10 - The Seleucids and their rivals

Summary

ASIA MINOR, 188–158 B.C.

The war between Antiochus III and the Romans had been decided in Asia Minor and it was in Asia Minor, almost exclusively, that territory changed hands. Antiochus had to cede all his possessions west of the Taurus mountains to Rome; these amounted to more than one third of the vast Anatolian block. Rome imposed this condition, like all others, unilaterally on the king and settled affairs without allowing her allies to participate. The Senate decided; the allies waited upon its pleasure. The Greek cities that had sided with the Romans before the decisive battle were declared free; the Rhodians were given Caria south of the River Maeander and Lycia. The rest of the territory that had belonged to Antiochus was incorporated into the kingdom of Eumenes II of Pergamum. It was the lion's share.

The territories Eumenes and Rhodes received were unequivocally a gift, a gift from Rome, which implied an expectation that both powers would act as guarantors of the new order and that both would prevent any development disturbing to Rome. The Rhodian acquisitions, situated on the southern margin of Anatolia, were not so crucial in this respect as those of Eumenes; he therefore held the key to the preservation of the status quo. His newly enlarged realm bordered on three of the four remaining major powers, that is, on the kingdoms of Bithynia and Cappadocia and, between them, on the Celtic tribes in Galatia. Eumenes did not share a border with the kingdom of Pontus in the north, but the other three powers who were his neighbours all were neighbours of Pontus.