Battle of Callinicus

Significance

The Battle of Callinicus, fought near Larissa in Thessaly during the first year of the Third Macedonian War, was the opening major engagement between Perseus of Macedon and the Roman consul Publius Licinius Crassus. Although Perseus withdrew before the engagement reached a decisive conclusion, the battle was treated as a Macedonian victory on account of the heavy casualties inflicted on the Roman side. The result gave Perseus an early psychological and operational advantage at the outset of the war, demonstrating that the Macedonian army — supported by Odrysian cavalry under Cotys IV, Cretan mercenaries, and mixed auxiliaries — could contest Roman arms in open battle. For Rome, the engagement exposed vulnerabilities in the coalition force of Italian allies, Pergamene troops under Eumenes II, and Thessalian cavalry at a strategically sensitive moment, as the war was being fought on Greek soil close to the Thessalian capital.

Tactics

Commanders (4)