Livy, a Roman writing under Augustus, composed this History of Rome. Book 44 is one volume in that long work. The war with Perseus, king of Macedon — roughly northern Greece and the nearby Balkans — has been a grind of supply, discipline, and cities granting or refusing bases. Rome, still a republic run by a senate and elected officials, now sends Lucius Aemilius Paullus to finish it.

In 168 BC they meet at Pydna. The Macedonian phalanx, a dense block of long pikes, loses its order on broken ground. Legionaries — men of a Roman army unit — pour into the gaps. Macedon’s last great royal host dies in an afternoon. Perseus flees and is taken, a king packed for a Roman spectacle. The monarchy is finished. Spoils and captives start the walk toward Italy. Paullus curbs plunder and plays the cultivated victor. Livy sets the day beside older Roman wins: after this, there is no second Macedon.