Ancient States and Empires / For Colleges and Schools

by John Lord

His preparations for war.

Antiochus collected an army and started for Greece, hoping to be joined by Philip, who, however, placed all his forces at the disposal of the Romans. The Achæan League also was firm to the Roman cause. The Roman armies sent against him, commanded by Maninius Acilius Glabrio, numbered forty thousand men. Instead of retiring before this superior force, Antiochus intrenched himself in Thermopylæ, but his army was dispersed, and he fled to Chalcis, and there embarked for Ephesus. The war was now to be carried to Asia.

Scipio in Asia.

Both parties, during the winter, vigorously prepared for the next campaign, and the conqueror of Zama was selected by Rome to conduct her armies in Asia. It was a long and weary march for the Roman armies to the Hellespont, which was crossed, however, without serious obstacles, from the mismanagement of Antiochus, who offered terms of peace when the army had safely landed in Asia. He offered to pay half the expenses of the war and the cession of his European possessions, as well as of the Greek cities of Asia Minor that had gone over to the Romans. But Scipio demanded the whole cost of the war and the cession of Asia Minor. These terms were rejected, and the Syrian king hastened to decide the fate of Asia by a pitched battle.

Defeat of Antiochus. Syria a Roman province.

This fight was fought at Magnesia, B.C. 190, not far from Smyrna, in the valley of the Hermus. The forces of Antiochus were eighty thousand, including twelve thousand cavalry, but were undisciplined and unwieldy. Those of Scipio were about half as numerous. The Romans were completely successful, losing only twenty-four horsemen and three hundred infantry, whereas the loss of Antiochus was fifty thousand—a victory as brilliant as that of Alexander at Issus. Asia Minor was surrendered to the Romans, and Antiochus was compelled to pay three thousand talents (little more than three million dollars) at once, and the same contribution for twelve years, so that [pg 460] he retained nothing but Cilicia. His power was broken utterly, and he was prohibited from making aggressive war against the States of the West, or from navigating the sea west of the mouth of the Calycadnus, in Cilicia, with armed ships, or from taming elephants, or even receiving political fugitives. The province of Syria never again made a second appeal to the decision of arms—a proof of the feeble organization of the kingdom of the Seleucidæ.

Subjection of the Greek cities.

The king of Cappadocia escaped with a fine of six hundred talents. All the Greek cities which had joined the Romans had their liberties confirmed. The Ætolians lost all cities and territories which were in the hands of their adversaries. But Philip and the Achæans were disgusted with the small share of the spoil granted to them.

Death of Hannibal.

Thus the protectorate of Rome now embraced all the States from the eastern to the western end of the Mediterranean. And Rome, about this time, was delivered of the last enemy whom she feared—the homeless and fugitive Carthaginian, who lived long enough to see the West subdued, as well as the armies of the East overpowered. At the age of seventy six he took poison, on seeing his house beset with assassins. For fifty years he kept the oath he had sworn as a boy. About the same time that he killed himself in Bithynia, Scipio, on whom fortune had lavished all her honors and successes—who had added Spain, Africa, and Asia to the empire, died in voluntary banishment, little over fifty years of age, leaving orders not to bury his remains in the city for which he had lived, and where his ancestors reposed. He died in bitter vexation from the false charges made against him of corruption and embezzlement, with hardly any other fault than that overweening arrogance which usually attends unprecedented success, and which corrodes the heart when the èclat of prosperity is dimmed by time. The career and death of both these great men—the greatest of their age—shows impressively the vanity of all worldly greatness, and is an additional confirmation of the fact that the latter years of illustrious men are generally [pg 461] sad and gloomy, and certain to be so when their lives are not animated by a greater sentiment than that of ambition.