The Roman conquest of ancient Macedon in 168 BC put an end to the Antigonid dynasty and to the existence of Macedon as an independent political entity. After an initial, semi-autonomous phase, the entire land of ancient Macedon and much of the territories of its allies in Greece were lumped together in a large province of Macedonia with Thessalonica as a capitol and the seat of the Roman governor. Although established by one of Alexander’s descendants, Cassander, the city became important only after the Roman conquest. It was a typical Roman imperialist policy to cut any link to the earlier, independent political traditions of the conquered. From the time of the Roman conquest, the old capitol Pella slowly begun to decline and fall into oblivion. Thessalonica and the Thermaic Gulf were to be the new core of the province. In the first century BC, after the bloody civil wars, large numbers of Roman legionnaires were given land in this area. It came to be known as Campagne among the settlers, referring to a region in southern Italy carrying the same name.
Up until the time of Augustus and his descendants, this large province was merely a base for further territorial expansion to the east, and later, to the north, towards the Danube. After Roman power was firmly secured over Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula, two new provinces were carved out of the vast provincial territory of Roman Macedon. To the south, the province of Achaea was created including the territory of the old Hellenic city-states, and to the west, the province of Epirus, encompassing the earlier kingdoms of Epirus and Illyria. In the time of Claudius, Thrace was also constituted as a separate province. Thus by the end of the 1st century AD, the borders of the Roman province of Macedonia roughly followed the borders established by the last Macedonian kings, three centuries ago. Although in general, decline has been assumed after the era of Philip II and Alexander the Great, and especially after the Roman conquest, many of the old, pre-Roman towns continue to exist. The only Roman colony in the province of Macedonia was Philippi, a fact that clearly indicates that the land was still densely inhabited and urbanized.
The province of Macedonia was probably one of the quietest corners of the Roman Empire during the period of the pax-Romana, between the first and the later third centuries AD. There are very few mentions of the province in contemporary historical sources. This was to change after the great political and economic crisis that shook the Empires foundations during the third century. Under the emperors Diocletian and Constantine, many of the Balkan provinces were reorganized, usually divided into smaller, more manageable administrative units. Interestingly however, the provincial borders of Macedonia were left unchanged. During the period of Late Antiquity, the province was divided into two smaller provinces and then again reunited on several occasions, but the outer frontiers didn’t change. In historical documents dating to the fourth century AD, one hears of a province called Macedonia Secunda with the municipium Stobi as a capitol. Historians know very little about its extent and its border with Macedonia Prima. In later sources, dating to the 5th and 6th century AD, we also hear of Macedonia Salutaris, but historians are neither confident that this was the same province as Macedonia Secunda, nor are they certain about its exact location and extent. Judging from the fact that its capitol was Stobi, situated on the confluence of the Vardar and the Tzrna (the Erigon of Antiquity), it is assumed that this province was largely overlapping with the territory of the ancient Paionian Kingdom, rather than with Upper Macedonia that remained within the borders of Macedonia Prima.
By the Late Roman Period, the population of Macedonia was fully romanized. Only the name of the province kept the memory of the ancient kingdom of Macedon. The people used Greek and Latin as written languages, and were known as Romans or Romaioi in historical sources. This is clearly seen in historical sources from the time of the 5th and 6th centuries, during the period of the great invasions of German, Slavic, Hunic and Tartaric tribes. Here, the invaders are naturally always separated from the local population who are simply referred to as the Romans.
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