The History of Rome, Book III - Theodor Mommsen
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Rupture between Antiochus and the Romans
Antiochus took his resolution. A rupture with Rome, in spite of
endeavours to postpone it by the diplomatic palliative of embassies,
could no longer be avoided. As early as the spring of 561 Flamininus,
who continued to have the decisive voice in the senate as to eastern
affairs, had expressed the Roman ultimatum to the envoys of the king,
Menippus and Hegesianax; viz. that he should either evacuate Europe
and dispose of Asia at his pleasure, or retain Thrace and submit to
the Roman protectorate over Smyrna, Lampsacus, and Alexandria Troas.
These demands had been again discussed at Ephesus, the chief place of
arms and fixed quarters of the king in Asia Minor, in the spring of
562, between Antiochus and the envoys of the senate, Publius Sulpicius
and Publius Villius; and they had separated with the conviction on
both sides thata peaceful settlement was no longer possible.
Thenceforth war was resolved on in Rome. In that very summer of 562
a Roman fleet of 30 sail, with 3000 soldiers on board, under Aulus
Atilius Serranus, appeared off Gythium, where their arrival
accelerated the conclusion of the treaty between the Achaeans
and Spartans; the eastern coasts of Sicily and Italy were strongly
garrisoned, so as to be secure against any attempts at a landing; a
land army was expected in Greece in the autumn. Since the spring of
562 Flamininus, by direction of the senate, had journeyed through
Greece to thwart the intrigues of the opposite party, and to
counteract as far as possible the evil effects of the ill-timed
evacuation of the country. The Aetolians had already gone so far as
formally to declare war in their diet against Rome. But Flamininus
succeeded In saving Chalcis for the Romans by throwing into it a
garrison of 500 Achaeans and 500 Pergamenes. He made an attempt also
to recover Demetrias; and the Magnetes wavered. Though some towns in
Asia Minor, which Antiochus had proposed to subdue before beginning
the great war, still held out, he could now no longer delay his
landing, unless he was willing to let the Romans recover all the
advantages which they had surrendered two years before by withdrawing
their garrisons from Greece. He collected the vessels and troops
which were at hand--he had but 40 decked vessels and 10,000 infantry,
along with 500 horse and 6 elephants--and started from the Thracian
Chersonese for Greece, where he landed in the autumn of 562 at
Pteleum on the Pagasaean gulf, and immediately occupied the adjoining
Demetrias. Nearly about the same time a Roman army of some 25,000 men
under the praetor Marcus Baebius landed at Apollonia. The war was
thus begun on both sides.
Attitude of the Minor Powers
Carthage and Hannibal
Everything depended on the extent to which that comprehensively-
planned coalition against Rome, of which Antiochus came forward as the
head, might be realized. As to the plan, first of all, of stirring
up enemies to the Romans in Carthage and Italy, it was the fate of
Hannibal at the court of Ephesus, as through his whole career, to have
projected his noble and high-spirited plans for the behoof of people
pedantic and mean. Nothing was done towards their execution, except
that some Carthaginian patriots were compromised; no choice was left
to the Carthaginians but to show unconditional submission to Rome.
The camarilla would have nothing to do with Hannibal--such a man was
too inconveniently great for court cabals; and, after having tried all
sorts of absurd expedients, such as accusing the general, with whose
name the Romans frightened their children, of concert with the Roman
envoys, they succeeded in persuading Antiochus the Great, who like all
insignificant monarchs plumed himself greatly on his independence and
was influenced by nothing so easily as by the fear of being ruled,
into the wise belief that he ought not to allow himself to be thrown
into the shade by so celebrated a man. Accordingly it was in solemn
council resolved that the Phoenician should be employed in future
only for subordinate enterprises and for giving advice--with the
reservation, of course, that the advice should never be followed.
Hannibal revenged himself on the rabble, by accepting every commission
and brilliantly executing all.
States of Asia Minor
In Asia Cappadocia adhered to the great-king; Prusias of Bithynia on
the other hand took, as always, the side of the stronger. King
Eumenes remained faithful to the old policy of his house, which was
now at length to yield to him its true fruit. He had not only
persistently refused |the offers of Antiochus, but had constantly
urged the Romans to a war, from which he expected the aggrandizement
of his kingdom. The Rhodians and Byzantines likewise joined their
old allies. Egypt too took the side of Rome and offered support in
supplies and men; which, however, the Romans did not accept.
Macedonia
In Europe the result mainly depended on the position which Philip of
Macedonia would take up. It would have been perhaps the right policy
for him, notwithstanding all the injuries or shortcomings of the past,
to unite with Antiochus. But Philip was ordinarily influenced not by
such considerations, but by his likings and dislikings; and his hatred
was naturally directed much more against the faithless ally, who had
left him to contend alone with the common enemy, had sought merely to
seize his own share in the spoil, and had become a burdensome
neighbour to him in Thrace, than against the conqueror, who had
treated him respectfully and honourably. Antiochus had, moreover,
given deep offence to the hot temper of Philip by the setting up of
absurd pretenders to the Macedonian crown, and by the ostentatious
burial of the Macedonian bones bleaching at Cynoscephalae. Philip
therefore placed his whole force with cordial zeal at the disposal
of the Romans.
The Lesser Greek States
The second power of Greece, the Achaean league, adhered no less
decidedly than the first to the alliance with Rome. Of the smaller
powers, the Thessalians and the Athenians held by Rome; among the
latter an Achaean garrison introduced by Flamininus into the citadel
brought the patriotic party, which was pretty strong, to reason. The
Epirots exerted themselves to keep on good terms, if possible, with
both parties. Thus, in addition to the Aetolians and the Magnetes who
were joined by a portion of the neighbouring Perrhaebians, Antiochus
was supported only by Amynander, the weak king of the Athamanes, who
allowed himself to be dazzled by foolish designs on the Macedonian
crown; by the Boeotians, among whom the party opposed to Rome was
still at the helm; and in the Peloponnesus by the Eleans and
Messenians, who were in the habit of taking part with the Aetolians
against the Achaeans. This was indeed a hopeful beginning; and the
title of commander-in-chief with absolute power, which the Aetolians
decreed to the great-king, seemed insult added to injury. There had
been, just as usual, deception on both sides. Instead of the
countless hordes of Asia, the king brought up a force scarcely half as
strong as an ordinary consular army; and instead of the open arms with
which all the Hellenes were to welcome their deliverer from the Roman
yoke, one or two bands of klephts and some dissolute civic communities
offered to the king brotherhood in arms.
Antiochus in Greece
For the moment, indeed, Antiochus had anticipated the Romans in Greece
proper. Chalcis was garrisoned by the Greek allies of the Romans, and
refused the first summons but the fortress surrendered when Antiochus
advanced with all his force; and a Roman division, which arrived too
late to occupy it, was annihilated by Antiochus at Deliurn. Euboea
was thus lost to the Romans. Antiochus still made even in winter
an attempt, in concert with the Aetolians and Athamanes, to gain
Thessaly; Thermopylae was occupied, Pherae and other towns were taken,
but Appius Claudius came up with 2000 men from Apollonia, relieved
Larisa, and took up his position there. Antiochus, tired of the
winter campaign, preferred to return to his pleasant quarters at
Chalcis, where the time was spent merrily, and the king even, in spite
of his fifty years and his warlike schemes, wedded a fair Chalcidian.
So the winter of 562-3 passed, without Antiochus doing much more than
sending letters hither and thither through Greece: he waged the war
--a Roman officer remarked--by means of pen and ink.
Landing of the Romans
In the beginning of spring 563 the Roman staff arrived at Apollonia.
The commander-in-chief was Manius Acilius Glabrio, a man of humble
origin, but an able general feared both by his soldiers and by the
enemy; the admiral was Gaius Livius; and among the military tribunes
were Marcus Porcius Cato, the conqueror of Spain, and Lucius Valerius
Flaccus, who after the old Roman wont did not disdain, although they
had been consuls, to re-enter the army as simple war-tribunes. They
brought with them reinforcements in ships and men, including Numidian
cavalry and Libyan elephants sent by Massinissa, and the permission
of the senate to accept auxiliary troops to the number of 5000 from
the extra-Italian allies, so that the whole number of the Roman forces
was raised to about 40,000 men. The king, who in the beginning of
spring had gone to the Aetolians and had thence made an aimless
expedition to Acarnania, on the news of Glabrio's landing returned to
his head-quarters to begin the campaign in earnest. But incom
prehensibly, through his own negligence and that of his lieutenants in
Asia, reinforcements had wholly failed to reach him, so that he had
nothing but the weak army--now further decimated by sickness and
desertion in its dissolute winter-quarters--with which he had landed
at Pteleum in the autumn of the previous year. The Aetolians too, who
had professed to send such enormous numbers into the field, now, when
their support was of moment, brought to their commander-in-chief no
more than 4000 men. The Roman troops had already begun operations in
Thessaly, where the vanguard in concert with the Macedonian army drove
the garrisons of Antiochus out of the Thessalian towns and occupied
the territory of the Athamanes. The consul with the main army
followed; the whole force of the Romans assembled at Larisa.
Battle at Thermopylae
Greece Occupied by the Romans
Resistance of the Aetolians
Instead of returning with all speed to Asia and evacuating the field
before an enemy in every respect superior, Antiochus resolved to
entrench himself at Thermopylae, which he had occupied, and there to
await the arrival of the great army from Asia. He himself took up a
position in the chief pass, and commanded the Aetolians to occupy the
mountain-path, by which Xerxes had formerly succeeded in turning the
Spartans. But only half of the Aetolian contingent was pleased to
comply with this order of the commander-in-chief; the other 2000 men
threw themselves into the neighbouring town of Heraclea, where they
took no other part in the battle than that of attempting during its
progress to surprise and plunder the Roman camp. Even the Aetolians
posted on the heights discharged their duty of watching with
remissness and reluctance; their post on the Callidromus allowed
itself to be surprised by Cato, and the Asiatic phalanx, which the
consul had meanwhile assailed in front, dispersed, when the Romans
hastening down the mountain fell upon its flank. As Antiochus had
made no provision for any case and had not thought of retreat, the
army was destroyed partly on the field of battle, partly during its
flight; with difficulty a small band reached Demetrias, and the king
himself escaped to Chalcis with 500 men. He embarked in haste for
Ephesus; Europe was lost to him all but his possessions in Thrace, and
even the fortresses could be no longer defended Chalcis surrendered to
the Romans, and Demetrias to Philip, who received permission--as a
compensation for the conquest of the town of Lamia in Achaia
Phthiotis, which he was on the point of accomplishing and had then
abandoned by orders of the consul--to make himself master of all the
communities that had gone over to Antiochus in Thessaly proper, and
even of the territories bordering on Aetolia, the districts of Dolopia
and Aperantia. All the Greeks that had pronounced in favour of
Antiochus hastened to make their peace; the Epirots humbly besought
pardon for their ambiguous conduct, the Boeotians surrendered at
discretion, the Eleans and Messenians, the latter after some struggle,
submitted to the Achaeans. The prediction of Hannibal to the king was
fulfilled, that no dependence at all could be placed upon the Greeks,
who would submit to any conqueror. Even the Aetolians, when their
corps shut up in Heraclea had been compelled after obstinate
resistance to capitulate, attempted to make their peace with the
sorely provoked Romans; but the stringent demands of the Roman consul,
and a consignment of money seasonably arriving from Antiochus,
emboldened them once more to break off the negotiations and to sustain
for two whole months a siege in Naupactus. The town was already
reduced to extremities, and its capture or capitulation could not have
been long delayed, when Flamininus, constantly striving to save every
Hellenic community from the worst consequences of its own folly and
from the severity of his ruder colleagues, interposed and arranged in
the first instance an armistice on tolerable terms. This terminated,
at least for the moment, armed resistance in Greece.
Maritime War, and Preparations for Crossing to Asia
Polyxenidas and Pausistratus
Engagement off Aspendus
Battle of Myonnesus
A more serious war was impending in Asia--a war which appeared of a
very hazardous character on account not so much of the enemy as of the
great distance and the insecurity of the communications with home,
while yet, owing to the short-sighted obstinacy of Antiochus, the
struggle could not well be terminated otherwise than by an attack on
the enemy in his own country. The first object was to secure the sea.
The Roman fleet, which during the campaign in Greece was charged with
the task of interrupting the communication between Greece and Asia
Minor, and which had been successful about the time of the battle at
Thermopylae in seizing a strong Asiatic transport fleet near Andros,
was thenceforth employed in making preparations for the crossing of
the Romans to Asia next year and first of all in driving the enemy's
fleet out of the Aegean Sea. It lay in the harbour of Cyssus on the
southern shore of the tongue of land that projects from Ionia towards
Chios; thither in search of it the Roman fleet proceeded, consisting
of 75 Roman, 24 Pergamene, and 6 Carthaginian, decked vessels under
the command of Gaius Livius. The Syrian admiral, Polyxenidas, a
Rhodian emigrant, had only 70 decked vessels to oppose to it; but, as
the Roman fleet still expected the ships of Rhodes, and as Polyxenidas
relied on the superior seaworthiness of his vessels, those of Tyre and
Sidon in particular, he immediately accepted battle. At the outset
the Asiatics succeeded in sinking one of the Carthaginian vessels;
but, when they came to grapple, Roman valour prevailed, and it was
owing solely to the swiftness of their rowing and sailing that the
enemy lost no more than 23 ships. During the pursuit the Roman fleet
was joined by 25 ships from Rhodes, and the superiority of the Romans
in those waters was now doubly assured. The enemy's fleet thenceforth
kept the shelter of the harbour of Ephesus, and, as it could not be
induced to risk a second battle, the fleet of the Romans and allies
broke up for the winter; the Roman ships of war proceeded to the
harbour of Cane in the neighbourhood of Pergamus. Both parties were
busy during the winter in preparing for the next campaign. The Romans
sought to gain over the Greeks of Asia Minor; Smyrna, which had
perseveringly resisted all the attempts of the king to get possession
of the city, received the Romans with open arms, and the Roman party
gained the ascendency in Samos, Chios, Erythrae, Clazomenae, Phocaea,
Cyme, and elsewhere. Antiochus was resolved, if possible, to prevent
the Romans from crossing to Asia, and with that view he made zealous
naval preparations--employing Polyxenidas to fit out and augment the
fleet stationed at Ephesus, and Hannibal to equip a new fleet in
Lycia, Syria, and Phoenicia; while he further collected in Asia Minor
a powerful land army from all regions of his extensive empire. Early
next year (564) the Roman fleet resumed its operations. Gaius Livius
left the Rhodian fleet--which had appeared in good time this year,
numbering 36 sail--to observe that of the enemy in the offing of
Ephesus, and went with the greater portion of the Roman and Pergamene
vessels to the Hellespont in accordance with his instructions, to
pave the way for the passage of the land army by the capture of the
fortresses there. Sestus was already occupied and Abydus reduced to
extremities, when the news of the defeat of the Rhodian fleet recalled
him. The Rhodian admiral Pausistratus, lulled into security by the
representations of his countryman that he wished to desert from
Antiochus, had allowed himself to be surprised in the harbour of
Samos; he himself fell, and all his vessels were destroyed except five
Rhodian and two Coan ships; Samos, Phocaea, and Cyme on hearing the
news went over to Seleucus, who held the chief command by land in
those provinces for his father.
But when the Roman fleet arrived partly from Cane, partly from the
Hellespont, and was after some time joined by twenty new ships of the
Rhodians at Samos, Polyxenidas was once more compelled to shut himself
up in the harbour of Ephesus. As he declined the offered naval
battle, and as, owing to the small numbers of the Roman force, an
attack by land was not to be thought of, nothing remained for the
Roman fleet but to take up its position in like manner at Samos. A
division meanwhile proceeded to Patara on the Lycian coast, partly to
relieve the Rhodians from the very troublesome attacks that were
directed against them from that quarter, partly and chiefly to prevent
the hostile fleet, which Hannibal was expected to bring up, from
entering the Aegean Sea. When the squadron sent against Patara
achieved nothing, the new admiral Lucius Aemilius Regillus, who had
arrived with 20 war-vessels from Rome and had relieved Gaius Livius at
Samos, was so indignant that he proceeded thither with the whole
fleet; his officers with difficulty succeeded, while they were on
their voyage, in making him understand that the primary object was not
the conquest of Patara but the command of the Aegean Sea, and in
inducing him to return to Samos. On the mainland of Asia Minor
Seleucus had in the meanwhile begun the siege of Pergamus, while
Antiochus with his chief army ravaged the Pergamene territory and the
possessions of the Mytilenaeans on the mainland; they hoped to crush
the hated Attalids, before Roman aid appeared. The Roman fleet went
to Elaea and the port of Adramytium to help their ally; but, as the
admiral wanted troops, he accomplished nothing. Pergamus seemed lost;
but the laxity and negligence with which the siege was conducted
allowed Eumenes to throw into the city Achaean auxiliaries under
Diophanes, whose bold and successful sallies compelled the Gallic
mercenaries, whom Antiochus had entrusted with the siege, to raise it.
In the southern waters too the projects of Antiochus were frustrated.
The fleet equipped and led by Hannibal, after having been long
detained by the constant westerly winds, attempted at length to reach
the Aegean; but at the mouth of the Eurymedon, off Aspendus in
Pamphylia, it encountered a Rhodian squadron under Eudamus; and in the
battle, which ensued between the two fleets, the excellence of the
Rhodian ships and naval officers carried the victory over Hannibal's
tactics and his numerical superiority. It was the first naval battle,
and the last battle against Rome, fought by the great Carthaginian.
The victorious Rhodian fleet then took its station at Patara, and
there prevented the intended junction of the two Asiatic fleets. In
the Aegean Sea the Romano-Rhodian fleet at Samos, after being weakened
by detaching the Pergamene ships to the Hellespont to support the land
army which had arrived there, was in its turn attacked by that of
Polyxenidas, who now numbered nine sail more than his opponents. On
December 23 of the uncorrected calendar, according to the corrected
calendar about the end of August, in 564, a battle took place at the
promontory of Myonnesus between Teos and Colophon; the Romans broke
through the line of the enemy, and totally surrounded the left wing,
so that they took or sank 42 ships. An inscription in Saturnian verse
over the temple of the Lares Permarini, which was built in the Campus
Martius in memory of this victory, for many centuries thereafter
proclaimed to the Romans how the fleet of the Asiatics had been
defeated before the eyes of king Antiochus and of all his land army,
and how the Romans thus "settled the mighty strife and subdued the
kings." Thenceforth the enemy's ships no longer ventured to show
themselves on the open sea, and made no further attempt to obstruct
the crossing of the Roman land army.
Expedition to Asia
The conqueror of Zama had been selected at Rome to conduct the war on
the Asiatic continent; he practically exercised the supreme command
for the nominal commander-in-chief, his brother Lucius Scipio, whose
intellect was insignificant, and who had no military capacity. The
reserve hitherto stationed in Lower Italy was destined for Greece, the
army of Glabrio for Asia: when it became known who was to command it,
5000 veterans from the Hannibalic war voluntarily enrolled, to fight
once more under their beloved leader. In the Roman July, but
according to the true time in March, the Scipios arrived at the army
to commence the Asiatic campaign; but they were disagreeably surprised
to find themselves instead involved, in the first instance, in an
endless struggle with the desperate Aetolians. The senate, finding
that Flamininus pushed his boundless consideration for the Hellenes
too far, had left the Aetolians to choose between paying an utterly
exorbitant war contribution and unconditional surrender, and thus had
driven them anew to arms; none could tell when this warfare among
mountains and strongholds would come to an end. Scipio got rid
of the inconvenient obstacle by concerting a six-months' armistice,
and then entered on his march to Asia. As the one fleet of the enemy
was only blockaded in the Aegean Sea, and the other, which was coming
up from the south, might daily arrive there in spite of the squadron
charged to intercept it, it seemed advisable to take the land route
through Macedonia and Thrace and to cross the Hellespont. In that
direction no real obstacles were to be anticipated; for Philip of
Macedonia might be entirely depended on, Prusias king of Bithynia was
in alliance with the Romans, and the Roman fleet could easily
establish itself in the straits. The long and weary march along the
coast of Macedonia and Thrace was accomplished without material loss;
Philip made provision on the one hand for supplying their wants, on
the other for their friendly reception by the Thracian barbarians.
They had lost so much time however, partly with the Aetolians, partly
on the march, that the army only reached the Thracian Chersonese about
the time of the battle of Myonnesus. But the marvellous good fortune
of Scipio now in Asia, as formerly in Spain and Africa, cleared his
path of all difficulties.
Passage of the Hellespont by the Romans
On the news of the battle at Myonnesus Antiochus so completely lost
his judgment, that in Europe he caused the strongly-garrisoned and
well-provisioned fortress of Lysimachia to be evacuated by the
garrison and by the inhabitants who were faithfully devoted to the
restorer of their city, and withal even forgot to withdraw in like
manner the garrisons or to destroy the rich magazines at Aenus and
Maronea; and on the Asiatic coast he opposed not the slightest
resistance to the landing of the Romans, but on the contrary, while
it was taking place, spent his time at Sardes in upbraiding destiny.
It is scarcely doubtful that, had he but provided for the defence of
Lysimachia down to the no longer distant close of the summer, and
moved forward his great army to the Hellespont, Scipio would have
been compelled to take up winter quarters on the European shore,
in a position far from being, in a military or political point
of view, secure.
While the Romans, after disembarking on the Asiatic shore, paused for
some days to refresh themselves and to await their leader who was
detained behind by religious duties, ambassadors from the great-king
arrived in their camp to negotiate for peace. Antiochus offered half
the expenses of the war, and the cession of his European possessions
as well as of all the Greek cities in Asia Minor that had gone over to
Rome; but Scipio demanded the whole costs of the war and the surrender
of all Asia Minor. The former terms, he declared, might have been
accepted, had the army still been before Lysimachia, or even on the
European side of the Hellespont; but they did not suffice now, when
the steed felt the bit and knew its rider. The attempts of the great-
king to purchase peace from his antagonist after the Oriental manner
by sums of money--he offered the half of his year's revenues!--failed
as they deserved; the proud burgess, in return for the gratuitous
restoration of his son who had fallen a captive, rewarded the great-
king with the friendly advice to make peace on any terms. This was
not in reality necessary: had the king possessed the resolution to
prolong the war and to draw the enemy after him by retreating into the
interior, a favourable issue was still by no means impossible. But
Antiochus, irritated by the presumably intentional arrogance of his
antagonist, and too indolent for any persevering and consistent
warfare, hastened with the utmost eagerness to expose his unwieldy,
but unequal, and undisciplined mass of an army to the shock of the
Roman legions.