Although the period of Roman rule in Greece is conventionally dated as starting from the sacking of Corinth by the Roman consul Lucius Mummius in 146 BC, Macedonia had already come under Roman control with the defeat of its king, Perseus, by the Roman Aemilius Paullus at Pydna in 168 BC. The Romans divided the region into four smaller republics, and in 146 BC Macedonia officially became a Roman province, with its capital at Thessalonica.

Egypt, annexed by Octavian in 30 BC, entered the wider Roman political and administrative system as a personal possession of the emperor, not as a province.