the sacred home of their patron deity Athena, with the goddess Roma as part of an imperial cult.

[Dianatomia]

Athenians were right to fight the Macedonians. The Athenians had an empire which ruled most of Greece. Including parts of Macedonia. This was under direct threat. Turns out the Macedonians brought an end to that. The Athenian Empire fell to the Macedonians. From an Athenian perspective, this was a bad occurrence. From a larger Greek perspective, this turned out to be rather good, culminating to the Hellenistic era.