169 BC

__NOTOC__

Events

By place

Greece

* Macedonian forces led by Perseus of Macedon trap a Roman army led by consul Quintus Marcius Phillipus near Tempe, but the Macedonians fail to take advantage of their resulting superior tactical position.
* King Perseus asks the Seleucid King Antiochus IV to join forces with him against the danger that Rome presents to all of the Hellenic monarchs. Antiochus IV does not respond.

Roman Republic

* "Lex Voconia" (The Voconian Law) is introduced in Rome by the tribune, Quintus Voconius Saxa, with the support of Cato the Elder. This law prohibits those who own property valued at 100,000 sesterces from making a woman their heir.

Births

*

Deaths

* Quintus Ennius, epic poet, dramatist, and satirist, the most influential of the early Latin poets, and often called the founder of Roman literature or the father of Roman poetry. His epic "Annales", a narrative poem telling the story of Rome from the wanderings of Aeneas to the Ennius' own time, remains the national epic until it is later eclipsed by Virgil's "Aeneid" (b. 239 BC)