Rome and Achaea had been longtime allies for nearly half a century. However, tensions between the two polities had been building up in the last few decades, due to the growth of Roman power in the region, which had led to Roman desires to check Achaean ambitions and Achaean resentment at being reduced to a lesser position to their once-equal alliance. These tensions peaked in 149/148 BC, when Achaea desired to fully assimilate
Sparta into the league, which Rome opposed. The Romans sent two consecutive embassies to the Achaean capital of
Corinth. The first embassy, sent in the summer of 147 BC, adopted a belligerent tone, trying to announce the forced reduction of Achaea to its original, narrow grouping and sternly rebuking the League. This embassy was almost mobbed, leading to a second, more considerate embassy being sent, which was much more conciliatory and simply sought to achieve a peaceful settlement. It was better received, but there seems to have been a failure of diplomacy, which eventually led the
Roman Senate to decide on war against the League. It is debated as to whether the Achaean leaders deliberately provoked the Romans into war, or simply miscalculated the Senate's patience. The war was to be led by one of the consuls for the year,
Lucius Mummius, but while he prepared to sail from Italy to Greece, the Senate allowed
praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, who had recently been victorious in the
Fourth Macedonian War and was stationed in Macedonia, to act against the League. ==Prelude==