183 BC

Events

By place

Roman Republic

• Roman colonies are established at Mutina (later Modena), Pisa and Parma in northern and central Italy.
• The Roman general Scipio Africanus dies at Liternum in Campania.
• The Roman statesman Titus Quinctius Flamininus is sent to the court of Prusias I, king of Bithynia, to demand the surrender of the former Carthaginian statesman and general Hannibal. When Hannibal finds out that Prusias is about to agree to the Roman demands and thus betray him, he poisons himself in the village of Libyssa in Bithynia.

Greece

• The town of Messene rebels against the Achaean League. When the Achaean League's general, Philopoemen, intervenes to try and control the rebellion, he is captured during a skirmish and imprisoned. He is then given poison to take so that he can die honourably.

Births

• Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, consul in 138 BC, who will have a prominent part in the murder of Tiberius Gracchus by leading a group of conservative senators and other knights in opposition to Gracchus and his supporters (d. 132 BC)

Deaths

• Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major, Roman statesman and general, famous for his victory over the Carthaginian leader Hannibal in the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, which has ended the Second Punic War and given him the surname Africanus (b. 236 BC)
• Philopoemen, Greek general and statesman, strategos of the Achaean League on eight occasions and a major figure in the demise of Sparta as a Greek power (b. 253 BC)
• Hannibal, Carthaginian statesman, military commander and tactician, one of history's great military leaders, who has commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (b. 247 BC)