The final campaign against the Macedonians was opened in 169 B.C., and in the next year they were overwhelmed at the decisive battle of Pydna. Macedonia and the adjacent state of Illyria became tributary, and eventually were reduced to Roman provinces. The Romans then felt the necessity of definitely annexing Greece. Seventy towns in that country were plundered and 150,000 inhabitants were sold into slavery. Antiochus IV., Epiphanes, was now king of Syria and Palestine, and had possessed himself of almost the whole of Egypt. Such was the effect of the battle of Pydna, however, that he was at once compelled to hand over Egypt to the conquerors, and that country became a Roman protectorate. Syria passed under Roman control at the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, in 164, and by the end of a few decades all the states of Asia Minor had been incorporated. Thus by the middle of this century the Republic of Rome had gained ascendancy east and west. Its senate was recognised by the civilised world as "the supreme tribunal for kings and nations." Early in the next century Dalmatia and Thrace were subdued, and the latter was incorporated in the province of Macedonia. Wars with Mithradates, King of Pontus, Cappadocia and Armenia, resulted in the conquest of all his territories, and provinces were formed out of the states from thence westward to the Ægean sea. Palestine Annexed. This century saw the actual interference of Rome in the affairs of Judæa. Syria had been made a province in 65 B.C. by the Roman General Pompey, and from thence he intervened in a strife which had for some time been raging amongst the leaders of the Jews. In 63 he marched an army into Judæa and took Jerusalem. At the final assault upon the Temple 12,000 Jews perished. Judæa thus passed under the iron heel. As a result of the wars of Cæsar in north-western Europe, in 58-51 B.C., what are now Switzerland, France, and Belgium were subdued and Britain was invaded. By Cæsar also Roman authority in Africa was consolidated across the entire length of the north of the continent. The conquests of Rome as a Republic were complete. The Mediterranean had become a "Roman lake." [Illustration: THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN APOSTOLIC TIMES.] The Empire Completed.