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THE SELEUCID EMPIRE. 358-251 BC. HOUSE OF SELEUCUS

CHAPTER 21.

THE WAR IN ASIA

Antiochus, we are told, did not at first understand the import of what had happened. He had struck a blow for Greece; the blow had failed; that was all; the status quo, which the Romans had wished to preserve, was restored. It was mortifying, but he must wait for another occasion. Our account goes on to say that it was Hannibal, now once more listened to with respect, who enlightened him as to the true position. Thoas also and the Aetolian envoys, instead of thwarting Hannibal as before, spoke to a similar effect. Antiochus felt himself to have retired to Asia Minor only as to a vantage ground, from which to spring again on Greece. But the Romans were not the people to submit to such a menace; Antiochus must expect to be struck at nearer home. Last year the problem before him had been to make sure the defences of Greece; now the problem was to make sure those of Asia.

It must be recognized that the position of Antiochus for defense, in spite of the catastrophe in Europe, was a strong one. The circumstances to which his defeat in Greece had been due, the difficulty of procuring reinforcements and supplies, did not exist on the eastern side of the Aegean. If the Romans had beaten him, it had been so far with the superiority of numbers on their side. It would be the Romans who would feel the difficulty of transport in undertaking a war in Asia. They had never yet sent an army so far from home, and, as a matter of fact, regarded the necessity of doing so with considerable apprehension. Even if their soldiers were better than the levies of Asia, they were confronted with the initial difficulty of getting them to Asia at all. The Asiatic dominions of Antiochus could be approached by water only; it was obvious that the first question to settle was the command of the sea. At one point indeed—the Hellespont—Asia almost touched Europe, but both shores of the Hellespont were in Seleucid occupation. The passage of an army through Thrace was under no circumstances easy; Antiochus by a prudent defence could make it almost impossible. The possession of Thrace was a great addition to his strength.

As soon as Antiochus realized the imminence of a Roman attack he took measures to secure both the sea and the Thracian Chersonese. To the latter he himself repaired with the ships in readiness, in order to superintend with his own eyes the dispositions for defense. Sestos and Abydos were strengthened; Lysimachia was made a great depôt. The guard of the sea was committed to the royal admiral, Polyxenidas of Rhodes, who was ordered to mobilize the rest of the fleet and actively patrol the islands (latter part of 191).

A dispatch from Polyxenidas soon called the King back to Ephesus; it announced that a Roman fleet was at anchor in the harbor of Delos.

The Romans were already about to take the offensive at sea. To do this was not only a prerequisite to an eventual invasion of Asia; so long as Antiochus threatened another descent on Greece it was an urgent measure of precaution. They needed to be masters of the sea, not only in order that they might reach Antiochus, but that Antiochus might not reach them. It must be remembered that when Gaius Livius arrived in Greek waters in the summer of 191 to supersede Atilius in command of the Roman fleet, the war in Greece was still going on. The Aetolians were making their stand at Naupactus, and rumours were flying of the Bang's preparations. Livius set out from the Piraeus to operate on the coasts of Asia.

For a naval war in that region the attitude of the islands and coast cities would be an important consideration. Even that part of Asia Minor which the house of Seleucus called its own was imperfectly subjugated. The coast had been conquered by the present King, after nearly half a century of separation, within the last twenty-five years, some of it within the last four. It was not a region where a long unbroken period of Seleucid rule had made its roots deep and its authority venerable. It did not confront an assailant as a compact whole. The cities, of course, differed in their actual status. Some, like Smyrna and Lampsacus, or the cities which had been freed by Rhodes since 197—Caunus, Myndus, and Halicarnassus—openly asserted their independence. Some, on the other hand, like Ephesus and Abydos, were completely at the King's disposal and filled with his troops. Between these two extremes were perhaps various grades of dependence. The majority of cities seem to have had no Seleucid garrison, but from prudence or inclination to have bowed to the King's control. With the appearance of a Roman fleet in this quarter we shall see a new situation created. The cleft of sympathies between the well-to-do classes and the populace, which had been so marked in Greece, then shows itself in the Greek cities of Asia Minor. The cities sway between the two opposing forces. Some espouse the Roman cause with zeal; others change according to the circumstances of the hour. We hear of none, except those with royal garrisons, which dare to refuse their harbours to the Roman ships when these come near to demand them.

The case of the island states was different. To these the conquests of Antiochus had not yet extended. But they had, no doubt, felt themselves threatened, and they embraced the Roman alliance as an opportune protection. Among these states Rhodes had the pre-eminence. The policy of Rhodes had showed some uncertainty in the last few years. It had offered bold defiance to Antiochus in 197 as an ally of Rome. Since then Antiochus had courted its friendship not altogether in vain. When the Roman ships first appeared in the East, the Rhodian statesmen, conscious perhaps of the dangers to Greek liberty from either quarter, hesitated for a space to commit themselves. But they soon made up their minds to give the Roman admiral their co-operation, and, once ranged on that side, left no room for reproach in the matter of zeal. Samos, one of the states which had recovered its independence by means of Rhodes in 197, Chios and Mitylene were also ready to throw in their lot with Rome. Delos, whose harbor had received the fleets of Livius, followed, as far as it could, a policy of neutrality, or rather of friendship with all the powers. It drew honors and presents from all parts of the Hellenic world, and would have been glad to alienate none of its benefactors. The gift of a chalice from King Antiochus is recorded in the registers of the Temple. But with the advent of the Roman forces it receives gifts year by year from their commanders.

It need not be pointed out how great an advantage it was to the Roman fleet to have these islands as points of support in operating on the coast of Asia. It gave them both protection and posts of observation close to the enemy’s positions. Chios became the main depot for the grain and other stores on which the Roman army depended.

But it was the Pergamene kingdom upon which the Romans counted above all else. Eumenes was, of course, an energetic ally. He was to Asia what the traitor within the walls is to a beleaguered city. His local knowledge, his influence in the Greek cities, would be invaluable to an invader. His harbour-town, Elaea, would give them a foot-hold upon the mainland. His dominion cut off Antiochus from direct communication by land with the region of the Hellespont. Even for maintaining his position in Asia Antiochus depended upon his command of the sea.

The fleet of Livius counted eighty-one decked vessels, including the twenty-five taken over from his predecessor, and a large number of smaller craft. Carthage had sent a contingent of six ships; King Eumenes, voyaging home, accompanied the fleet with three. Livius was being detained at Delos by contrary winds when the patrolling ships of Polyxenidas got tidings of him. Antiochus, as soon as the news reached him, hurried back to Ephesus. At a council of war it was decided, on the advice of Polyxenidas, to engage the enemy before he was joined by the allied fleets of Pergamos and Rhodes. The Romans, it was anticipated, would make for Pergamos, and to intercept them the Seleucid fleet, with King Antiochus on board, sailed northward. This fleet was less numerous than the Roman, comprising only seventy decked vessels, and the ships were smaller, but Polyxenidas put great confidence in their handier build and greater mobility and in the local knowledge of his seamen. The enemy’s vessels were known to be carrying large cargoes of food, and so to be heavier in the draught. On reaching Phocaea the king's fleet got intelligence that the enemy was somewhere in the neighborhood. Antiochus had no desire for personal experience of a fight at sea, and was put ashore. Polyxenidas then moved south again to Cissus, near Erythrae, hoping to catch the enemy, but his maneuvering completely failed of its end. The Roman commander slipped past on the outside of Chios and got to Phocaea unchallenged. Phocaea was the first Greek town in the King's country which the Romans touched. It did not dare to offer them any opposition. It was then a short matter for Eumenes to proceed to Elaea and bring up the Pergamene fleet. The united strength of Romans and Pergamenes in decked vessels reached 105. Livius, having successfully effected the junction, was as eager for an engagement as Polyxenidas. The King's admiral waited for the enemy in battle order off Cissus, his right wing resting on the shore. The engagement opened with the capture of a Carthaginian ship by two of the King's. But it soon became apparent that the mobility to which Polyxenidas trusted availed little against the Roman tactics. An attacking ship found itself grappled by the iron claws of the ponderous Roman and the fight was transformed to a hand-to-hand encounter. The Seleucid left, where Livius directed the attack, was first broken, and the King of Pergamos, who was waiting in reserve, then flung his weight upon the right. The Seleucid fleet was soon in full rout. Thanks to its lightness it escaped with the loss of only twenty-three vessels, thirteen of which were captured. The result aimed at by Livius was completely obtained; the Seleucid fleet, if not annihilated, was beaten off the sea. When the victors, now further strengthened by a Rhodian squadron of twenty decked ships under Pausistratus, made a demonstration off Ephesus, the King’s admiral did not dare to go out to battle. Erythrae almost immediately after is found to have joined the Roman alliance. The season for active operations closed, leaving the Romans masters of the Aegean. The allied fleets separated. The Romans, after visiting Chios and leaving five vessels at Phocaea to secure its loyalty, beached their ships at Canae on the Pergamene coast and sat down to wish for the spring.

But although the operations of war were suspended, the leaven of disaffection probably worked strongly among the Greek cities of the Seleucid alliance. Cyme and the Aeolian cities generally, Colophon and Clazomenae had before long declared for the Romans. The ships of Cos came to fight alongside of the ships of Rhodes.

Antiochus saw that every nerve must be strained during the winter if the campaign of 190 was to stem the progress of the Roman arms. He directed his own energies to the massing of the land-forces of his kingdom. The point of concentration was fixed at Magnesia, about thirty-five miles up the Hermus valley, out of sight of the Roman fleet, but not so far inland as Sardis, which lay in the same valley another thirty miles farther up. Antiochus went himself for the winter to Phrygia, to supervise the movement of troops. All Asia felt the strain of effort. Every province from the Mediterranean to Central Asia sent its choice of fighting men. Along all the roads companies of horse and foot in every variety of habit were moving to a common centre; men of nations that had long ago ruled in Asia, Assyrians, Medes, Lydians; men of the Greek and Macedonian stock that ruled since yesterday; half-savage peoples of steppe, desert and mountain—nomads of the Caspian, Arabs from the south on their camels, yellow-haired Galatians, whose fathers had descended from the forests of central Europe. Once more Asia with its medley of nations was uniting to repel an invader from the West, as it had united a century and a half before to repel Alexander under the hand of the last Persian king.

But the great host gathering on land loomed still in the background. It would not feel the impact of the legions till the way was opened by the conquest of the sea. The war was still among the ships. The Romans had, it is true, the upper hand at sea already. They had driven the Seleucid fleet into its harbor. They had convenient naval bases in the friendly islands, like Chios and Samos, or in the coast cities, like Phocaea and Erythrae. They cut off the King's forces from the critical region of the Hellespont. But the King had not yet abandoned the contest. His fleet, if penned up, was not annihilated. The corsairs, who made common cause with him, might still prey upon the Roman corn-ships. And Antiochus was determined to make a supreme effort to recover the sea. Such an effort implied in the first place a great increase in the fleet. Hammers and axes were busy all that winter in the docks of Ephesus, old vessels being repaired and new bottoms laid down. This work was done under the eye of Polyxenidas. But it was still, as in old Achaemenian days, the Phoenician cities from which the Great King mainly drew his naval strength. And the task of bringing up reinforcements from that quarter was appropriately confided to Hannibal. In the second place, it was important to dislodge the Romans from the footholds which they had on land, or at any rate prevent them from acquiring any more. The islands, whilst the Romans held the sea, were out of reach, but the cities of the mainland might be coerced, conciliated or overawed. The King's son Seleucus was stationed with a force in Aeolis, to wait for an opportunity to drive the Romans out of the places they had already won, and to counteract their solicitations in the case of cities which were still wavering.

Such were the preparations on the Seleucid side. The Romans improved the inactive season by a raid, made about mid-winter in concert with Eumenes, into the country about Thyatira—an expedition which proved lucrative enough in the matter of loot. When spring drew on, Livius thought himself already in a position to achieve the great object of all his naval operations, to secure the Hellespont for the passage of the legions. On his way north he landed in the Troad, and, like Antiochus, went up to sacrifice to the Athena of Ilion. The petty towns of the Troad—Elaeus, Dardanum and Rhoeteum—put themselves into his hand. When the Roman squadron moved to the place where the transit of a bare mile of sea separated Sestos on the European, from Abydos on the Asiatic, shore, he proposed to reduce both towns. The Seleucid government depended for its hold in this quarter upon the strong garrison in Abydos. Sestos seems to have been undefended, and now, cut off as it was from the garrison opposite by the Roman ships, it first deputed the eunuch-priests of the Great Mother, the galloi, to deprecate an attack, and then formally capitulated. The reduction of Abydos was naturally a much more difficult affair. It was, even so, pressed by the Roman commander to a point when the King’s officer allowed the city to treat. But the siege was suddenly raised; tidings reached Livius of a grave sort.

He had not in moving north left the rest of the Aegean denuded. The main part of his fleet was still at Canae. The Rhodians, when Livius launched his thirty ships, were already stirring. A squadron of thirty-six sail under Pausistratus, a bluff and ingenuous sailor, was put to sea. But now, in the absence of Livius, a great blow was struck on the side of the King. The hand was that of Polyxenidas, and the stroke did him little honour. He secretly conveyed to Pausistratus the intimation that he was ready as the price of his return to his native country (he was, it will be remembered, a banished Rhodian) to betray the King's fleet to the enemy. He was to neglect preparations and give Pausistratus the signal to attack. The crews indeed of the ships disappeared in a curious manner from Ephesus, and such a device as their being moved to the neighboring Magnesia was remote from the simple mind of Pausistratus. He slipped into an easy confidence, and only waited at Panormus on the Samian coast for the signal of Polyxenidas. There he was, one morning, taken in front and rear simultaneously by Polyxenidas, and only five of the Rhodian ships escaped destruction or capture. Pausistratus himself perished in the attempt to break away in his flag-ship to the open sea.

The success, however shabby in its method, was substantial in its result. It was not the only one. Phocaea had been made the previous winter the station of five ships of the Roman fleet. The place was of importance to Rome from its neighborhood to Magnesia-on-Sipylus. It was also required to furnish its quota of corn to the Roman forces and a tale of 500 gowns and 500 tunics. These burdens, coming at a time of scarcity, raised murmurs among the townsfolk, and gave an advantage to the popular party, which here, as elsewhere, was less inclined to Rome than the governing class. The withdrawal of the ships when the ferment was once at work, instead of allaying it, only removed restraint. The presence of Seleucus in the neighborhood gave the King’s party, the Antiochistai, courage. In this predicament the city magistrates sent an urgent request to Seleucus to withdraw, declaring that the city’s policy was to remain neutral and await the event. The message only made Seleucus hasten forward to use his opportunity. A gate was opened by the Antiochistai and Seleucus took possession of the city. It was at once secured by a strong garrison. Several of the Aeolian towns, including Cyme, transferred their allegiance to the King.

Polyxenidas could filch a victory by the arts of an intriguer, but he could not use it. The annihilation of the Rhodian fleet gave him an opportunity to fall upon the bulk of the Roman fleet at Canae before it could be got down to the sea or Livius come to its rescue. This, in fact, was what Livius feared he would do, and evacuated the Hellespont with all speed to hasten south. But he reached Canae, and Eumenes Elaea, without seeing the enemy. The beached ships had not been molested. The incident was nevertheless an awkward demonstration that the King’s fleet, while it could hold itself out of reach, could keep the Romans and their allies to the strain of a close watch. Livius determined to remove his station to Samos, which was nearer Ephesus. There he was to meet a second Rhodian fleet of twenty sail, under Eudamus. On his way along the coast he made a descent upon Aeolis, and seized what he could of slaves or substance, in punishment of its desertion. He rallied his fleet, now joined by King Eumenes, in one of the harbours of Erythrae for the passage to Samos. Polyxenidas was on the watch. But again, although a storm separated the Roman ships, he allowed the scattered portions to slip through his maladroit hands and regain Corycus (the Erythraean harbor) in safety. After this fiasco he retired to Ephesus; the Romans crossed to Samos unopposed, and effected a junction in a few days with the Rhodians.

Things were now come to a deadlock. The allied fleets shut up Polyxenidas in Ephesus, but they themselves could not move away. And meanwhile the Hellespont was still in the King's hands, and a base for the cruisers which swooped down upon the Roman commissariat vessels. The Phoenician fleet was coming up from the east. Not to remain altogether inactive Livius landed a party of troops to pillage the country round Ephesus, but Andronicus, the commander of the garrison, drove them back by a successful sortie, with the loss of their plunder, to the ships. Livius now formed the naive project of imprisoning the royal fleet in the harbor of Ephesus by sinking hulks at the entrance. He had not time to make the experiment. Lucius Aemilius Begillus, one of the praetors of the new year (190) arrived in Samos to take over the command. The next bout in the struggle, opened by his arrival, is characterized by an unsuccessful attempt on either side. The attempt of the Romans was to establish a post in Lycia.

Such a move was prompted, so far as the Romans were concerned, by the necessity of intercepting the reinforcements from Phoenicia; but there was another motive at work. Just as the Aetolians had used the alliance of Antiochus to advance their own ambitions, so the allies of Rome sought to use her power for their separate ends. The Rhodians cherished the hope of adding Lycia to their dependencies on the mainland and designed to engage the Roman forces in the conquest. It was a Rhodian captain who suggested the move. In the unprofitable situation the suggestion was accepted by the Roman admiral.

Patara the capital of the Lycian Confederation, was the place chosen. But Patara was held by a Seleucid garrison, and the townsfolk offered so fierce an opposition that Livius, who commanded the expedition, now as a subordinate of Aemilius, abandoned the enterprise and, sending his squadron to Rhodes, himself sailed away home. The expedition had incidentally the result of evoking a demonstration of zeal for the Roman cause on the part of the cities of Caria—Myndus, Halicamassus, Cos, Miletus and Cnidus—of which the first three certainly, and the last two probably, had been for some time independent. Alabanda mentions in an inscription the services it rendered to the Roman armies, and these probably went back to the time before Magnesia. Mylasa also declared against Antiochus while the event of the war still hung in the balance.

The crux, of course, in the position of the allies was, shortly put, that the fleet was wanted in three places at once—before Ephesus to watch Polyxenidas, in Lycia to arrest Hannibal, and in the Hellespont. It could not be separated without setting Polyxenidas at large to harass the friends of Rome and attack the divisions of the fleet in detail. Polyxenidas understood the position and abided his time. However, after the failure of Livius the new admiral must do something. He felt that anything was better than to sit still in Samos, especially when another attack he had made on Ephesus had broken down. Accordingly, even at the cost of letting Polyxenidas loose, he determined to move the united fleet on Patara. The gathering of ships glided away from Samos sailing south. But the liberation of Polyxenidas would tell more heavily upon the people whose land was exposed to his ravages than upon the Romans. And the move of the commander was widely criticized by the subordinate officers, who reflected on the importance of retaining the good-will and confidence of their Asiatic allies. Aemilius was shaken in his resolution by these murmurs. The fleet got no farther than Loryma in the Rhodian Peraea. Then it returned after a mere waste of time to Samos. The Roman attempt to obtain a lodgment in Lycia had definitely failed. There were seen to be no alternatives between dividing the fleet and lying idle in front of Ephesus.

The attempt on the part of Antiochus which corresponded in time with these events was to crush the Pergamene kingdom, Seleucus first made a dash with the force he had under him in Aeolis upon Elaea. Finding it prepared for defence, he at once moved, pillaging the country as he went, upon Pergamos itself. Simultaneously Antiochus left his winter quarters in Apamea and advanced upon the Pergamene territory by way of the Sardis-Thyatira road. The motley host which he had spent the winter in collecting was soon encamped about thirty miles from Pergamos near the sources of the Caicus. In the absence of Eumenes, the government and defence of the kingdom were in the hands of his brother Attalus. But before the attack of the two Seleucid armies he could do no more than shut himself up in the walls of the capital and abandon the country to devastation. This was the posture of things reported to Eumenes on his return with the Romans to Samos. He at once hurried home and slipped through the besiegers’ lines into the city. A few days after, the fleet of the allies, still united, made the port of Elaea. The danger of his chief ally had seemed to Aemilius a justification for again relaxing the blockade of Polyxenidas.

All this while the legions were drawing closer. The nominal command was held by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio, but the real direction was in the hands of his great brother Publius, the victor of Zama, who accompanied him with practically proconsular power. There were the two legions of Acilius which the Scipios had taken over in Greece, and they had brought with them from Italy two legions more—a force (Roman and Italian) of 13,000 foot and 500 horse. In Greece they had found the Aetolians, after a vain attempt to make terms at Rome, still in arms; but in order not to be diverted from their main object, the Scipios encouraged them to renew negotiations. An armistice was arranged for, which allowed the Roman army to press forward to Macedonia. And in this way the hopes which Antiochus had built upon the Aetolian resistance collapsed. The march through Macedonia and Thrace was made as easy as possible by the zeal of Philip, who had repaired the road, bridged the rivers, and laid up stores of provisions against the coming of the Romans. The Seleucid occupation of Thrace since 196 seems to have rested upon the garrisons in Aenus, Maronea, and Lysimachia. But these places remained apparently on the defensive; no opposition was offered to the Roman advance. The real difficulties, it was apprehended, would begin when the Hellespont was reached. A check there might threaten the Roman camp with famine.

The rumor of their approach, as well, no doubt, as the consciousness that his attack on Pergamos was a failure, made the King lose all stomach for the war. He came down from the hills to the low country about Elaea, and leaving his infantry upon a neighboring eminence, approached the city with his clouds of horse and asked to treat. The answer, inspired by Eumenes, was that there could be no negotiations before the arrival of the consul.

Behind the walls of Pergamos and Elaea the enemy was out of the king’s reach. There was no time for a siege such as had given him Sardis, and Bactra, and Gaza in the glorious years of his reign. He could, of course, sweep the open fields, and his hordes in that spring of 190 made the gardens of the Pergamenes and Elaeans a desolation. Thence he passed to the plain of Thebe behind Adramyttium, the richest part of the kingdom of Eumenes, and gave it up to the will of his troops. Adramyttium itself he failed to take, Eumenes and Aemilius moving round into its harbor. Antiochus next went on to waste the territory belonging to the island city of Mitylene, which had joined the Romans—its possessions on the mainland—and having taken some obscure townships (Cotton, Corylenus, Aphrodisias, Prinne), returned the way he came to Sardis. Seleucus also withdrew from Pergamos to the Aeolian sea-board — a movement caused, says the account which emanates from the Achaean historian, by the damaging sorties made by a body of Achaeans whom the League in virtue of its alliance with Eumenes had sent under Diophanes, a disciple of Philopoemen. But if Antiochus failed to capture Pergamos, the Romans equally failed to regain possession of Phocaea. Reinforcements thrown into the city by Antiochus saved it. And the Romans resorted to as base a consolation as Antiochus—they wrought havoc among the shrines and works of art with which the neighbouring Bacchium was filled. In a word, neither side had succeeded in materially modifying the situation, as it had been when Aemilius first arrived, except that Hannibal on the one side, and Scipio on the other were come nearer.

Aemilius was reduced at last to divide the fleet. Eumenes and the Pergamene contingent were first detached to convey from Elaea to the Hellespont the material necessary for the passage of the consular army. The Roman and Rhodian fleets returned south to Samos. There a further division took place. The Rhodian fleet was sent to encounter Hannibal, and the Roman was left alone confronting Polyxenidas.

Eudamus, the commander of the Rhodian fleet, departed from Samos with the thirteen Rhodian vessels, one Coan and one Cnidian. On reaching Rhodes he found that the authorities at home had already anticipated the order of the Roman admiral, and had sent out a squadron under Pamphilidas. Their action had no doubt been accelerated by the fact that the Seleucid forces in Lycia were becoming aggressive and had beset Daedala, the frontier fortress of the Rhodian Peraea, and others of their towns. Eudamus hastened to join his ships with those of Pamphilidas. When he came up with him, Pamphilidas was off the island of Megiste, twenty miles beyond Patara, having successfully relieved the frontier towns. Eudamus took command of the united squadrons and proceeded to Phaselis, where he intended to lie in wait for the Phoenician fleet. But the year being at its hottest and the place malarious, the sickness which broke out among the crews compelled him to move on. The mountains of Pamphylia, unlike those of Lycia and Rough Cilicia, on either side of them, retreat from the coast, leaving a crescent-shaped plain between their feet and the sea. Towards the western extremity of this plain were the two Greek towns of Aspendus and Side, the former some few miles up the river Eurymedon, the latter twenty miles to the west on the coast. Each was distinguished by its steadfast enmity towards the other. In the quarrels which affected that region they were sure to be found on opposite sides. In the present instance Side was strong for the Seleucid cause; it furnished a redoubtable contingent to the King’s fleet, being ranked in naval prowess with the Phoenician towns; Aspendus, of course, held by Rhodes and Rome. When Eudamus reached the Eurymedon the Phoenician fleet was already in the harbor of Side. The Aspendiaus gave him the intelligence. On the following day the thirty-six Rhodian ships (thirty-two quadriremes and four triremes) moved along the coast in a long column, the flag-ship of Eudamus leading. As they rounded a headland before Side the anxiously-expected Phoenician fleet came into view. It lay before them in line of battle, forty-seven sail, among them three great ships of seven banks of oars, and four of six. Its right was commanded by a nobleman of the court, Apollonius, and on its left was Hannibal. Eudamus immediately accepted the challenge, and stood out from shore so that the ships in rear might form into line on his left. Before there was room for the Rhodian left to come up into line, the right was engaged by Hannibal. In spite of this initial disadvantage, the nimble seamanship of Rhodes gained the day. One of the towering giants of the King's fleet was disabled in a moment by the blow of a Rhodian vessel half its size. Where Hannibal was, indeed, the Phoenicians pressed Eudamus hard, but they were compelled to retire when their right was broken for fear of being cut off from the shore. Under some circumstances the Rhodian victory might not have been final; more than twenty ships of Hannibal’s fleet were uninjured; the Rhodians, owing to the sickness which their rowers had contracted at Phaselis, could not press the pursuit effectively; the Phoenicians had the friendly Side and the Cilician coast behind them as a refuge. But Hannibal could no longer hope to get his fleet in time past the victorious enemy, who henceforth lay to intercept him off Lycia. All that was necessary for the purposes of the war had been done; the Phoenician reinforcements on which the King counted were paralyzed.

The battle of Side spoilt the chance of Antiochus. Had fortune inclined the other way, the Phoenician fleet would have joined the fleet under Polyxenidas at Ephesus, and together they would have given battle to the Romans with an overwhelming superiority. And the command of the sea regained, the Hellespont would oppose an insuperable bar to the consular army, and place before it the alternatives of retreat or starvation. The land-forces of Rome, which could pierce to the interior of his kingdom, these were the enemy which exercised Antiochus; the naval war, wherever its battles might be fought, was in reality a struggle for the Hellespont. The King’s defences at the critical point were further weakened about the time of the disaster at Side by a diplomatic defeat not less galling and not less momentous. Prusias of Bithynia, after being beset with the solicitations of either side, at last somewhat unexpectedly ranged himself with the enemy. The letters of the Scipios had labored to show him how enviable was the lot of those princes who were clients of the Republic. And their force had been carried home by Gaius Livius in person, who, after returning from the fleet to Rome, had been sent out again as special envoy to the Bithynian king.

There was now nothing for Antiochus to do but to make a supreme effort with the fleet of Polyxenidas. The enemy’s forces at any rate were still divided, the Pergamenes in the north and a number of the Rhodian ships about Lycia. The King himself came down from Sardis to Ephesus that the encounter might take place under his own eyes. To draw the Romans from Samos, Polyxenidas moved out and attacked Notium, now a dependency of Colophon, and in fact its port. Colophon was the nearest to Ephesus of the cities which held by Rome. Antiochus brought up a force to Notium and threatened the town on the landward side. Aemilius had all this time been growing more and more impatient in Samos, and since Polyxenidas did not come out to engage him, had talked of going off to the Hellespont. When the cry of the Colophonians reached him he saw an opportunity for action at last. He did not, however, proceed straight to Notium, but northwards, intending to revictual at Chios and punish Teos on the way for promising the King’s fleet 5000 jars of wine. The wine dispatched from Italy to his own fleet had, he heard, been delayed by bad weather, and it seemed a happy thought to extort from the Teians those jars which they had collected for the King. Teos, on the neck of a rocky foreland, had a harbor on its northern as well as on its southern side. The Roman fleet sailed into the northern one and addressed their demands to the city. Polyxenidas was informed of the enemy's movements. He knew the northern harbor of Teos to have a narrow entrance, and thought he had the Roman fleet in a trap. Immediately the King’s fleet of eighty-nine sail, counting two ships of seven banks and three of six, made for Teos and concealed itself in a small island close by. Unfortunately the Romans had already removed to the other harbor, and instead of taking them in a trap, Polyxenidas found himself committed to another battle in the open. The Romans, on learning the neighborhood of the royal fleet, got to sea with some confusion, Eudamus and the Rhodian contingent in the rear. Between the promontories of Myonnesus and Corycus the hostile fleets came within each other’s view. Polyxenidas was advancing in a column in double file. The Romans and their allies counted nine ships less than the King's admiral, and he at once tried to turn this numerical superiority to account by deploying so as to outflank the Roman right. This device was foiled by Eudamus and the Rhodians, who came up with disconcerting speed to the threatened flank. The fleets after this were locked in a general grapple. Then the royal centre gave and broke; the victorious Romans passed through the enemy's line and attacked the rear of his left, with which the Rhodians were engaged in front. The royal right, seeing what had occurred and the flag-ship of Polyxenidas in flight, abandoned the hopeless contest and spread their sails for Ephesus. A naval fight in ancient times was made up entirely of ramming and boarding; in the art of maneuvering, necessary for the former, no seamen in the world could compare with those of Rhodes; in boarding, it was man against man, the Roman against the Asiatic, Greek or Syrian. The Rhodian fire-ships had also materially contributed to the victory. On the King’s side the loss was thirteen ships taken and twenty-nine burnt or sunk; the loss of the allies was only three, two Roman and one Rhodian. The King himself, his elephants and cavalry displayed about him, had watched the action from the shore.

After this third and decisive battle the naval war was ended in favor of Rome. That war had been to Antiochus all along a struggle for the Hellespont; with his final defeat he gave up the Hellespont for lost. It must come at last, he saw, to a battle of the phalanx and the legion, and with his impulsive precipitancy he abandoned everything but preparations for that encounter. His instinct was to draw his forces about him; Lysimachia, in spite of the entreaties of the citizens, was evacuated and its garrison recalled to Asia; the siege of Colophon was raised. For a time the garrison in Abydos was retained; then that too was withdrawn. The King sat down in Sardis, and sent his messengers to bring up troops from Cappadocia and from wherever else they could be found. He could not even spare a force for the relief of Phocaea, which the Romans soon after their victory had proceeded to besiege. The city, on being promised good treatment, capitulated, and its harbor was chosen as the station of the Roman fleet for the winter, which was now close at hand.

The evacuation of Lysimachia was an agreeable surprise to the Scipios, since the city could have sustained a long siege and created a difficult delay. In his haste Antiochus had even omitted to remove or destroy the stores of which it was full, and they were a godsend to the Roman soldiers. No enemy appeared to trouble their passage of the Hellespont; all the necessary material had been prepared by Eumenes and was waiting for them. With unlooked-for ease the Romans found themselves encamped on Asiatic soil.

Antiochus at his former overtures for peace had been told to await the arrival of the consul. While the Romans were still, for reasons connected with the religious calendar, halted on the shores of the Hellespont, Heraclides, a Byzantine, appeared in their camp as envoy from the King. He was instructed to approach Publius Scipio especially, both because of his reputation for magnanimity, and because his son had at some time during the war been captured by Seleucus, and was being treated with every sort of consideration at the royal court. Antiochus was prepared to make large concessions. The Thracian question, his envoy said, no longer existed, since Antiochus had already evacuated his European province; on the question of the Greek cities of Asia also he would give way, recognizing the independence of Smyrna, Lampsacus, Alexandria Troas, and all the cities which had allied themselves with Rome. That is to say, Antiochus surrendered the whole original ground of quarrel. But besides this he would pay an indemnity amounting to half the costs of the war. These overtures of the King were seconded by the city of Heraclea, which had been forward to confirm its friendly relations with Rome on the advance of the legions, and now endeavored to mediate between the belligerents. Possibly other of the Greek states acted in concert.

But at this stage the Romans could not be thus satisfied. “When the horse is bitted and the rider set, there is no easy parting”. They required not only to see the past aggressions of the Seleucid King cancelled, but to secure themselves against their repetition at any future conjuncture. Their demands were the whole costs of the war and the evacuation of all the country north of the Taurus. The attempts of the envoy to obtain a modification of these terms by an appeal to Publius Scipio’s private interests, whether by the offer to release his son or more vulgar forms of bribery, met with such an answer as showed that the ways of a Roman aristocrat were not yet those of an Oriental official.

On learning the answer to his proposals, Antiochus made up his mind to fight. The Roman army was soon in motion. It advanced along the shore of the Troad, whose towns had surrendered to Livius in the spring, and now received the western invader with profuse friendliness. At Ilion the Romans believed themselves to have come to the cradle of their race; it was a meeting of long-sundered kinsmen.

But the Romans were not come to Asia to indulge in sentiment; the season was advanced, and the Scipios were anxious to strike a decisive blow before winter should bring the war to a standstill. They marched straight for the upper Caicus, whence Sardis could be reached by the same road which Antiochus had used in his attack on Pergamos a few months before, the road which led up from the Caicus valley over the watershed between the Caicus and the tributaries of the Hermus to Thyatira, and thence to Sardis in thirty straight miles. In the Caicus valley the consul halted till the troops were fully provisioned. Eumenes, who had been left behind with his ships in the Hellespont and now overtook the Roman army, was sent to Pergamos to bring up the corn he had stored in readiness. The consul, Lucius Scipio, was at this moment deprived of his brother's direction; Publius had been stricken down with a sickness which compelled him to be carried to the sea, and he lay ill at Elaea. Antiochus, when he heard it, with a magnanimity that was showy rather than interested, sent him his captive son without ransom. From his arrival Scipio began to mend. His thanks to the King took the form of a piece of advice—not to risk a battle till he had returned to the camp.

This message caused Antiochus to retire to Magnesia in the southern part of the Hyrcanian plain. Near that city he took up a position on the left bank of the Phrygius, a tributary of the Hermus, and surrounded himself with such works as would defy attack till Publius Scipio returned to his brother's side. The consul, believing Antiochus to be still at Thyatira, crossed from the Caicus to the northern extension of the Hyrcanian plain, and then finding he had moved, followed him along the opposite bank of the Phrygius, and pitched less than four miles away, the river between the two camps. A skirmish took place on his arrival between the Roman outposts and a body of light horse, Gallic and Central-Asian, which the King threw across. Then after two days of in-activity the consul transferred his camp to the left bank, bringing it to about a mile and a half from the King's. Antiochus did not defend the river, but harassed the enemy without much effect whilst the new camp was being made. After that each day, for four days, the two armies deployed under their ramparts, but neither attacked. On the fifth the Romans came to within 350 yards of the King’s defences. Still Antiochus did not move. The consul, urged by the wish to bring matters to a decision before the winter, on the third day after again deployed his line in the plain. Antiochus was now obliged by the fear of demoralizing his troops to accept battle.

On the Roman side the four legions formed the bulk of the line, to the right of which were the Greek auxiliaries, Achaean and Pergamene, the Roman and Pergamene horse, and a body of missile-shooters, Cretan and Trallian (Illyrian). On the left, which was protected by the river, were only four squadrons of horse. A contingent of Macedonian and Thracian volunteers was detailed to guard the camp. The few African elephants were stationed in the rear of the legions. On the side of the King the phalanx, with its complement of elephants, occupied the centre, flanked on the right by Gallic, on the left by Cappadocian foot; beyond these were the various bodies of horse, covered on the left by the scythed chariots, and the missile-shooters, as usual, at the two extremities. The King himself commanded on the right, Seleucus and the King's nephew, Antipater, on the left, Minnio, Zeuxis and Philip the elephantarchos in the centre. The day opened in a wet mist, which had an ill effect on the Asiatic bows and thongs. When the armies engaged, Antiochus was once more betrayed by his characteristic impetuosity. The charge of the Iranian cavalry, which he commanded in person, drove in the weak body of horse on the Roman left, and Antiochus, just as he had done under similar circumstances twenty-six years before at Raphia, at once dashed forward in pursuit, taking no thought for the rest of the field. Whilst the King was following the routed squadrons up to the Roman entrenchments a fearful collapse was taking place on the other wing. Here the scythed chariots—a species of terrorism in which the armies of Asia found it hard not to believe—had been easily repelled by a shower of missiles under the direction of Eumenes. Their flight disordered the bodies of cavalry behind them, and, on the charge of the Roman and Pergamene horse, corps after corps broke and fled till the flank of the Cappadocian infantry was exposed. The Cappadocians fled. Then the shock of the Roman onset reached the phalanx. But the stampede of the left had already entangled the phalanx, and the Roman foot, when it came to close quarters, had little to do but butcher’s work. On the right also the Romans rallied, and turned the victory of the royal wing into flight. For a while as much of the great army as succeeded in gaining the camp held it against the conquerors. Then the camp was stormed, and its storm followed by fresh carnage. The King's army was practically annihilated.

That night the King passed through Sardis, flying, his face toward the east. He had come only to take up Queen Euboea and his daughter, and before dawn he was on the road to Apamea. Seleucus and a number of principal men had fled to Apamea from the field. From Apamea, Antiochus on the following day pursued his course to Syria, leaving his generals to rally the fugitives. In the regions upon which the King turned his back his rule instantly ceased; the cities sought with all possible speed to make their peace with Rome. Magnesia-on-Sipylus and the neighboring Thyatira surrendered the day after the battle. Next a deputation came from Sardis itself, even the soldiers of the garrison advocating surrender, in spite of the new commandant and the new satrap of Lydia, whom Antiochus had installed in his passage through the city. When the news of the battle reached Ephesus, Polyxenidas immediately took the fleet to Patara—as far as he dared, because of the Rhodian squadron at Megiste—and there left it, himself making for Syria overland. Ephesus threw its gates open to the Romans.

To Antiochus after the battle of Magnesia there was no longer any course open except to accept whatever conditions the Romans determined to impose. As soon as the consul reached Sardis and was joined there by his brother Publius, now sufficiently recovered, Musaeus, the King’s herald, presented himself and asked leave for his master to send ambassadors. This was granted, and in a few days the ambassadors came. They were Zeuxis, who had lately resided as satrap in the very place to which he now came as a suppliant, and Antipater, the King’s nephew. The conditions announced by the Roman generals were no more than they had been before the battle: (1) the Taurus to be the frontier of the Seleucid Empire, and the King’s hands to be held off Europe; (2) an indemnity covering the total costs of the war, estimated at 15,000 Euboic talents, of which 500 was to be paid at once, 2500 when peace was ratified, and the remainder in twelve annual instalments; (3) a supplementary indemnity to Eumenes of 400 talents, besides the arrears of a debt for corn supplied to the Seleucid government by the late King Attalus; (4) the delivery of twenty hostages, to be selected by Rome; (5) the extradition of Hannibal, Thoas and certain other obnoxious persons; (6) the regular supply to the Roman army of a fixed amount of corn till the conclusion of peace.

The instructions of the royal envoys were to secure peace on any terms that could be had. It was accordingly the next step to send an embassy to Rome to obtain the ratification of the consul’s conditions. In the following winter (190-189) the embassy, headed by Antipater, came early to Ephesus, where the consul had fixed his headquarters, bringing with them the required hostages, and amongst them a younger son of the King's, called, like his dead brother, Antiochus. They were conducted to Rome under the escort of one of the consul’s aides-de-camp.

The terms of peace, as outlined by Scipio, were ratified that winter by the Senate and the People, and a provisional treaty made with Antipater. The definitive peace was, of course, to be drawn up on the spot by the usual ten commissioners. The Taurus to be the frontier—that was the main principle. Beyond that Rome refused to interfere, even on behalf of the older Greek cities. When the Rhodian envoys raised the question of Soli in Cilicia, the Senate showed itself so disinclined to urge its emancipation upon Antiochus, that the Rhodians let the matter drop.

During the following year (189), the ten commissioners not having yet arrived in the East, we find the Seleucid court supplying com, according to the compact made with Scipio, to the Roman army in Asia. Seleucus, the King’s son, himself conveyed it to Antioch-on-the-Meander. Lucius Scipio had returned home, and had been rewarded for his victory by the surname of Asiaticus. His place was now taken by the consul Gnaeus Manlius, who, when Seleucus reached him, was just setting out on an expedition against the Galatians. Manlius insisted that the compact should be so interpreted as to include his Pergamene allies.

In the winter (189-188) Musaeus appears at Ephesus as the King’s ambassador. Antiochus is ordered to send his tale of corn, as well as the 2500 talents now due, to Pamphylia in the spring. The position of Pamphylia was somewhat ambiguous, since the irregularity of the mountain formation made it doubtful on which side of the Taurus it should be held to be. Antiochus still maintained a garrison in Perga. When the spring came, Manlius moved across the mountains from Apamea into Pamphylia. The corn and the bullion were being brought from Syria overland in waggons and on oxen. After the consul had waited three days the long train wound into sight, having found more delays upon the journey than had been taken into account.

Manlius now required the garrison in Perga to surrender the city. The commander begged for a respite of thirty days, in order that he might ascertain the King’s will. To this Manlius agreed, and within the given time an order had come from court for the surrender. And now the ten commissioners had landed at Ephesus and were proceeding up country. The consul returned with his army to meet them at Apamea.

The Peace of Apamea made the new basis on which the Seleucid house was to deal with the peoples of the West. Its main provisions were the abandonment by Antiochus of all the country beyond the Taurus and the payment of the war indemnity to Rome and Eumenes. How exactly the new frontier was drawn is obscure. The indemnity still due to Rome, 12,000 talents of silver, was to be paid, as arranged, in twelve annual instalments; and besides the money indemnity Antiochus was to supply 90,000 medimni of corn. There were important provisions intended to disable the Seleucid power utterly for offensive action in the West. The whole fleet was to be delivered up, and no more than ten decked ships of war to be kept in the future; these, moreover, were not to sail farther west than the promontory Sarpedonium, except when conveying instalments of the indemnity, ambassadors, or hostages. The war elephants of the Seleucids were to be all surrendered and no more to be kept. No recruiting officers were any more to set foot in the sphere of Roman dominion to raise mercenaries for the Seleucid service. Certain persons peculiarly obnoxious to Rome, such as Hannibal and the Aetolian Thoas, were specified for extradition, if they could be caught; but besides these, Antiochus bound himself to deliver up any subjects of Rome or Eumenes found in the ranks of his army. Other clauses regulated various minor matters, such as the protection of Rhodians trafficking in the Seleucid realm and their property. Twenty hostages were to be given by Antiochus, who could, with the exception of the young Antiochus, be changed every other year.

The consul swore to the Peace on behalf of Rome. His brother and legatus Lucius Manlius went with one of the ten commissioners to Syria to exact the King's oath and take security for the fulfillment of his obligations. The clause relating to the royal navy Manlius lost no time in carrying into effect. Polyxenidas, it will be remembered, had left his fleet at Patara. Quintus Fabius Labeo, by the consul's order, now sailed to that harbor and gave fifty ships of war to the flames.

The hundred years’ struggle of the house of Seleucus for Asia Minor had come to an end.