War with Rome.
197.
195.
18. Growth of the disputes between the king and Rome, proceeding from the conquest of the major part of Asia Minor and the Thracian Chersonesus; meanwhile Hannibal had taken refuge at the Syrian court, and the probability daily increased of a great league being formed against Rome, although that power, after conquering Carthage, 201, and Macedonia, 197, had succeeded in winning over Greece even, by the magic spell of freedom. But Antiochus ruined all: instead of following Hannibal's advice, and attacking the Romans on their own ground, he stood on the defensive, and suffered himself to be invaded by them in Asia. His defeat at Magnesia near Mount Sipylus compelled him to accede to such 190. conditions as Rome chose to dictate, and the power of the Syrian empire was for ever broken.
For the history of this war, see below in the Roman history. Book v. per. ii. parag. 10, 11.
Conditions of peace with Rome.
19. The conditions of the peace were: 1st. That Antiochus should evacuate Asia Minor; (Asia cis Taurum.) 2nd. That he should pay down 15,000 talents; and to Eumenes of Pergamus four hundred. 3rd. That Hannibal and some others should be delivered up, and the king's younger son Antiochus, be given as an hostage.—The loss of the surrendered countries was a consequence of this peace, less disadvantageous to the Syrian kings, than the use made of it by the conquerors. By adding the greatest part of the ceded territories to those of the kings of Pergamus, the Romans raised up alongside of their enemy a rival, whom they might at their own will use as a political engine against him.—Rome took care likewise that the stipulated sum should be paid by instalments in twelve years, to the end that Syria might be kept in a permanent state of dependence.
Seleucus Philopator,
187—176.
20. Murder of the king, 187. The reign of his elder son, Seleucus IV. surnamed Philopator, was a period of tranquillity; peace arising from weakness.—Though once he unsheathed his sword in defence of Pharnaces king of Pontus, against Eumenes, his fear of Rome soon compelled him to restore it to the scabbard. He exchanged his son for his brother at Rome; but fell a victim to the ambition of his minister Heliodorus.
Antiochus Epiphanes,
176—164.
21. Antiochus IV. surnamed Epiphanes. Educated at Rome, he sought to combine the popular manners of a Roman with the ostentatious luxury of a Syrian; and thereby became an object of universal hatred and contempt. Our information respecting his history is too meagre to allow of our deciding whether most of the evil reported of him, in the Jewish accounts especially, may not be exaggerated. At any rate, among all his faults, we may still discern in him the germs of good qualities.
His war against Egypt,
172—168: