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

CHAPTER 20.

THE WAR IN GREECE

The Great King was in Greece. He and his Aetolian allies were confronted by a twofold problem—how to make themselves masters of the country, and how to parry the consequent attack of Rome. They must proceed at once to the accomplishment of the first part of their task if there was to be any chance of their succeeding in the second. Greece lay before them derelict, left by the expulsion of the Macedonians and the retirement of Rome to its own caprices and powers of defense. The sudden move of Antiochus in entering Greece at that late season of the year, with many drawbacks, had one advantage. It had taken Rome by surprise. Rome had absolutely no troops on the east of the Adriatic except the force of Baebius at Apollonia—two legions with auxiliary contingents—which could not cross the mountains of Epirus till the spring, and the 3000 Roman and Italian infantry on the vessels of the praetor Atilius. Titus Flamininus and his fellow-commissioners had to depend almost entirely for stopping the progress of Antiochus upon the levies of the Greek states themselves, the states friendly to Rome. Upon these, however, they could count only so long as the states themselves did not veer, and there was, we have seen, in all or most of them, a party favorable to Antiochus. A series of not unlikely changes of government, if one may use the modern phrase, might put Antiochus ipso facto in possession of Greece. The only body of troops not drawn from the country itself which the Romans had at their disposal, beside the 3000 with Atilius, was the Pergamene force brought up at a fortunate moment by King Eumenes. His squadron had appeared in the Euripus just after the attempt of the Aetolians upon Chalcis had failed, and whilst Eumenes proceeded himself to Athens he had dropped in Chalcis, by the request of Flamininus, a garrison of five hundred. Only two years before the great Liberator had drawn the Roman garrison from that critical post with every circumstance of disinterestedness and magnanimity.

Antiochus and the Aetolians immediately put forth all they commanded of material force or diplomatic address to win over the cities and states of Greece. The Roman envoys, on the other hand, brought their moral weight to bear to keep the states faithful. There ensued everywhere simultaneously an intense trial of strength between the two parties. The Boeotian League soon began to trim. Even the favored Athens showed signs of unrest, and Flamininus was called in by the Roman party to drive the popular leader Apollodorus into exile, whilst an Achaean garrison of 500 was lodged in the Piraeus.

At Aegium, before the Achaean Assembly, the envoys of Antiochus and Flamininus met face to face. In answer to the royal envoy’s imposing catalogue of the nations which his master would bring into the field—Kurds, Parthians, Medes and Elamites—the Roman propounded a homely parable. It reminded him, he said, of a friend of his who set what seemed every variety of flesh and game before his guests, and in the end it turned out to be all culinary disguises of the common pig! All these formidable names clocked the same miserable breed of Syrians!—a statement of a fine free boldness in ethnology. Of the Achaeans Antiochus had thought it unwise to ask more than neutrality; but here the Roman influence was so strong that even this proposition was rejected and the Achaean militia placed at Flamininus’ disposal.

Chalcis, of course, was the point of the most immediate consequence to Antiochus. His first attempt to seize it had been conducted in person, as the initial step in that plan of campaign which he had concerted with the Aetolians. But the Roman party in power, led by the magistrate Micythion, resisted his overtures, encouraged, no doubt, by the Pergamene force within their walls. It could not fail to come now to an exertion of force, on the one side to capture, on the other to retain, the important city.

Antiochus, after his rebuff, had withdrawn to Demetrias to gather troops, and an advanced detachment under Menippus of 3000 was soon on its way, supported by the Seleucid fleet under Polyxenidas. This man, the King’s admiral, is the same Rhodian exile of whom we heard seventeen years ago as the commander of a Cretan corps in Parthia. Antiochus himself followed with the main body—6000 of his own troops and a hastily levied body of Aetolians whom he picked up at Lamia. The opposite side, on their part, hurried up reinforcements. Eumenes sent on an addition to the Pergamene garrison under Xenoclides, one of the chiefs of the Roman party in Chalcis; the Achaeans, at Flamininus’ suggestion, a body of 500 men, and a third body of 500 Romans (drawn doubtless from the ships of Atilius) followed at an interval. All these bodies were racing for the Euboean Straits. The Achaeans and the men of Eumenes arrived first and threw themselves into the city. Next came Menippus, and by occupying Hermaeum, the embarking-place near Salganeus, cut off the Roman force from the passage. The latter, on finding this, moved to Delium, twelve miles along the coast, in order to cross thence. War, in spite of all the diplomatic contention and the maneuvering of troops, had not been declared, but Menippus could now only preserve the forms of peace by allowing the Roman force to proceed. With this alternative he fell upon them suddenly, in the very sanctuary of Apollo, cut down the majority, and took fifty prisoners; only a handful escaped. The first blood was drawn in the quarrel For the moment the sudden stroke was brilliantly successful. When the King moved up to Aulis the Roman party in Chalcis were cowed and the city opened its gates. Micythion, Xenoclides and their partisans fled. The Achaean and Pergamene forces, as well as the survivors of the Romans, entrenched themselves in the little towns on the mainland opposite, but were compelled to evacuate them on the King’s promising to let them depart unmolested. The fall of Chalcis was immediately followed by the submission of the whole of Euboea.

The Roman commissioners were now unable to prevent the movement in Antiochus’ favor spreading like fire throughout Greece. Elis, by tradition associated with Aetolia and hostile to the Achaeans, notified him of its adherence. The Epirots thought it prudent to secure themselves on both sides by offering their alliance, but offering it on condition that Antiochus should move into their country. Boeotia ranged itself definitely at last on his side and received him at Thebes with popular acclamations. His statue was erected by the League in the temple of Pallas Itonia at Coronea.

A more useful ally than any of these Greek states Antiochus had in Amynander, the king of the Athamanians, one of the semi-barbarous peoples, akin to the Hellenes, who inhabited the mountain regions on the confines of Aetolia and Thessaly. Amynander was now to a large extent under the influence of an adventurer, who played a somewhat conspicuous part in the events of that time, a certain Philip of Megalopolis. This man was of a Macedonian family settled in Arcadia, and he made no less a claim than to be descended from Alexander himself. His sister, who bore the royal name of Apama, was married to Amynander, and Philip accompanied her to the Athamanian court as a convenient place whence he could blazon his pretensions to the Macedonian throne. Even if he was not taken altogether seriously by the world at large, Antiochus and the Aetolians thought it worthwhile, in order to secure the co-operation of Amynander, to encourage Philip’s ambitions. If they still had any hopes of the real King Philip’s help, this was hardly the way to make him their friend.

The King’s heart was lifted high by these successes. He was of too unsteady a judgment to feel how unsubstantial they were. He had seized the object of his ambition in the absence of the competitor; the real bout would not begin till Rome turned to recover what it had lost. The adhesion of Eleans and Boeotians, in the moment that he possessed the field, meant little. Their co-operation was a feeble quantity, even if it were assured, and it would be assured only so long as it seemed to pay. To achieve the first part of the task, to occupy Greece (and even that Antiochus had done so far very imperfectly), was futile in the extreme, unless the second part of it, the repulse of Rome, was to be achieved in its turn. A commander of any sense in the position of Antiochus would have subordinated every consideration to that of checking the Roman attack which must come with the opening spring.

The natural barriers which defended Greece on the side of Rome were, first the sea, and secondly the mountains of Epirus, in conjunction with the dominions of Philip. Instead of using every effort to gain command of these, Antiochus called a council of his allies at Demetrias to form plans for the occupation of Thessaly. Hannibal, since the influence of Thoas had been in the ascendant with Antiochus, had been relegated to the background. On this occasion, however, our account says, the King asked his opinion. Then amidst the extravagances of courtiers a sane voice made itself heard. Hannibal tried to open the King’s eyes; it was with Rome he had to do. The plan he proposed included the establishment of a naval base at Corcyra, to command the sea on the west; the occupation in strength by the King himself of the valley of the Aous, to prevent the Romans throwing troops across the mountains of Epirus from Apollonia, and, above all, an alliance with Philip, without which the Romans could move troops from Apollonia into Greece by way of western Macedonia. The alliance of Philip would be the greatest weight in the scales; and if it could not be procured, Philip must at least be rendered harmless by the King’s son, Seleucus, making a diversion on his Thracian frontier. Besides this, since Antiochus had, against Hannibal’s advice, chosen as the battleground between himself and Rome a country such as Greece, which could furnish him but poorly with provisions or troops, he must remedy these disadvantages by importing men, material and food on a large scale from Asia, and use all the naval force available for keeping the army in Greece in touch with its source of supplies. The only part of this scheme which the Seleucid council thought fit to adopt was the dispatch of Polyxenidas to bring up reinforcements from Asia.

Whether an alliance with Philip, as Hannibal advised, was really a practicable policy may be questioned. Hannibal, looking at the situation solely in reference to a conflict with Rome, was, of course, perfectly right from his point of view—the strategical. But the political difficulties of such a course were probably insuperable— that is, if Antiochus intended to retain an ascendancy in Greece. The house of Antigonus could never do anything to help the house of Seleucus to that. It seems that Philip afterwards asserted that Antiochus had at one time offered him as the price of his alliance 3000 talents, 50 decked ships, and all the Greek states which he had formerly dominated. If this was true it was certainly not disinterested attachment to Rome which made Philip refuse the offer. But whilst Antiochus was debarred from an alliance, to induce Philip to remain a passive spectator was probably possible by careful management. A difficulty was, no doubt, constituted by Philip of Megalopolis. To countenance him perhaps appeared necessary in order to retain the Athamanian alliance; but he could not be countenanced without serious offence to King Philip. It may have been that Antiochus felt he had to choose between the active co-operation of the Athamanians and the neutrality of Macedonia, and preferred to sacrifice the latter. Prudence, at any rate, directed that, if the claims of Philip of Megalopolis were supported, he should be dissuaded, as far as possible, from flaunting them in such a way as to goad king Philip into active hostility. This Antiochus failed to do. The pretender was allowed to inter with ostentatious ceremony the bones of the Macedonian soldiers, which King Philip had been obliged to leave whitening the field of Cynoscephalae. It was an outrageous blunder. Before Antiochus had been many months on Greek soil, the King of Macedonia was offering himself, heart and soul, to the Roman praetor, Marcus Baebius, at Apollonia.

When the funeral of the fallen Macedonians was celebrated, the army of Antiochus was already encamped by the Thessalian city of Pherae. Thessaly, surrounded on all sides by mountains, is again divided by a line of hills which run through it north and south into an eastern and a western plain. It was in the former that the three great cities of Thessaly, Larissa, Crannon and Pherae, were placed. The Romans, after wresting this country from the dominion of Macedonia, had formed the Thessalians into a distinct confederation, setting the seat of the federal government at Larissa.

Antiochus, moving from Demetrias and crossing the rim of hills which surrounds Thessaly by the pass now called Pilav-Tepé, would descend immediately upon Pherae. The whole distance between Demetrias and this town is not more than twelve miles. As soon as he had been joined by the Aetolians and Athamanians, the work of capturing the Thessalian towns began. The government friendly to herself, which Rome had installed at Larissa, sent reinforcements in vain. First Pherae was summoned to embrace the cause of Antiochus, and when the authorities within refused, it was reduced by force. The surrender of Scotussa, across the jagged hills which here divide the two plains, immediately followed. Then Crannon fell — all within ten days of the King's appearance in Thessaly. At Crannon Antiochus was only ten miles from Larissa. But before approaching the capital of the League the allied forces turned back to subjugate the western plain, and received the submission of Cierium and Metropolis (near mod. Karditsa). We can perhaps trace the impatience of the Aetolians and Athamanians to possess themselves of this region neighboring their own mountains. The northern parts of the plain were, at any rate, after conquest made over especially to the Athamanians: Aeginium (mod. Kalabáka), commanding the pass through the mountains to the north-west where the Peneus breaks through into the Thessalian plains; Gomphi, commanding another pass farther south; Tricca (mod. Tríkkala, the principal town of western Thessaly), on a spur of the northern wall above the Peneus —all these and other places of less importance are found the following year in Athamanian hands. When Antiochus sat down before Larissa the rest of Thessaly was already conquered. There were some exceptions—Pharsalus in the south, Atrax, the stronghold which commanded the road along the Peneus from Larissa to the western plain, and Gyrton. Pharsalus, however, before the winter closed in voluntarily espoused the King’s cause, and whilst Antiochus paraded his phalanx and elephants before Larissa, the Athamanians and Menippus with an Aetolian force were operating separately in Perrhaebia and the hills on the north-western corner of Thessaly. Pellinaeum, about ten miles above Atrax on a tributary of the Peneus, received a strong Athamanian garrison.

Antiochus, before threatening force against Larissa, had exhausted every means of conciliation. He had argued with the city’s envoys and dismissed unhurt the contingent of Larissaeans captured in Scotussa. Neither persuasion nor intimidation had availed; it was late in the season to begin a siege. Now, however, Antiochus began to taste the fruits of his alienation of Philip. The cordial entente between Philip and the Romans opened the way from Apollonia into Greece through Macedonia. In the country of the Dassaretae above Apollonia, Philip had a personal conference with Baebius, and while Antiochus was winning his easy laurels in Thessaly a Roman detachment under Appius Claudius was making its way through the defiles of Macedonia, and one night the army at Larissa descried its watch-fires on the crest of the hills to the north near Gonni. Appius disposed his little force so as to give it the appearance of a large army. Antiochus still shrank, in spite of the unfortunate incident of Delium, from overt hostilities with Rome. He immediately abandoned the idea of a siege and retired to Demetrias, alleging the advance of winter as a reason for suspending the campaign. Garrisons, Seleucid or Athamanian, were left in the conquered towns. Larissa was saved to the Romans. They retained, thanks to Philip, the northern gate of Greece.

In the early winter months of 191, as soon as the new consuls, Publius Scipio and Manius Acilius Glabrio, had assumed office, the Roman Republic, with all religious and formal circumstance, declared war on King Antiochus. For his part, the King employed the winter in contracting a new marriage. He had been seized with a passion for the daughter of a citizen of Chalcis, Cleoptolemus, and insisted on making her his queen, styling her Euboea, as if she were the patron goddess of the island. The display and indulgence with which it is the fashion of Asiatic courts to celebrate a royal marriage were strange to Greece, and the spectacle, combined with the inequality of rank and age between the King and his bride, and the grave circumstances of the hour, caused wide scandal. Discipline was relaxed, and the taverns of the Euboean towns were filled with the King’s soldiery. As soon, however, as the season allowed, the King took the field. The allied forces met at Chaeronea. It was determined as the first step of the campaign to conquer Acamania. That this movement had a place in any rational scheme of strategy is improbable. Acamania adjoined the country of the Aetolians; for ages it had eluded their grasp; it was the only country in northern Greece which had not made its submission to Antiochus and his allies. This was probably all; and meanwhile Greece lay open on the north, and no attempt was made to reduce Larissa or shut that door against the advance of the legions.

Antiochus inaugurated the campaign, as he had done that of the previous year, by sacrificing at a historic shrine. He had now access to the central shrine of the Greek race, to Delphi itself, and there he endeavored to win the favor of the patron god of his house, and display himself to the world as the consecrated champion of Hellenism. The expedition into Acamania brought, after all, little credit. Antiochus did indeed occupy Medeon, but this was only through the treachery of an Acamanian notable, Mnasilochus, and Clytus, the strategos of the Acarnanian Confederation. The island of Leucas, the seat of the federal government, was held in awe by the fleet of Atilius, a section of which watched events from Cephallenia close by. A few other petty towns beside Medeon were occupied, but Antiochus was still defied by Thyrreum when tidings came which rudely disturbed his dreams of conquest.

The Romans after declaring war had taken energetic measures. They did not, like Antiochus, leave to hazard the vital question of supplies. The praetor of the past year in Sicily was ordered to stay on in the island with his successor and be responsible for the transport of corn from that great granary to the army in Greece. A commission was sent to Carthage to supervise the shipment of African corn to the same destination. Meanwhile the other states of the Mediterranean were offering their services— Carthage, Masinissa, and even Antiochus' own son-in-law, Ptolemy Epiphanes. Most momentous of all was the intimation that the King of Macedonia was at their command. Antiochus found no independent support outside Asia and Greece—an indication how his chances, after the flourish of his campaign in northern Greece, seemed to stand. Rome on her part would not let even that admission of weakness escape her which might seem implied in her accepting help from without. She would take nothing from the African powers but the grain of Carthage and Numidia, and that for a just price. Of Philip she only required that he should second the Roman commander.

On the 3rd of May 191 the consul, Manius Acilius, left the city in the garb of war. An army of 20,000 foot, Roman and Italian, and 2000 horse was concentrated at Brundisium by the 15th of the same month. But Baebius and his two legions had taken the offensive before the arrival of the consular army upon the scene. Baebius had been content the previous year, and justly so, with the relief of Larissa; as soon as the spring came he took advantage of its possession. In conjunction with King Philip and a Macedonian army, the propraetor descended upon Thessaly. The rumor of this advance, carried by Octavius, one of the subordinates of Flamininus, to Leucas, caused Antiochus to throw up the conquest of Acarnania and retire in trepidation to Chalcis.

On entering Thessaly, Baebius and the Macedonians turned in the first instance westwards. Their object was, no doubt, to free the passes so important for Roman communications. The Perrhaebian towns which Menippus had taken the preceding year were speedily recaptured, and the Athamanian garrisons ejected from the places which they held. Pellinaeum, held by the flower of the Athamanian soldiery under Philip of Megalopolis, offered a more stubborn resistance. Baebius was sitting before it, and King Philip before the neighboring Limnaeum, when the consul Acilius appeared in the Macedonian camp. His legions had still to enter Greece by way of Macedonia and Larissa; the consul had pressed on in advance with the mounted troops, either by the same route or more directly across the hills. Limnaeum, with its garrison of Seleucid and Athamanian troops, at once surrendered; Pellinaeum soon after. The Roman and Macedonian forces then separated; Philip carried the war into Athamania itself and annexed the country, Amynander flying over the borders. The consul moved to Larissa to concentrate the Roman troops, and thence, after the men were reposed, began the march south.

The flimsy fabric of Seleucid rule in Thessaly instantly collapsed. Antiochus, still short of troops, could give his garrisons there no hope of relief. Even before Acilius had reached Larissa, Cierium and Metropolis had advised him of their return to allegiance; Crannon, Scotussa, Pherae, Pharsalus delivered up their garrisons on his approach. These garrisons, composed, of course, largely of mercenaries, were, to the number of one thousand men, willing to exchange the service of Antiochus for that of Philip.

Without turning aside to attack Demetrias, the Roman commander struck straight for the ridges of Othrys, which separate Thessaly from the valley of the Spercheus. It was in that valley that Lamia, the capital of the Aetolian League, lay; through it ran the road to central Greece. The Othrys range was another defensible barrier between Antiochus and the Romans. But as the Romans advanced they met no force of the King’s. The road over Othrys, about six miles from Pharsalus, passes close under the fastness of Proema. This yielded to Acilius. Another six miles farther on, where the road begins to climb, was the strong town of Thaumaci. Its inhabitants tried to harass the Roman advance by guerilla tactics, but got severe punishment. The next day the Romans descended the southern slope of Othrys. They began wasting the fields of Hypata in the Spercheus valley, about twelve miles above Lamia.

It was not cowardice which restrained a king of the Seleucid stock from confronting the enemy; it was the hopeless slipshod of his military organization. Antiochus had placed no troops upon Othrys because he had none to place. The great hosts from Asia, upon which everything hung, had never arrived. As soon as the Romans entered Thessaly he gave up that country for lost, and removed his base from Demetrias to the safer distance of Chalcis. He had indeed at one moment hoped to arrest the Romans on Othrys; some scanty reinforcements which had at last straggled across the Aegean kept the force at his disposal at its original figure of 10,000 foot and 500 horse, in spite of the loss of his garrisons in Thessaly. He summoned the Aetolians to muster at Lamia; their levy, added to his own force, would make, if Thoas had spoken the truth, a respectable total. At Lamia disillusionment awaited Antiochus; some Aetolian notables presented their insignificant bands; these were all, they assured him, their utmost endeavors had succeeded in raising. The young men nowadays, they added lamely, were not what they used to be. Antiochus now understood the real character of the high-flown Greek patriotism on which he had counted. He finally abandoned Thessaly, Othrys, the Spercheus valley; his only hope lay in checking the Romans at the next harrier, the Oeta range, which narrows the entrance into Central Greece to the road between mountain and sea at Thermopylae. If he could hold up the Romans at that historic passage till the expected reinforcements came!

Antiochus took up a position on the inner (east) side of the pass, and labored to supplement its natural difficulties with barricade and trench and wall. Time had brought about strange revenges when the post of Leonidas was occupied by a Hellenic Xerxes, professing to fight in the cause of Greek freedom. Aetolian bands to the number of four thousand by this time joined him. These Antiochus told off to hinder the advance of the Romans by protecting the territory of Hypata from their ravages and occupying Heraclea. That city was conveniently placed to command the tracks which led across the back of Oeta. When, however, the consular army advanced steadily, and took up a position at the west end of the pass, Antiochus grew uneasy. History furnished him with both an encouragement and a warning. It had not been found possible to break through the pass if it was resolutely held, but over and over again the position of the defenders had been turned by the mountain tracks. Antiochus sent a message to the Aetolian force in Heraclea to occupy the heights. Only half their number thought good to obey this order of their Commander-in-Chief.

When the main body of the Romans assaulted the pass they were unable to make any impression. Antiochus had posted his phalanx, with its huge Macedonian spears, across the way, protected on its right, where the beach formed a sort of morass, by the elephants, while the heights on its left were lined with archers, slingers, and javelineers, who enfiladed the Roman column with a galling rain of missiles from the unshielded side. Even when the stubborn fury of their attack made the phalanx give ground they were brought to a stand by the fortifications behind which it retired to renew the fight at an incontestable advantage. Then history repeated the old drama of Thermopylae. The attention of the Seleucid troops was caught by a body of men moving far up on the heights above them. It must be a reinforcing party of Aetolians. As they descended nearer, as their standards and equipment became distinguishable, they were known for Romans. The consul had detailed a part of his infantry under the consulars, Lucius Flaccus and Marcus Cato, to force the mountain tracks. Two of the Aetolian stations had been unsuccessfully attempted by Flaccus, a third had been surprised sleeping off its guard by Cato and overpowered. It was his force which the defenders of Thermopylae now saw taking them in the rear. All that was left was flight. In a moment the pass which had bristled with sarissae was choked with a stampede— men, horses, elephants flying pêle-mêle, The King, wounded in the mouth, did not draw rein till he reached Elatea. The Romans followed, hacking at the confused mass which blocked their way, as far as Scarphea, and would have carried the pursuit farther had there not been the royal camp to pillage. But the respite was short. Next morning before dawn the Roman cavalry was again scouring the roads, cutting down the bewildered fugitives right and left. The King himself eluded capture. When the pursuers reached Elatea he had made off with 500 men, the relics of his 10,000, to Chalcis.

The Greek expedition of Antiochus would have failed even had the Aetolians on Callidromus not slept at their post. No tactical skill on the field of battle could have compensated for the insecurity of his communications with Asia, an insecurity which could only be remedied by a far more systematic organization of transport and convoys than it was in the nature of an Oriental court to provide. About the time of the battle of Thermopylae a large fleet of transport vessels had been caught by the Roman admiral Atilius off Andros, and the corn destined for the invaders carried in triumph to the Piraeus and distributed to the Athenian people.

Antiochus did not stay long at Chalcis. He made haste to set the breadth of the Aegean between himself and the Romans, and, together with his queen Euboea, regained Ephesus in safety. The return of the King did not of course necessarily mean the end of the conflict. The Seleucid army in Greece, it is true, was annihilated, but the Aetolians were still in arms, and to their envoys, who followed him to Ephesus, Antiochus dispensed money and showed his arsenals humming with the preparations for a gigantic war. There were still Seleucid garrisons dispersed among various towns —at Elis, for example, and Demetrias. A royal squadron of ten vessels was in the harbor of the latter town; it had touched at Thronium whilst the battle in the pass was going on, and when Alexander the Acamanian had come aboard mortally wounded, bringing the tidings of disaster, it had sailed to Demetrias seeking the King.

But any plans Antiochus may have formed for maintaining the struggle in Greece by his subsidies till he could throw a fresh army into the country were futile. All the Greek states which had joined him, Boeotia, Euboea, Elis, hurriedly made their peace with the Romans. His garrisons in Chalcis and Elis had, of course, to be withdrawn. Demetrias threw open its gates to Philip and the leader of the anti-Roman party committed suicide. By the terms of surrender the Seleucid troops there returned under Macedonian escort to Lysimachia, and the ships in the harbor were allowed to depart unharmed. The Aetolians, left to themselves, rapidly succumbed to the combined attack of the Romans and Philip. The siege of Naupactus brought them to extremities, and they secured, by the good offices of Flamininus, an armistice in which to negotiate for peace at Rome.

Thus ended the crowning effort of the house of Seleucus to seize the Macedonian inheritance in Greece. One by one, after what seemed dissolution, had Antiochus III, during thirty years of fighting, restored (in appearance at least) the severed limbs to the body of the Empire. He had annexed the long-coveted Coele-Syria. At the end of the previous year he had, in addition to his dignity as Great King, made good to a large extent his title to be, as Alexander had been, the Captain-General of the states of Greece. At his accession the Empire had touched the lowest point of decline; last year it had touched its zenith. But Antiochus seemed born too late, when already a new competitor had entered the field. In the moment of its apparent triumph the house of Seleucus had received a terrific blow. So far, it is true, the King’s recoil left the situation externally what it had been before his last venture, but he was confronted by an antagonist, victorious, resentful, and hard to turn from his slowly made resolves.