Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (26 page)

Page 118

The Hellenistic kingdoms, 185 B.C. (Drawn by John Cotter)

Page 119

Darius and defeated him once again, at the Battle of Gaugamela. Darius, now a fugitive, was murdered by his own attendants, and Alexander was acknowledged king of Persia. King Alexander continued his march east, occupying the famous cities of the EastBabylon, Susa, Persepolis, and Ecbatanaand carrying off Darius' treasure.

Some historians say that Alexander then started dreaming of placing all mankind under the rule of law, united by Greek culture; therefore, at strategic locations throughout his conquests he planted colonies of his soldiers, who spoke Greek, and encouraged them to marry native women to blend the Greek and Persian peoples. Eventually Alexander entered India and defeated the Indian prince Porus; so impressed was Alexander by Porus' dignity and bearing that he made him his ally. He then continued his march east, his dream being to see Ocean and the end of the earth. When Alexander reached the Hydaspes River (present-day Jhelum River), he and his soldiers heard that there was still a great river to be crossed (the Ganges) and much more land beyond that. Hearing this, the soldiers revolted and refused to go any farther: It is estimated that they had marched fifteen thousand miles. Alexander reluctantly turned back to the west; he died in Babylon in 323.

At Alexander's death his former generalsall Greeksestablished control over different parts of his empire and waged incessant warfare with each other for control over the rest or for protection from aggression. Thus his empire disintegrated into what we call the Hellenistic kingdoms, of which these were the most important:

Macedonia
, which sometimes included Greece, ruled by the Antigonid line;

Thrace
, ruled by Lysimachus;

Seleucid Empire
(included present-day northern Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Iran, and Iraq), whose kings were named Antiochus or Seleucus;

Egypt
, ruled by the Ptolemies, who treated all Egypt as their personal farm and factory, thus making themselves fabulously rich (with some of their riches they built the famous library and museum of Alexandria, and encouraged scientists, philosophers, and poets).

Page 120

Two other Hellenistic powers should be mentioned: Pergamum, close to what was once Troy, ruled by kings bearing the names Attalus or Eumenes, and the island of Rhodes, with its powerful navy and commercial interests. These Hellenistic powers, despite their common Greek language and culture, were constantly at war with one another in frequently shifting alliances. Into this bees' nest the Romans wandered after finishing the war with Hannibal.

The Second Macedonian War

Shortly after Cannae (216
B.C.
), King Philip V of Macedon had made an alliance with Hannibal, and taking advantage of Rome's current troubles, he had even tried to expand into Illyricum (modem Albania) by taking over Dyrrhachium and Apollonia, both of which Rome had won in the wars against the pirates after the First Punic War (see chapter 13). In 215 Rome sent an army to drive Philip away, and encouraged his Greek neighbors and enemies, specifically the Aetolians, to wage war on him. But since Rome was at the time busy with Hannibal, the Gauls, Spain, and Africa, the war with Philip (First Macedonian War) was waged with little dedication on Rome's part. Rome abandoned the Aetolians, who were conquered by Philip in 206; the Aetolians never forgave the Romans for deserting them. Rome made peace with Philip in 205.

Enter Antiochus the Great, king of the Seleucid Empire. He was rightly called ''the Great" because he had restored to his kingdom lands and territories that his predecessors had let slip away; in addition to most of modem Syria, he acquired Armenia, regained Parthia (the country from the Euphrates to the Indus) and Bactria (northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan, and Tadjikistan) as vassal kingdoms, and expanded into the Cabul Valley. He and Philip made an agreement by which they were to wage war on their common enemies and to split the gains. Antiochus had his eye on Egypt's holdings in southern Syria (called Coele-Syria) and Thrace, Egypt itself (at this point very vulnerable because its king, Ptolemy V, was only six years old), and parts of Asia Minor. Philip wanted Thrace, the islands in the Aegean Sea, Pergamum, and part of Egypt.

Page 121

Antiochus conquered Coele-Syria, while Philip attacked Thrace and other towns allied to Rhodes and Pergamum; at one point he even attacked Pergamum itself, but quickly withdrew his army. Rhodes and Pergamum declared war on Philip and fought a naval battle with him; the outcome was inconclusive. Rhodes and Pergamum then asked Rome for help against Philip.

The Romans did not have a good legal reason for declaring war on Philip. He had not attacked Rome or any of its allies, except for Pergamum, and they were tired of war; yet they feared that Philip and Antiochus, with all the resources of the Seleucid Empire, would join forces and invade Italy, using Macedonia as a base. The Romans did not want another Pyrrhus or Hannibal in Italy. The proposal for war against Philip was rejected by the Comitia Centuriata, because the Romans were tired of war; in response the consul Publius Sulpicius gave a speech that convinced them to declare war against Philip after all. "Citizens," he said,

"it seems to me that you don't know that you are not being asked to decide whether you'll have peace or war; Philipwho even now is working on a war on land and seais not leaving that decision up to you. You are deciding whether you'll send legions over to Macedonia or whether you'll let the enemy into Italy. After the recent war with Carthage, you are certainly well familiar with how much is at stake. Who, after all, has any doubts that if we had immediately brought help to Saguntum, when it was under attack and begging our help, as our ancestors had done to the Mamertines, that we would have fought the whole war in Spain? As it was, because we acted slowly, we let the war into Italy, at great suffering and destruction of our people. . . . Let Macedonia, not Italy, have the war; let the cities and fields of the enemy be destroyed by fire and the sword." (Livy XXXI.7)

Wanting to avert another destructive war in Italy, the Romans declared war on Philip. To justify the declaration of war, the fetials set impossible conditions for Philip to meet, if he wanted to avoid war with Rome: He had to free his Greek subjects and not wage war on the Greeks in Asia Minor. Philip ignored the fetials, as the Romans knew he would, and promptly attacked the Greek city of Abydus in Asia Minor. His lieutenant attacked Athens, and the

Page 122

Athenians asked Rome for help: Now Rome had the justification it had been looking for. The consul P. Sulpicius and an army crossed over into Greece in 200
B.C.

After invading Macedonia, the Romans were joined by Philip's old enemies, the Aetolians, Pergamum, and Rhodes. Then the Achaean League, an alliance of cities in the Peloponnese, also joined; the Greeks were angry with Philip for his brutal actions, such as selling the people of a conquered city into slavery or killing all the males of military age. Macedon's enemies the Dardanians invaded from the north, while Rome and its allies invaded from the west and south, and the Roman and Rhodian navies blockaded Macedon on the east; Macedon was surrounded.

The Roman and allied victory at Cynoscephalae (Dog's Heads) in 197
B.C.
, under the leadership of T. Quinctius Flamininus, ended the war. Philip was beaten, and he asked for peace. According to the treaty he had to abandon all his holdings outside of Macedonia and leave the Greeks free of Macedonian rule. The Aetolians, whom Rome had deserted during the First Macedonian War, again found ample reason to be unhappy with Rome: They did not regain the territory that Macedon had taken from them in earlier wars.

In contrast to the sullen and bitter Aetolians were the remaining Greeks, who were ecstatic over Flamininus' declaration, at the Isthmian Games in 196, that the Greek city-states were now free of foreign rule. The Greek city-states were fanatically devoted to their individual autonomy (so much so, in fact, that they were regularly at war with each other to preserve their liberties and independence) and suffered under the political domination of Macedon and the various powers directing affairs in Greece before Macedon (most recently Persia, and before it Thebes, Sparta, Athens, and Sparta). Once free of Macedonian domination, however, the Greeks would return to their regular warfare with each other, which would occasion their finding a new master: Rome.

War with Antiochus of the Seleucid Empire

Antiochus had stayed out of the war between Philip and Rome, but he had not been idle. He had taken Coele-Syria from Egypt,

Page 123

and had even taken cities from Philip while he was occupied with Rome. Now Antiochus was attacking Asia and Pergamum; in fact, Attalus, the king of Pergamum, had had to leave the Romans in their war against Philip to protect his kingdom from Antiochus. Soon Antiochus attacked Thrace. He was encouraged in his hopes of power in Europe by the Aetolians, who invited him to liberate Greece from Roman oppression. When the Romans warned him to stay out of Europe, Antiochus asked the Romans what business they had in Asia Minor and claimed that he himself was simply reconquering territories that his predecessors had lost (and it was true that one of his ancestors had once controlled Thrace). The Romans had no real reason to wage warother than his attacking Pergamumbut plenty of reason to fear, for a certain fugitive from Carthage had come to Antiochus to help him arrange the war against Rome: Hannibal. Hannibal advised Antiochus to establish a base in Greece, while he himself attempted to incite Carthage to invade Italy. The Romans once again told Antiochus to stay out of Europe.

Antiochus therefore brought the war to the Romans via Greece. The Aetolians had promised him that all Greece, groaning under Roman oppression, would welcome him, and he promised the Aetolians that he would bring all the resources of his empire to free them. After withdrawing all its soldiers from Greece in 194
B.C.
, Rome sent an army back to Greece in 192, to await Antiochus.

Antiochus and his Greek allies were soon disappointed with each other. The Greeks did not revolt from Rome as Antiochus had hoped they would. His only significant Greek allies were the Aetolians; the other Greeks fought on the side of Rome. The Aetolians, after hearing reports of how Antiochus would bring the wealth of Asia against the Romans, were disappointed when he appeared in Greece in 192, leading an army of only ten thousand men. Later, however, he was joined by more soldiers from his empire.

Antiochus subdued small parts of Greece before the Romans and their allies beat him at the Battle of Thermopylae in 191
B.C.
Students of ancient history may remember that in 481 King Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans had heroically held the pass of Thermopylae against Xerxes' Persians, and had even refused the

Other books

Hypocrisy by Daniel Annechino

Dead Corse by Phaedra Weldon

The Earl's Mistress by Liz Carlyle

Seeds by Kin, M. M.

Song for Night by Chris Abani

Vampires Seduction #1 (The Paranormal Town Romance Series) by Tasha Scott

Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School and Billy Bunter's ... by Frank Richards

Known to Evil by Walter Mosley

Girl in the Mirror by Mary Alice Monroe

Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf