The Battle of Pydna

This painting, showing the surrender of the Macedonian leader Perseus to the Romans, followed one of the most important battles in history, the Battle of Pydna in 186 BCE. Never heard of it? Neither did I, until today. Alexander the Great was a Macedonian, and the vast empire he conquered was divided among his generals when he died in 323 BCE. Macedonia remained a powerful kingdom amid all the struggles of Alexander's successors, making and breaking all kinds of treaties with the other Greek kingdoms. But the end came in this battle, with the Romans.
The battle involved more than 80,000 men and 22 elephants. The Romans broke up and destroyed the classic Greek "phalanx" formation and slaughtered the Macedonians. Mass plunder and rape followed, for the Roman soldiers were unmatched in brutality. More than 300,000 Macedonians were sold into slavery. 
Macedonia was finished, and Rome was now the Great Power.
Never again would Greeks be more than second-tier players in history. The dream of Alexander -- one world under one wise ruler -- died at Pydna. All of this is a stern reminder that so much of history is brutal, horrible and inhuman, and that a turning point comes, and no one knows it is the actual end of something. If the moment comes that the United States, as a Republic, is "finished," no one in that moment will know it.
History is a long process. It is a text, written slowly and patiently, corrected by hindsight, and by shards found in ruins and lost testimony, but it conheres and makes sense.
Weep for Pydna, for Greece, for the glory of Alexander.
Tremble at the thought of the Roman wolf, the Roman eagle, ascendant.