The first contact of Rome with the Greeks took place in the area of southern Italy. The Greek cities underestimated the Roman power and their first attempt to stop them from expanding to the south ended in the glorious fiasco of Pyrrus. By 270 B.C. the Romans had occupied-without any real difficulty-all of the southern Italian peninsula. This unfortunate-for the Greeks-turn of events did not make the rest of them realize the Roman danger, as the west was organized into a unified political system under the Romans. The Romans' first move to the west was invited by those Greek cities that were suffering under the Illyrian occupation. In 225 B.C., the Romans declared war against the Illyrians and they became the new occupying force of the region. Egypt, Syria and the Greeks "south of Olympus", saw this event as the only chance for the destruction of the Macedonian kingdom.

The three Macedonian Wars that started ended in Rome's supremacy in the east. In 219 B.C., Philippos V of Macedonia joined forces with Hannibal and attacked the Romans in Illyria. In return, Rome joined forces with the Aetolian Confederacy and Attalus of Pergamon and the First Macedonian War resulted in the Peace of Phoenicia. In 200 B.C., Rome entered the Second Macedonian War when Rhodes, Pergamon, Egypt and Athens appealed for help to face the fear of Philippos and Antiochus III of Syria. In Cynos Cephalas of Thessaly the army of 27,000 Romans defeated the 25,000 exhausted Macedonian phalanx warriors. Antiochus III of Syria, making no attempt to hide his desire to occupy the Greek world, provided refuge to Hannibal and assumed a definite anti-Roman attitude. The prospect of an expedition in the Asian territory was not something that the Romans desired but the conflict was inevitable. Antiochus' mistake not to aid the Macedonians against the Romans in the Second Macedonian War left him alone to face them with his back turned to the many dissolving Hellenistic cities. In spring of 192 B.C., the Aetolian Confederacy asked for Antiochus' help against Romans. Without a definite war tactic and ignoring Hannibal's advise, his army of 10,000 was destroyed. As he retreated to Asia Minor, the Romans followed him and in 189 B.C. the kingdom of Seuleukids came to an end. The destruction of the kingdom of Macedonia followed in 168 B.C.. When the Achaean Confederacy-a Roman ally-acted without waiting for the approval of the Roman Council, Rome punished it. The consul Lucius Mummius sacked and burned Corinth, sold its inhabitants to slavery and transported works of art to Rome (146 B.C.). An anecdote referring to his uncultivated nature says that, when carrying the Greek masterpieces, he made a stipulation that if a piece was destroyed it had to be replaced by a new one!

"...had we not been speedily ruined, we should not have been saved", Polybius declares and this statement reflects the future of Greek culture in the new Roman Empire that was emerging. The Romans conquered the Greeks, politically, only to be conquered by them, culturally. The Greek eminence in philosophy, literature and the arts was maintained, infiltrating the Roman educational system, transforming their legal system and all aspects of human expression. The two philosophical schools that mostly appealed to the Romans were the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Romans accepted the Greek ideas and aesthetics and transmitted them to the world they occupied. These ideas endured the barbaric tribes for five centuries and when the Roman Empire finally came to an end, they were kept to emerge in the form of neo-platonic ideas in the Renaissance.