This magnificent painting by Carle Venet depicts the triumph of Aemilius Paullus, the Roman general who defeated the Macedonians at the battle of Pydna in 168 BC. At that date, mid-way between the Second and the Third Punic Wars, Rome’s conflict with Carthage was still unresolved, but at Pydna she smashed the last remnants of Alexander the Great’s empire and opened the way for conquest of the East. A little over twenty years later Roman legionaries stood astride the towering crags of AcroCorinth and proclaimed rule over all Greece, and in the same year Paullus’ son Scipio Aemilianus took Carthage and secured Roman control over the west Mediterranean. Without Pydna it’s unlikely that either of those victories in 146 BC would have taken place as they did, so this painting represents one of the pivotal events of ancient history ...