The Day of Eleusis

The Perils of Schematism: Polybius, Antiochus Epiphanes and the 'Day of Eleusis'
Author(s): M. Gwyn Morgan

Source: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte Geschichte, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1990), pp. 37-76
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436137
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Polybius, Antiochus Epiphanes and the 'Day of Eleusis' 37
THE PERILS OF SCHEMATISM: POLYBIUS, ANTIOCHUS
EPIPHANES AND THE 'DAY OF ELEUSIS' *
The 'Day of Eleusis' is probably one of the most famous episodes in all
Rome's dealings with the Hellenistic powers. As the story is usually told,
Antiochus IV Epiphanes was pressing the siege of Alexandria in order to gain
control of Egypt, when a Roman embassy headed by C. Popillius Laenas (cos.
172) caught up with him in the suburb of Eleusis, and presented him with a
senatus consultum ordering him to cease and desist. When the king said he
needed time to consult with his advisers, Popillius Laenas drew a circle in the
sand around him and insisted that he respond before he took another step.
Whereupon Antiochus, in high dudgeon, yielded to the Roman demand and
withdrew his army from Egypt a few days later.'
Polybius clearly thought this a major humiliation for Antiochus and proof,
with the victory over Perseus at Pydna, that the Romans completed their
conquest of the oecumene in 168. A majority of modem scholars have accep-
ted both these propositions. If there has been reluctance to endorse Otto's
*
'The inspiration for this paper was provided by a fascinating presentation on "Hellenism and
Persecution: Antiochus IV and the Jews", delivered by Prof. E. S. Gruen at a Symposium on
Hellenistic History and Culture, organized by Profs. Peter Green and Karl Galinsky and held at
the University of Texas at Austin in October 1988. 1 wish to thank Profs. Gruen, Green and J. H.
Kroll for their comments on this paper. Which is not to involve them in the errors that remain.
I
See Polybius 29,27, 1-8 (cf. 30,27 and 30,7-8); Diodorus 31,2; Livy 45,12,1-6; Cicero, Phil.
8,23; Valerius Maximus 6,4,3; Velleius 1,10,1-2; Plutarch, Mor. 202 F; Appian, Syr. 66/350-1;
Justin 34,3,1-4; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 50; Zonaras 9,25; cf. Pliny NH 34,24 (confused).
Granius Licinianus, p. 4 Flemisch, without mentioning the 'Day of Eleusis' avers that Antiochus
thought of declaring war on Rome, but this is obvious fantasy (see M. Martina, Athenaeum 62,
1984, 190ff.). For convenience of reference, the following works are cited -
save in Walbank's
case - by author's name and page number only: Bevan = E. R. Bevan, The House of Seleucus II,
London 1902; Bouche-Leclercq = A. Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire des Seleucides, 2 vols., Paris
1913-14; De Sanctis = G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani IV 12, Florence 1969; Gruen
=
E. S.
Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, 2 vols., Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984;
Jouguet = P. Jouguet, "Les debuts du regne de Ptolemre Philometor et la sixieme guerre
syrienne", RPh 63, 1937, 193-238; Meloni
=
P. Meloni, Perseo e la fine della monarchia
macedone, Rome 1953; M0rkholm
=
0. Morkholm, Antiochus IV of Syria, Copenhagen 1966;
Niese = B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten III, Gotha 1903;
Otto = W. Otto, Zur Geschichte der Zeit des 6. Ptolemaers, Munich 1934; Passerini
=
A. Passe-
rini, "Roma e l'Egitto durante la terza guerra macedonica", Athenaeum 13, 1935, 317-342;
Pedech
=
P. Pedech, La methode historique de Polybe, Paris 1964; Swain
=
J. W. Swain,
"Antiochus Epiphanes and Egypt", CPh 39, 1944,73-94; Walbank, Comm.
=
F. W. Walbank, A
Historical
Commentary
on
Polybius III, Oxford 1979; Walbank, Papers
= F. W.
Walbank,
Selected Papers, Cambridge 1985; Will = E. Will, Histoire politique du monde hellenistique 112,
Nancy 1982.
Historia, Band XXXIX/1 (1990) K Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart
38 M. GWYN MORGAN
suggestion that the episode unhinged the king's mind,2 it is commonplace to
declare that, after Eleusis, Antiochus "renounced his claims to pursue an
independent foreign policy in the Mediterranean" ,3 or even to assert that the
incident was as great a setback to the Seleucid realm as had been the defeat of
Antiochus III at Magnesia some twenty years before.4 Yet neither proposition
would be thought convincing, were it not Polybius who advocated them.
Despite the historian's not being - it seems - the only Greek of the time to
think in such terms,5 and despite his willingness to defend his idea even unto
death, the proposition that the 'Day of Eleusis' marked a significant turning
point in Seleucid history, already assailed by Gruen,6 misrepresents seriously
the position in which the kings of Syria found themselves after Magnesia. As
for the humiliation, a careful examination of the known details of Antiochus'
second campaign in Egypt will support not only Passerini's view that, when
Popillius Laenas arrived, Antiochus already knew the war was unjustifiable,
even unwinnable,7 but also Tarn's seemingly more startling observation that,
at Eleusis, Antiochus "was the one man there who was not astonished."V8
It might be extreme to suggest that Antiochus welcomed the Romans'
intervention at Eleusis or the manner of it, but their interference had the merit
of extricating him from a highly embarrassing and frustrating situation at
relatively small cost, and that ought to have been matter for relief rather than
for the resentment which, Polybius insists, the king felt then and later.9 It has
always been recognized, of course, that the historian's views on Antiochus are
not entirely reliable. The king's disregard for decorum clearly offended Poly-
bius, nor did he hesitate to report that the royal subjects transformed the title
'Epiphanes' into epimanes.'? The distortion, however, should not be attributed
to bias, since Polybius makes as little of this manic aspect
in his assessment of
Antiochus' foreign policy as he does of the king's having spent some twelve
2
Otto 84ff.
3
Thus J. Briscoe, Historia 18, 1969, 49; cf. Therese Liebmann-Frankfort, La frontiere orien-
tale dans la politique exterieure de la Republique romaine, Brussels 1969, 126; A. N. Sherwin-
White, Roman Foreign Policy in the East, London 1984,47 f.
4
So Bevan 145 and De Sanctis 326.
5
Such could be concluded from the enormous increase (J. S. Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 7)
in the number of offerings made to the goddess Roma in Asia Minor after 167, but no doubt the
Asiatic Greeks heard of Pydna too. Likewise, there was some unrest in Coele-Syria during 168
(see Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 56), while a rumour of Antiochus' death induced Jason to seize
Jerusalem (11 Macc. 5,5-7) - though neither the chronology nor probability warrants the
supposition of Will 337, that the rumour itself was created by what happened at Eleusis.
6 E. S. Gruen, Chiron 6, 1976, 73ff.; cf. Gruen 660.
7
Passerini 331ff. and 336ff., emphasizing the unjustifiable nature of the war and implying
that it was unwinnable (as indeed it was).
8W W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India3, Chicago 1984, 192; cf. Swain 87.
9
Polybius 29,27,8; 30,27,2 and 30,8.
10
Polybius 26,1a and 26,1 (cf. also 31,9,4): repeated by Diodorus 29,32; Livy 41,20,1-4; Granius
Licinianus, pages 4-5 Flemisch; and Justin 34,2,7.
years as a hostage in Rome." Indeed, we would never gather from his account
that the knowledge of Romans Antiochus gained during his enforced stay was
anything but superficial.'2 The real problem is one of incomprehension or,
better, of type-casting.
When Polybius talks of the foreign policy implemented by a Ptolemaic or
Seleucid ruler, as Pedech has observed, he tends to regard that policy as a
reflection of what he perceives as the monarch's personality.'3 Thus, Ptolemy
IV Philopator's neglecting to exploit his victory over Antiochus III at Raphia
is not only adjudged paradoxical by the historian, but taken as evidence of the
king's moral degeneracy - neither a perceptive nor a persuasive verdict.'4 By
the same token, so it can be argued, Polybius puts little stress on Antiochus'
supposedly manic behaviour or his understanding of Romans when the sub-
ject is foreign policy, because that is an area in which it is necessary to credit
him with the rational, orthodox and - above all - predictable activities ordai-
ned for a Hellenistic ruler by the historian's own concept of Realpolitik: if, for
example, Antiochus invaded Egypt, he must have meant to conquer it -
another proposition which, as we shall see, cannot withstand critical scrutiny.
Which brings us to the point, that it is entirely legitimate to wonder whether a
king who, like Antiochus, not only refused to play his assigned role in small
matters but also delighted in confounding people's expectations at that level,
was straightforward in large matters. We know, for instance, that Antiochus
diverged significantly from previous Seleucid policy toward the Jews (com-
mitting a serious error of judgement in the process) for reasons which remain
obscure to this day. But no less telling for any assessment of the king's
behaviour at and after Eleusis, we know too that Antiochus simply abandoned
that policy when it proved unworkable.'5 And finally, we know from Diodorus
that Antiochus pursued a policy of openness diametrically opposed to the
secrecy in which other monarchs of his day wrapped their plans; whereas they
tried to build up their power without Rome's knowledge, so says the chronic-
11
Antiochus was handed over to the Romans in the winter of 190/189 (Polybius 21, 17, 8;
Appian, Syr. 39/200), and we know that he was in Athens by 178/177 (S. V. Tracy, Hesperia 31,
1982, 61f.).
12 There is every reason to think that Antiochus was not only familiar with but educated in the
Roman fashion (cf. D. Braund, Rome and the Friendly King, London and New York 1984, 14f.),
in the same way as the 5,000 troops he paraded at Daphne in 166 were not just equipped, but
trained, in the Roman manner (cf. Braund 115f.). The view advanced in the text seems to me
enough to explain Polybius' reluctance to grant Antiochus this understanding. But there is a
further possibility, that Polybius considered himself the first Greek truly to understand Ro-
mans; he certainly "goes out of his way to emphasise his friendship with Scipio; in a sense it
forms part of his credentials as the interpreter of Rome" (F. W. Walbank, Polybius, Berkeley
and Los Angeles 1972, 8).
13 Pedech 140, nevertheless concluding that Polybius' portrayal of Antiochus is acceptable,
"'melange bizarre de bonhomie et de megalomanie".
4
See especially Claire Preaux, CE 40, 1965, 364ff.
5
For the evidence on this highly controversial topic see Morkholm 135ff.
40 M. GWYN MORGAN
ler disapprovingly (31,16,1), Antiochus "put his entire kingdom on the stage
and left nobody in the dark about his concerns." The king being therefore
somewhat unconventional by the standards of his time, we are faced with the
distinct possibility that Polybian schematism has affected his presentation of
Antiochus no less than it has his interpretation of the 'Day of Eleusis'.
I. Polybian Schematism and the Third Punic War
Polybius says explicitly that the original plan for his History was to show
how the Romans brought the oecumene, the entire civilized world, under their
control in the mere fifty-three years between 220 and 168.16 The plan rests, first
and foremost, on the historian's own insistence that the period he described,
like the work in which he described it, was a unity with a clear beginning, a
fixed duration, and an undisputed end.'7 In actuality, his chosen termini are
equally arbitrary, based more on a series of arresting (sometimes not so
arresting) coincidences than on the concatenation of events he himself descri-
bed. There is no need here to discuss the grounds on which 220 has been
called into question as the starting-point for the History.'8 For any assessment
of the 'Day of Eleusis' the important consideration is whether the Romans, as
of 168, could reasonably be thought the undisputed masters of Macedonia
and Greece, of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, and - what is all too often
forgotten - of Carthage too.
It will not do simply to pass these various areas in review, since it can be
maintained that, even after every objection has been mustered, they yield only
alternatives to Polybius' interpretation rather than a refutation of it. What will
bring out clearly the schematism inherent in the historian's approach is a
consideration of the reasons he gives for extending his work beyond 168 and,
more particularly, his account of the Third Punic War, this conflict having
rather more to do with his revised plan than seems generally to have been
recognized. In his original scheme, after all, Polybius essentially wrote off
Carthage after Zama (cf. 3,3,1). Its function was fulfilled once it lost the
Hannibalic War. For whether the Romans' victory at Zama was the first step
16
See especially Polybius 3, 1-3. It fudges the emphasis to single out the few occasions where
he says the Romans conquered "practically all the civilized world" (1,1,5; 1,2,7; 6,2,3). Normally,
he dispenses with the adverb (1,3,9 and 4,1; 3,1,4, 2,6, 3,9, 4,2, 118,9; 8,2,4; 39,8,7). For a useful
conspectus of the other terms he employs to describe the situation see Richardson, PBSR 47,
1979, If. and D. Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo romano, Naples 1978, 15ff. It goes without saying
that the barbarians are normally excluded from the definition, save when they impinge in the
"civilized world", a point demonstrated by Polybius' sometimes careless and misleading ac-
counts of the wars in the west (see below, appendix).
17
Polybius 3,1,5; Walbank, Polybius 66ff.
18
See Walbank, Polybius 68ff. and Papers 313ff.; also T. S. Brown, Phoenix 18, 1964, 124ff.
in their progress to world empire or their inspiration to take that first step,'9
there was little more to be said - until the Third Punic War supervened. Now,
Polybius offers two main reasons for extending his History through 146
(3,4-5). First, there is the need to provide a description of the nature of Roman
rule and how others assessed it; to this we shall return presently. More
important for our present purposes is his second reason, to give an account of
the troubles of 152-146, and since he characterizes them as
tUpcCXz
Kcdi
Ktvflclt;, meaningless uprisings, unpredictable and irrational, against the do-
minant power of Rome,20 this must be seen as a proclamation of his faith in
the validity of his original plan and of his determination to defend it against all
comers.2'
One can hardly quibble with the use of terms like
EapaXi
KaLt Kiztiv7ct to
describe Andriscus' revolt in Macedonia or the bellum Achaicum. Even if
Polybius' account is unnecessarily virulent, each was but a tempest in a
teapot.22 Insofar as Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt are concerned, it may similar-
ly be conceded that, by 152, any disturbances here were equally unimportant.
With Carthage the situation is significantly different, since our other sources
demonstrate that the Romans took the Third Punic War far more seriously
than does Polybius. Though willing to grant that the war was a momentous
event (36,1,1), he tends thereafter to play down its importance as a challenge to
Rome. Thus he says of the debates in the senate beforehand only that the
Romans had decided on Carthage's destruction some time earlier, "but they
were looking for a suitable occasion and a pretext appealing to people at large
(TOi5; eK-u6;). For the Romans very rightly paid a good deal of attention to this
aspect ... and their disagreements among themselves on this occasion about
the effect (sc. of Carthage's destruction) on the opinion of people at large
almost induced them not to go to war".23
As is well known, this account differs markedly from the descriptions of
lengthy debates between Cato and Scipio Nasica provided by the other
sources.24 Indeed, Polybius' account has frequently been used to deny the
19
It is represented as the first step at 1,3,6; 15,9,2 and 10,2; as the inspiration at 3,2,6 and
5,104,3. The two views can be reconciled: see P. S. Derow, JRS 69, 1979, 2ff.
20
Polybius 3,4,1-2 and 12-13; see Walbank, Papers 333f. (dating) and 336ff. (terminology).
21
Cf. Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 2.
22
Cf. Walbank, Papers 337 and 339.
23
Polybius 36,2; cf. also frag. 99 B-W. The date at which the Romans are supposed first to
have decided to go to war is fixed ca. 152 by Polybius 3,5,4-5, and this coincides with the date of
Cato's first speech on the subject: see A. E. Astin, Cato the Censor, Oxford 1978, 127ff. and 283ff.
The expression oi tKT6; is often rendered "world opinion", but I follow Walbank, Comm. 654,
that it is better taken to denote "people generally outside the governmental circles where the
decision was taken".
24 See Diodorus 34/35,33,3-5; Livy, Epit. 48-49; Plutarch, Cato Maior 26-27; Florus 1,31,4-5;
Appian, Pun. 69/313-5; Augustine, civ. Dei 1,30; Orosius 4,23,9; Ampelius 19,11; Zonaras 9,26;
cf. also Pliny, NH 15,74-76; [Aurelius Victor], de vir. ill. 47,8.
42 M. GWYN MORGAN
historicity of those debates,25 even though he too reports disagreements within
the curia and, at that, disagreements lasting for several years. What ought
rather to have attracted attention is his opening Book 36, a book in which the
Third Punic War bulked large, with a refusal to provide many speeches. The
historian's duty, he says sternly (36,1,7), is to discover by the most careful
research what was actually said, and from that to select for his reader only the
most vital and effective arguments. There was no reason for him to make a
comment of this particular kind at this particular point, unless he was writing
for an audience which expected speeches of the type attributed by the other
sources to Cato and Scipio Nasica, and expected them at this very point.
Moreover, when Polybius limited himself to "the most vital and effective
arguments", he was able to sidestep what might otherwise have seemed a
major obstacle to his own overall interpretation, namely, that both parties to
the dispute rested their cases on the thesis that Carthage was a formidable foe.
Cato certainly urged the city's destruction out of fear, and though Scipio
Nasica stressed the necessity of fighting a bellum iustum, his key argument
was based on metus hostilis, the need for a strong enemy to keep the Romans
on their toes: "oui l'un voyait un peril, I'autre voyait un remede."26 For
Polybius to have given prominence to such fears in his account, however,
would have seemed to make a nonsense of his claim that, after 168, the
Romans dominated the oecumene and all else was
TacpCXt
Kti
civriotg.
In
that case, the Romans had no reason for fears of these dimensions, no matter
how expressed.
Nor is this all. It is time to recur to Polybius' other reason for extending his
History, to provide a description of the nature of Roman rule and how others
assessed it. The books which cover 167 through 153, as is well known, provide
an almost unbroken series of cynical remarks about Roman policy, and of
setbacks befalling those who failed to realize how the Roman mind worked,
all of this because of the importance Polybius attached to his reader's grasping
the essential point that, in the last resort, the Romans would always pursue
their own best interests. In the books which cover 152 through 146 this
approach is tempered to an extent by Polybius' own involvement in affairs
and that of his friend Scipio Aemilianus. But nor is it forsaken, least of all in
his account of the debates which went on in the senate between 152 and 149. In
a History written for the guidance of wise men, it would never do to create the
impression that fear could stop the Romans once for all from
pursuing
their
25
See W. Hoffmann, Historia 9, 1960, 309ff., esp. 341. Hoffmann places unjustified stress on
the failure of Cicero, Brut. 79, to mention Scipio's speech. Cicero is concerned with Scipio's
overall competence as an orator; for all the references to Cato in the Brutus, we would never
gather from this work alone that Cato delivered speeches against Carthage.
26 Pedech 197; cf. M. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften II, Wiesbaden 1963,62 and 68ff.; A. E. Astin,
Scipio Aemilianus, Oxford 1967, 272ff., and Cato the Censor 125ff., 283ff.
own best interests. Rather the reverse. For his purposes, therefore, it was
enough to record the existence of the debates and what he chose to consider
the key argument, the need for a suitable occasion and pretext for carrying out
the decision to destroy Carthage. There was nothing to be gained by dwelling
on the assorted views expressed at the time, or by giving them misleading
prominence. What counted was Roman determination and, at the last, Roman
readiness to act.27
This interpretation is confirmed by the famous passage in which Polybius
records Greek reactions to the Romans' treatment of Carthage and Andriscus
(36,9-10). The section which deals with Carthage, as both Pedech and Wal-
bank have seen, is arranged chiastically, to begin and end with the pro-Roman
opinions to which Polybius himself subscribed.28 Now, just as the first pro-
Roman argument rests on the thesis that the Romans were right to destroy a
threat to their own security, the nub of Cato's case and a reflection of Scipio
Nasica's stress on metus hostilis (9,3-4), so the second anti-Roman argument
(which Polybius counteracts by attaching to it the second, much longer pro-
Roman argument) starts from the premise that the Romans employed deceit
against the Carthaginians, and so failed to fight a bellum iustum (9,9-11).
Which is not an echo of Scipio Nasica's objections to a declaration of war
until proper grounds existed, but a perversion of his case: proper grounds did
exist - in Roman eyes - as of 149.29 The important consideration, however, is
not whether this proves that the substance of the debates recorded by the other
sources is historical (it does not, and cannot), but why the passage is placed
where it is.
Although the opening sentence seems to require the conclusion that these
opinions were voiced after 146, Polybius unquestionably set the entire piece
under 150/149.30 This placing, it may be suggested, was chosen not only to
27
Though
Polybius will on occasion gloss over disputes within the senate (cf. Walbank, Papers
166; A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, Cambridge 1975, 26f.), that will not explain his procedure
here, since he clearly states that there were major differences of opinion within the curia
(36,2,4). The same objection can be made against any attempt to apply to this episode the
suggestion of Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 7ff., that Polybius sometimes envisaged the Republic
as the equivalent of a Hellenistic monarch. But if we accept the theory of Walbank, Papers
325ff., that a third (unexpressed) reason for Polybius' extending his History lay in his own
relationship with Scipio Aemilianus, a personal story proving the possibilities for symbiosis
between Greek and Roman, that would have given still more importance to the Third Punic
War, as the theatre in which that symbiosis first manifested itself, and would have made a
"correct" understanding of the war yet more pressing.
28 Pedech 198f.; Walbank, Papers 168ff., 286ff., 339. For other, less satisfactory interpretations
see K.-E. Petzold, Studien zur Methode des Polybios und ihre historische Auswertung, Munich
1969, 62f.; Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 55ff.; W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republi-
can Rome 327-70 B. C., Oxford 1979, 272.
29
Cf. Walbank, Comm. 653f. and Papers 340.
30
For the setting of the passage see Walbank, Comm. 44ff. and 663f. That the views reported
postdate 146 rests on the employment of KaT-IroFTcoav at 9,1, since the verb regularly means
44 M. GWYN MORGAN
provide a timely defence of Roman behaviour, but also to indicate that such
views were circulating in Greece (differently nuanced, no doubt) before as
well as after 146.3' It could be objected, of course, that senatorial meetings on
weighty matters like the declaration of war were normally confidential, but
this signifies little. As Polybius observed on another occasion, there was never
any shortage of people to claim intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a
royal palace or the Roman curia,32 and those inclined to speculate in 150/149
would have had little difficulty elaborating arguments (for or against any
specific action by Rome) not too dissimilar to those expressed, however
secretly, in the senate. And when the passage is viewed in this light, it becomes
less important to decide whether the opinions expressed in Greece before 146
derived ultimately from the senate, than it does to recognize Polybius' concern
that similar misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the Roman position not
lead to further disasters. In duty bound to report some at least of the anti-
Roman rhetoric of the time, he took care to enclose it within a cordon sanitaire
of eminently more sensible, pro-Roman opinions.
This is not to imply that Polybius distorted the record wilfully. In hindsight,
the fears of Carthage expressed between 152 and 149 may have seemed as
groundless to the senators as they have to so many scholars since, although
this is hardly suggested by Appian's account of the rejoicing in Rome which
followed the news of Carthage's fall.33 Despite the ferocious resistance the
Carthaginians had still managed to offer and the considerable exertions re-
quired of the Romans, the Third Punic War did turn out to be merely a
footnote to the two earlier struggles. In hindsight, therefore, Polybius could
justifiably consider the war tcpaxl' Kaci
Kiviic;tg.
Nonetheless, his presenta-
tion distorts the record, misrepresenting the situation within the senate bet-
ween 152 and 149, giving the war's origins a character significantly different to
the one it bore in the minds of the principal actors at the time, and obscuring -
among other things
- the reasons why Scipio Nasica in 151 blocked the
construction of a permanent theatre in Rome (see appendix). It is pointless to
wonder whether Polybius would have told the story differently, had he not
already decided that 168 was the decisive year for the establishment of Rome's
domination over the oecumene. The crucial consideration is that he had
arrived at that conclusion beforehand, and tailored his account accordingly.
Nor can this interpretation be undermined by claiming that the historian
"to crush" in Polybius (A. Mauersberger, Polybios-Lexicon 1 3, Berlin 1966, 1327), and its use
here is not likely to be due to the epitomator.
31
Cf. Pedech 198; Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 54; Walbank, Papers 293.
32
Livy 41,24,3, undoubtedly Polybian and rightly given much play by E. Bikerman, REG 66,
1953, 484 and 499. The best discussion of the confidentiality of senate meetings
is that by Harris,
War and Imperialism 255.
33
Appian, Lib. 134/633-135/638, a passage whose importance is justly emphasized by H. Bel-
len, Metus Gallicus - Metus Punicus, Wiesbaden 1985, 3f.
simply made an honest mistake, for example, overestimating Cato's influence
in the senate and thinking his advocacy of Carthage's destruction the prevai-
ling opinion from the start, held in check only by the quest for a suitable
pretext and occasion.3" That cannot excuse Polybius' cursory treatment of
debates occupying three full years. The distortion is deliberate, brought about
by what he considered the needs of his audience. Since his History was meant
to be useful,35 his readers could learn little from the protracted debates which
so took up the senate's time save, perhaps, that the patres too could miscon-
ceive a situation
-
not a fruitful lesson when these same men were the arbiters
of the Mediterranean world. Better by far to mention the debates as briefly as
possible and to put the emphasis on two key points: first, that the Romans
would always pursue their own best interests, though they might wait until
they had formal justification for a truly drastic step; and second, that any
misunderstanding or misrepresentation of their basic position, all too easily
brought about, would lead as inevitably to disaster in the future as it had done
in the past.
II. Polybius and the 'Day of Eleusis'
Since Polybius' account of the Third Punic War shows him capable of
schematism, it is legitimate to call into question next the grounds on which he
determined that 168 was indeed the year in which the Romans completed their
conquest of the oecumene. With Macedonia and Greece, of course, there is no
problem. It was in 168 that the Macedonian monarchy was destroyed, and it
was after Pydna that the Romans deported Greek hostages by the thousand,
Polybius himself amongst them, to Italy. There was reason to maintain that the
Romans' writ ran in Asia Minor too. It was also after Pydna that Rhodes and
Pergamum were punished because
-
so at least the Romans thought
-
they
had had the temerity to try to teach the senate its business by interceding on
Perseus' behalf during the final stages of the war.36 The trouble begins when
we turn to Egypt and Syria, since it is Polybius' contention that at the 'Day of
Eleusis' the Romans imposed their wishes, willy-nilly, on the two other great
powers of the Hellenistic World, intervening in the Sixth Syrian War to halt
the dissolution of the one and the expansion of the other.37
34
Polybius had personal experience of Cato's influence and reason to overestimate his power:
see 35,6 with Astin, Cato the Censor 124f. and Momigliano, Alien Wisdom 26f. Indeed, Cato
could have come swiftly to represent a majority in the senate (cf. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften II 45),
since Scipio Nasica was hardly the leader of a "peace party" (cf. Hoffmann, Historia 9, 1960,
343f.).
35 See Walbank, Polybius 6, for the relevant passages.
36 For the facts see Gruen 569ff. It makes no difference to my case whether the Romans'
actions rested on a misapprehension (so Gruen 556ff.).
37
See especially Polybius 29,27,11-13; cf. Livy 45,13,5; Valerius Maximus 6,4,3. It goes far
beyond the available evidence, however, to suggest that Agatharchides thought Eleusis the
46 M. GWYN MORGAN
Polybius himself certainly had grounds for thinking that the Ptolemaic
realm was in a state of dissolution at this time. In the winter of 169/168, after
all, the Lagids sent an embassy to the Achaean League to request help against
Antiochus, asking for a contingent of troops under Lycortas and Polybius or,
failing that, for the services simply of these two men as military advisers.
Though both requests were ultimately refused, the historian could justifiably
take it as a sign of weakness that they were ever made.38 Again, Polybius may
or may not be Livy's source for the melodramatic presentation made to the
senate at the start of 168 by the ambassadors of Ptolemy Euergetes II and
Cleopatra,39 but he definitely reported the squabbling which broke out bet-
ween Ptolemy VI Philometor and Euergetes after Antiochus' withdrawal from
Egypt; it was in this context, indeed, that he echoed the opinion Scipio
Aemilianus voiced nearly thirty years later, during his tour of Egypt, that the
country could become a great power, if ever it found rulers worthy of it.40
When we add to this Polybius' weakness for reflections on the passing of
empires,4' it must have been easy for him to conclude that in 168 Egypt was
truly in a state of dissolution.
There are nonetheless three vital facts which cannot be fitted into his
picture. First, the Lagid realm had been the sick man of the Mediterranean for
years; it was this which had lent plausibility to the allegations made in
203/202, that Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III were plotting to carve
up between them Ptolemaic possessions outside Egypt.42 Second, no matter
what Polybius thought, Antiochus IV was unable to take Alexandria in either
of his campaigns, not just in the second campaign seemingly so rudely inter-
rupted by the Romans, and without Alexandria he had nothing. Whatever the
city's precise political and juridical status within the kingdom, to the outside
world Alexandria was Egypt.43 Third, and this is by far the most significant
point, some twenty years earlier the Romans themselves had imposed their
wishes on Egypt, willy-nilly, in a matter of vital importance to her rulers; in the
confirmation of Ptolemaic tyranny in Egypt and proof that only the distant Sabaeans were now
safe from Roman intervention (thus P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1, Oxford 1972, 550).
38 Polybius 29,23-25 (note especially 23,5 and 8; 24,4; 25,7). On the part played in this episode
by Q. Marcius Philippus (cos. I1 169) see below, note 78.
39
Livy 44,19,6-12. Since H. Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen uber die Quellen der vierten
und funften Dekade des Livius, Berlin 1863, 262f., this passage has regularly been declared
annalistic, but see below, note 102.
40
Polybius obviously admired Philometor as a man (39,7), but not as a ruler (see, e. g., 31,10
and 17-20). Scipio's remark, preserved by Diodorus 33,28b,3, is echoed at Polybius 31,10,8.
41 Witness his account of Scipio Aemilianus at Carthage (38,21,1-3), with the comments of
Momigliano, Alien Wisdom 22f., and Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 41f.
42 For the pact see Gruen 387f., 614ff., and 678f.
43
The importance of Alexandria is rightly stressed by Bevan 138; Bouche-Leclercq 255; De
Sanctis 303; Otto 58; and Jouguet 215. There will be more to say on the subject in part Ill below.
The city's political and juridical status is discussed by Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1 106ff.
peace treaty they concluded with Antiochus III at Apamea they confirmed his
right to Coele-Syria, that perennial bone of contention which he had taken
back from the Lagids during the Fifth Syrian War, and did so without even
bothering to consult the Ptolemaic court." So far as Egypt is concerned,
therefore, the 'Day of Eleusis' may have seemed superficially attractive be-
cause it fell in the same year as Pydna, but the country was actually in no more
and no less parlous a condition than it had been before 168 or would be after
that date, nor did the Romans' intervention on this occasion betoken any
change in their basic attitude toward the kingdom.
As a way of looking at Seleucid history after 168, Polybius' theory has even
less to recommend it, as Gruen has emphasized.45 Whatever Antiochus Epi-
phanes learnt, or failed to learn, from his experiences at Eleusis, he gave no
sign of having been intimidated by the episode. Hence the massive show of
force at Daphne in 166, simultaneously a bid to outshine the celebrations
which L. Aemilius Paullus had staged at Amphipolis the previous year, a
demonstration of his own military successes in Egypt, and an advertisement
for the anabasis on which, apparently, he intended emulating his father's
achievements.' Hence too his behaviour when the Roman embassy headed
by Ti. Gracchus appeared in Antioch shortly after the festival: though he
showed the
envoys every courtesy,
his attitude
-
characterized as servile
by
Polybius and by Diodorus as reprehensible
-
indicated no substantive conces-
sion on his part. For if the Romans were concerned about breaches of the
Treaty of Apamea (and Antiochus could perhaps have been said to be viola-
ting its provisions by maintaining war elephants) and about the king's plans
for his army, they never made an issue of either point. Convinced of Antio-
chus' goodwill, they returned to Rome to persuade other senators of the same
thing - much to Polybius' disgust.47 And hence, finally, Diodorus' describing
44
H. Winkler, Rom und Agypten im 2. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Diss., Leipzig 1933, 24f.; Otto 30;
Will 231f.; Gruen 682ff. Hence the Ptolemaic attempts, rumoured or real, to take back the lost
territories shortly before 180 (Morkholm 66; Gruen 649), ca. 173 (see below, note 65), and in
170/169 (see below, part Ill).
45
E. S. Gruen, Chiron 6, 1976, 73ff. Note too the trenchant comments of M. 1. Rostovtzeff, A
Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World 1, Oxford 1941, 67.
46 J G. Bunge, Chiron 6, 1976, 53ff.
47
Polybius 30,27,1-3 and 30,7-8; Diodorus 31,16,1 and 17. Though it will be necessary to recur
to this embassy in part III, it is worth noting here that Polybius 30,27,2 says that the Romans
found nothing in Antiochus' conduct 7pwTpCtTt 4t9LpacaLv
EXov;
to judge by his use of the term
elsewhere (2,36,5; 4,21,5; 22,10,4),
napaTpLtI3T
connotes "friction" between persons of more or
less equal standing. In any event, whatever the bearing of the relevant clauses in the Treaty of
Apamea (below, note 49), Antiochus maintained war elephants throughout his reign. Thus, he is
said to have used them in his invasion of Egypt (I Macc. 1,17), to have provided the Romans with
such beasts in the war against Perseus (Polyaenus 4,21, probably to be rejected: see Winkler,
Rom und Aegypten 30 n. 54; Otto 47 n. 1), and to have employed between 22 and 80 of them
against the Jewish rebels (I Macc. 3,34; 6,30,34-37,43--46; II Macc. 11,4; 13,2 and 15; cf. Josephus,
AJ 12,295). He certainly paraded between 36 and 42 at Daphne (Polybius 30,25,11 with Walbank,
48 M. GWYN MORGAN
Antiochus as the most powerful king of his day at the time he attacked
Armenia in 164.48 Whatever the interpretation we choose to place on Cn.
Octavius' decision in 163 to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Apamea by
hamstringing the royal elephants and burning the Seleucid fleet, and on the
senate's failure even to demand the punishment of his assassin Leptines,49 it
remains the case that the patres took no such forceful measures while Antio-
chus himself was still alive.
To this, however, it can be objected that Polybius' interpretation is nonethe-
less sound, inasmuch as no Seleucid monarch challenged Rome after 168 and,
whatever the senate's role in the process, Syria had lapsed into
TapCCXil
Kctt
KiVflc;tg
by 152, thanks to the struggle between Demetrius and Alexander
Balas. Which brings us to the real obstacle to Polybius' view, namely, that no
Seleucid monarch went so far as to challenge Rome after Magnesia, more
than twenty years before the 'Day of Eleusis'.
It hardly seems likely that once the Treaty of Apamea had been signed in
spring 188, Antiochus III sent the senate a letter to thank its members sincerely
(non dissimulanter) for providing him with a more compact and more ma-
nageable kingdom.50 But how he might have comported himself in any subse-
quent dealings with Rome we shall never know, since he left almost immedia-
tely for his eastern provinces and perished there in June or July 187.51 It is
perhaps to compensate for this that modern historians have tended to make an
enemy of Rome out of his son and successor, Seleucus IV.52
There are no grounds for such an assessment. That the new king offered the
Comm. 452).
48
Diodorus 31,17a; cf. also 30,15; Appian, Syr. 45/234;
II
Macc. 1,13; and for the king's
posthumous popularity, M0rkholm 184f.
49
The clauses in the Treaty of Apamea relating to warships and elephants have caused nearly
as much confusion as those dealing with the territorial limitations on the Seleucid monarchs
have aroused controversy. Essentially, the treaty declared that the king could maintain no
elephants and only ten warships. There is no convincing evidence that the naval clauses of the
treaty were breached either by Seleucus IV (note 53) or by Antiochus IV (below, part 111), but the
latter certainly maintained elephants (above, note 47). Since we cannot plausibly argue that
these clauses were not binding on the successors of Antiochus III (thus E. Paltiel, Antichthon 13,
1979, 30 ff.), and it begs the question to hold that the Romans interpreted the terms elastically
because they trusted Antiochus (so, e. g., Niese 171f.), it is probably best to maintain that these
clauses, like the territorial clauses, took effect only if the king showed signs of moving into Asia
Minor, Europe or the Aegean. the areas of prime concern to Rome, and that there was no ban on
such weaponry when it was pointed in other directions (cf. Will 224); which is why we hear so
much more about elephants than we do about warships after 189. From this, however, it would
follow that Cn. Octavius' actions in 163 were unjustified, overzealous, and highly embarrassing
to the senate, essentially the view of Gruen, Chiron 6, 1976, 81ff.
50
Valerius Maximus 4,1, ext. 9, dismissed by Niese 89 n. 3.
51
See H. H. Schmitt, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Antiochos' des Grofen und seiner Zeit,
Historia Einzelschr. 6, Wiesbaden 1964, If.
52 Thus Niese 90; Bevan 124; Bouche-Leclercq 228 and 240; Will 303f. Gruen 644ff. rightly
protests against such an interpretation, but tends - I think - to overestimate the king's indepen-
dence and successes.
Achaean League ten warships when he sought a renewal of friendship with
them in 185 tells us nothing, not even that he was breaking the naval clauses of
the Treaty of Apamea.53 Again, when Phamaces of Pontus went to war with
Eumenes of Pergamum, so we are told by Diodorus (29,24), Seleucus took it
into his head to aid the forner, sallied forth with his army and then, at the last
minute, remembered that such action would contravene the Treaty of Apa-
mea. Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain this bizarrerie, but
since it was not the Romans who reminded him of his obligations,54 it illu-
strates only Seleucus' unreliability as an ally and the feeble excuses he was
willing to offer for his behaviour. Which bears on his one remaining, suppo-
sedly anti-Roman act: soon after Perseus succeeded to the Macedonian thro-
ne, apparently in 178, Seleucus married off his daughter Laodice to the new
monarch, meanwhile taking care not to breach the clause in the Treaty of
Apamea which forbade Syrian warships to enter the Aegean except when
carrying tribute (i. e., instalments of the indemnity), envoys or hostages, by
persuading the Rhodians to convey the bride to her groom.55 In any circum-
stances this would not have been a union imposing binding ties on either
ruler,56 but it is hard to see how Perseus could have expected much of a
father-in-law who had left Pharnaces twisting slowly in the wind.57 In short,
Seleucus' known actions cannot plausibly be considered anti-Roman - or
even particularly successful. The Achaean League declined the warships,
Phamaces was abandoned to his fate, and Perseus never gave sign of being
impressed by Laodice's father. Appian may, after all, be right to declare
53
Polybius 22,7,4; cf. Diodorus 29,17. The ships cause concern for Bevan 123 n. 2, Bouche-Lec-
lercq 229, Morkholm 33, and Gruen 645 n. 164; but the Treaty of Apamea did not forbid the
building of warships, only their use by the Seleucid fleet, an observation which applies also to
the statement by II Macc. 4,20 that warships were being built early in Antiochus' reign.
54That the mission of T. Quinctius Flamininus in 183 (Polybius 23,5,1) had anything to do
with Seleucus' change of mind can be ruled out on chronological grounds (Walbank, Comm.
221: cf. De Sanctis 258).
55
For the marriage see Polybius 24,5,8; Livy 42,12,3; Appian, Mac. 11,2; SIG3 689.
56J. Seibert, Historische Beitrage zu den dynastischen Verbindungen in hellenistischer Zeit,
Historia Einzelschr. 10, Wiesbaden 1967, 44.
5
The elaborate speculations with which Meloni 119f. and 122ff. tries to prove that Perseus
initiated the match founder on the fact that Livy 42,12,3 credits the statement that the Macedoni-
an was non petentem sed petitum ultro to Eumenes of Pergamum; as the close friend of
Antiochus IV (below, note 66), he stood to gain nothing by palliating Perseus' behaviour and
drawing attention to any Seleucid initiative (cf. Seibert 43f.). It is not even necessary to assume
that Eumenes was the target of the marriage, so far as it had one. In 186 Seleucus had named his
first son Demetrius; though sometimes taken as a gesture of solidarity with the Antigonids
(M0rkholm 34; Gruen 645), it could also have been construed as a claim to the Macedonian
throne (Bevan 124f.), for example, by Philip V, son of one Demetrius and father of another, and
a king with whom Seleucus was never able to make contact (cf. Bouche-Leclercq 228f., offering
other reasons). Indeed, Seleucus' seeking a marriage alliance with Perseus may have been an
attempt to remedy this gaffe and to reassure the Macedonian of Syrian goodwill.
50 M. GWYN MORGAN
Seleucus a weak and ineffective king.58
If we turn now to the early years of Antiochus' reign, from his accession
through the outbreak of the Sixth Syrian War, we find here too a tendency,
albeit not as marked, to assume that he was suspect in Roman eyes from the
start. It has been emphasized, for example, that the senate kept the king's
nephew Demetrius in Rome not just as a hostage, but as a possible replace-
ment for his uncle.59 And Morkholm considers it significant that though
Antiochus ascended the throne in 175, it was the Romans who first established
diplomatic contact with him, in 174 or 173, and that his response, "an act of
courtesy which usually followed close on the accession of a king", came only
in 173.6?
Such an approach ignores several important considerations. First, there is
no convincing evidence that the Romans ever saw Demetrius as a means of
putting pressure on Antiochus.61 More important, in 175 the new king had
only recently ended a twelve-year stay in Rome (above, note 11), and the
senate must have had - as he himself knew - a pretty fair idea of how he
would conduct himself in his new role. Again, the circumstances in which
Antiochus came to the throne were hardly straightforward,62 a fact which
surely explains not only his own failure to send ambassadors to Rome any
sooner, but also the Romans' sending legates to him in 174 or 173: their intent
may well have been merely to see that he was in control.63 Next, the embassy
58Appian, Syr. 66/349; cf. Polybius, frag. 96 B-W; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 48. The
comment militates against the suggestion that Seleucus' diplomacy enjoyed other unattested
successes (so Bevan 123; Gruen 647), and one could argue as easily that Antiochus' energetic
diplomacy (M0rkholm 51ff.) was meant to make up for his predecessor's failures. As for the
view that the Romans decided to exchange Antiochus for the king's son Demetrius, because they
were displeased with the king or fearful of his intentions (Bevan 124; Bouch&ILeclercq 240f.;
M0rkholm 35f.; Will 303ff.), Appian, Syr. 45/232 states explicitly that Seleucus set up the
exchange.
59 See Will 307, 309, 322.
60
M0rkholm 64; cf. Niese 93 n. 2 and Otto 32 n. 1. Livy 42,6,6-12 is the only source for these
embassies, and the dating is difficult. That sent by Antiochus reached Rome after the consuls for
173 had left for their provinces (hence the reference to the praetor urbanus at 42,6,10), but before
they returned at the end of the summer, L. Postumius Albinus to hold elections (Livy 42,9,7-8),
M. Popillius Laenas to berate the senate for disapproving of his conduct (Livy 42,9,1-2), i. e.,
between Roman April and October, equivalent to January through June by Julian reckoning
(P. S. Derow, Phoenix 27, 1973, 345ff.). Despite Morkholm 64 n. 3, we cannot use the fact that
the censors for 174 were still in office to argue that the embassy fell early in the year. Censors
entered office in Roman April or May (J. Suolahti, The Roman Censors, Helsinki 1963, 75), and
those for 174 would still have been active late in the summer of 173. As for the Roman embassy
to Antiochus, we know only that it preceded the Seleucid mission (Livy 42,6,12); even if the one
embassy led to the other, both can be fitted comfortably into 173.
61
See especially Polybius 31,2,3 and 13,8; E. Paltiel, Antichthon 13,1979, 42ff.
62
See Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49a; Bevan 127f. and 133; A. Aymard, Historia 2, 1953/54,
49 ff.= Etudes d'histoire ancienne, Paris 1967, 240ff.; M. Zambelli, RFIC 88, 1960, 363ff.;
Morkholm 40ff.; J. G. Bunge, Historia 23, 1974, 57ff.; Will 309.
63 Whether the embassy was dispatched in 174 or 173 (above, note 60), its purpose was not to
discover Antiochus' views on Perseus (so, rightly, Otto, 32f.); though the senate was supposedly
which Antiochus sent to Rome in 173 made handsome amends for any
previous neglect, real or fancied. Headed by Apollonius, the embassy brought
with it the final instalment of the indemnity imposed at Apamea and overdue
since 177. The impact of this gesture was reinforced by Apollonius' honeyed
words. For he not only voiced the king's wish to renew the alliance the
Romans had concluded with his father, but also dilated on the kindly treat-
ment Antiochus had received during his time in Rome and on his promises of
officium in return (Livy 42,6,6-11). Small wonder that Apollonius was given a
most cordial reception and the king's request granted: there could be no doubt
of Antiochus' wish to remain on the senate's good side. Apollonius may also
have given an undertaking that his master would steer clear of Perseus'
intrigues,T' especially if
-
as is sometimes argued
-
the embassy's timing was
itself connected with renewed Ptolemaic threats to Coele-Syria and the king's
wish to take out insurance in Rome.65 Finally, and most significantly, there
was nobody to gainsay these protestations of devotion. The Romans' chief
source of information on Asia and Perseus' inveterate enemy throughout the
170s was Eumenes of Pergamum, and with Eumenes Antiochus was always on
the best of terms.'M
Of the next contact between Rome and Antiochus, and the last before the
outbreak of the Sixth Syrian War, we know only that another Roman embassy
sent east to test the political waters returned home in 172 with the report that
Antiochus had rejected overtures from Perseus and, like Eumenes and Ptole-
my Philometor, had promised to place his resources at the disposal of the
Republic.67 Once again the senate had no reason to doubt the king's goodwill,
and Livy reinforces this impression in his Polybian survey of the situation at
the start of the consular year 171: Antiochus, he says, omnia et per suos legatos
senatui et ipse legatis eorum enixe pollicitus erat.68 There is no need here to go
beginning to worry seriously about the Macedonian king in 173 (cf. Livy 42,2,1-2 and 6,2), they
sent out the first of their missions on this matter only around the time Apollonius arrived (Livy
42,6,4-5). The embassy is considered a courtesy visit by M0rkholm 64 and Gruen 648 n. 178.
64
Cf. Jouguet 218f. Though Morkholm 65 doubts that any specific undertaking was given, it
was not lost on the Romans how close Apollonius stood to his king (Livy 42,6,12), and as
M0rkholm 65 n. 5 concedes, Livy 42,29,6 shows how the Romans understood the embassy.
65
So Otto 31ff.; Passerini 332; Swain 80; Gruen 648ff. Though Livy's silence proves nothing,
the chronological uncertainties and terminological difficulties render this suggestion hazardous.
66
For Eumenes and Perseus see, e.g., Gruen 408ff. For Eumenes and Antiochus see especially
Polybius 30,30,4-7 and Appian, Syr. 45/235.
67 Livy 42,26,7-8; cf. Appian, Mac. 11,4. There is some confusion in Livy over the number and
timing of the embassies sent to the east at this stage (Broughton, MRR I 412f.), but here only
Antiochus' renewed assurances to the senate matter.
68
Livy 42,29,6 (from Polybius: Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 248). The concomitant
statement that Antiochus planned to exploit the Romans' preoccupation with Perseus to attack
Egypt (inminebat quidem Aegypti regno), the basis for the sinister vision of Antiochus which
Bikerman, REG 66, 1953, 5Off. attributed to the Romans, is clearly Polybius' own view, and
should not be ascribed to the senate (cf. Pedech 148).
52 M. GWYN MORGAN
into Antiochus' conduct during the Sixth Syrian War, nor even to anticipate
the findings of the third part of this paper, since the arguments over the king's
intentions in his two invasions of Egypt have never centred on the question
whether he was seeking to challenge Rome, least of all by going to war with
her.69 And on any interpretation of the 'Day of Eleusis' he backed down the
moment the Romans confronted him. There being, therefore, no evidence that
a Syrian ruler ever challenged Rome after Magnesia, it follows that the
importance with which Polybius invested the 'Day of Eleusis' is misplaced as
regards the Seleucid monarchy no less than Egypt.
The only way of salvaging Polybius' interpretation, so far as I can see,
would be to argue that the 'Day of Eleusis' could have brought home to many
Greeks, as it may perhaps have done, something of which they had not been
too sure beforehand, namely, that Rome was now the dominant power in the
Mediterranean.70 But even this is a matter of perceptions, not realities, and
Polybius was supposedly dealing with realities, picking 168 as the decisive
year because the Romans then became dominant, not because Roman domi-
nance was then accepted by Greeks too dense to recognize it any sooner.
Which means that this argument too falls to the ground. For in 168 only
Macedonia and Greece could accurately be said to have been brought, once
for all, under Roman control. Magnesia had ended any Seleucid claims to
predominance in the Mediterranean, and at Apamea Egypt's ambitions had
simply been disregarded by the Romans when they confirmed the claims of
Antiochus III to Coele-Syria.
Polybius, we must surely conclude, was seduced by the coincidence of
Pydna and Eleusis, mainly because of the entrancing possibilities this offered
for matching his History with the period it covered and for creating a unity -
so he could persuade himself - with a clear beginning,
a fixed duration, and
an undisputed end. Moreover, his treatment of the wars of 152-146 and,
especially, his account of the senatorial debates leading into the Third Punic
War show that once he had created this unity, he never thought to modify or
abandon it, striving instead to accommodate later events to the scheme he had
already elaborated. But just because Polybius gave way to his own schema-
tism, there is no need for us blindly to follow his lead. We ought rather to keep
in mind the possibility that a historian capable of structuring his work as a
whole in the way Polybius did would tend also to misrepresent the situation in
detail, not wilfully (let it be said once again), but because his preconceived
ideas on the necessity for useful lessons conditioned his interpretation
and
presentation of the specific facts too. And it is from this angle that we can best
69
On Granius Licinianus' absurd tale see above, note 1.
70
See above, note 5.
consider Polybius' account of Antiochus' behaviour and policies during the
Sixth Syrian War.
III. Antiochus and the Sixth Syrian War
My purpose in this part of the discussion is not to consider the Sixth Syrian
War as a whole (though it may often seem that this is what is happening), but
to make three points: first, that from the moment Antiochus IV invaded Egypt
for the first time, he kept one eye on the Romans, in case his actions produced
equal - and adverse - reactions, and did all he could to counter so untoward
an eventuality; next, that the way he conducted his second campaign in
particular shows that, by the time Popillius Laenas arrived, the king already
knew that he could neither justify nor win the war; and finally, that whatever
emotion the 'Day of Eleusis' aroused in the royal bosom, it was not the
resentment with which Polybius insists on crediting him then and later.
Basic to most modem discussions of the war is the assumption
-
going back
to Polybius himself -
that Antiochus had it in mind to conquer Egypt, and was
on the point of gaining control of the country when C. Popillius Laenas turned
up at Eleusis.7' From which it would indeed seem to follow that the king was
humiliated by the Romans' intervention, and must needs have felt due measu-
re of resentment. It might seem strange that a man who, during his twelve
years as a hostage in Rome, had formed a taste for things Roman should have
continued to display that admiration even after such humiliation, for example,
by placing 5,000 men equipped irf the Roman manner at the head of the
columns of infantry which paraded at Daphne in 166, and by including in that
parade 250 pairs of gladiators, who then demonstrated their prowess
-
no
doubt to the shock and horror of sensitive Greeks
-
for the thirty days the
71
In the surviving fragments Polybius describes the war initially as fought simply for Coele-
Syria (28,1,1 and 4), but the idea of conquest shows up in his own surmise at 28,17,5; he talks of
the occupation of Egypt at 28,19,1 and 20,1, of its near conquest at 29,2,1, and of conquest averted
at 29,27,11-13. But it is clear from Livy 42,29,6 (quoted above, note 68) that he suspected the
worst even before the war broke out, and it is as well to remember that he subscribed to the idea
that powers which could expand would do so (see below, note 140). Only the Jewish tradition
accepts the idea of conquest wholeheartedly (I Macc. 1,16; Josephus, AJ 12, 242). For though
Zonaras 9,25 thinks Antiochus aimed at conquest (this in a confused account), Livy's version of
events is more nuanced in detail, as we shall see, and Appian, Syr. 66/349 and Justin 34,2,7
content themselves with statements that the king waged war on the Ptolemies. Among modern
scholars, nonetheless, the view that Antiochus meant to conquer Egypt has been questioned, so
far as I know, by but four scholars: Passerini 336ff.; H. Ludin Jansen, "Die Politik Antiochos'
des IV", a work I know only from the summary by Pedech 152 n. 172; Tarn, The Greeks in
Bactria and India 183ff.; and Swain 79f. and 82f. - and Tarn and Swain should be discounted,
since the basis of their opinion is the presumption that the king was already more interested in
his anabasis than in Egypt. Still, signs of caution are beginning to appear: see Will 324;
H. Heinen, ANRW I 1, Berlin 1972, 657 n. 82.
54 M. GWYN MORGAN
festival lasted.72 Yet this cannot be stressed, since it may be argued no less
plausibly that Antiochus recognized that dropping his liking for Roman
practices would be construed as proof of the very resentment he denied
feeling. But what is incontestable is that Antiochus' stay in Rome gave him a
much better appreciation of Roman sensibilities than was possessed by most
other Hellenistic rulers of the time. Indeed, he proved this by his resolute
refusal either to become entangled in Perseus' schemes for an anti-Roman
coalition, or to intercede on the man's behalf during the Third Macedonian
War, a trap into which both Rhodes and Pergamum fell, and a trap into which
the Ptolemies too would have fallen, had it not been for the good offices of the
princeps senatus, M. Aemilius Lepidus.73
When Antiochus invaded Egypt for the first time, during the winter of
17O/169,74
he was clearly acting in self-defence, even if his campaign took the
form of a pre-emptive strike against an Egyptian army mustered to recover
Coele-Syria and Phoenicia for the Lagids.75 Yet the king was careful to send
an embassy to Rome before the fighting actually broke out, both to present his
own case and to rebut any allegations that might be made against him by a
Ptolemaic delegation which reached the city at about the same time.76 As it
happened, so Polybius says, the delegates from Alexandria had not, or
claimed not to have, been briefed by their master on his plans for Coele-Sy-
ria.77 The senate could hardly reach a decision, therefore, but authorized the
consul presiding at the meeting, Q. Marcius Philippus, to write a letter on the
subject to the Ptolemaic court.78
72
For Daphne see Polybius 30,25-26; Diodorus 31,16; Livy 41,20,10-13; M0rkholm 97ff.; J. G.
Bunge, Chiron 6, 1976, 53ff. Earlier instances of Antiochus' love of things Roman include his
behaving like a Roman magistrate in Antioch (Polybius 26,la,2 and 1,5-6; Diodorus 29,32;
Livy
41,20,1), and his employing a Roman architect, D. Cossutius, to complete the Pisistratid temple
to Zeus Olympius in Athens and to build an aqueduct in Antioch (Vitruvius 7, praef.
15;
M0rkholm 118f.).
73
For Antiochus himself see above note 12 (to which it may be added that, no doubt, he had
other good reasons for avoiding any entanglement with Perseus: Jouguet 201f.); for Rhodes and
Pergamum see above, note 36; and for Egypt see Polybius 28,1,7-8 and Diodorus 30,2 with the
comments of A. M. Eckstein, Historia 37, 1988, 427.
74
The chronology is still disputed, but the view of Otto 40ff., T. C. Skeat, JEA 47, 1961, 107ff.
and M0rkholm 69ff. remains most probable. There seems to have been little observance of the
regular campaigning season during this war, unless we argue that Antiochus achieved his
principal successes (this battle and the seizure of Cyprus: below, note 110) by ignoring the rules
and catching his enemies off guard. Similarly with the various embassies dispatched by
the
interested parties (note especially Polybius 29,23,1); and yet winter voyages were not impossible,
only unusual (J. Rouge, REA 54, 1952, 316ff.).
75
Otto 24ff. and 42ff.; M0rkholm 66f. and 73ff.
76 Polybius 27,19 and 28,1; cf. Diodorus 30,2.
77
Polybius 28,1,9. In Diodorus 30,2 the Egyptian ambassadors are made to defend their king's
conduct, but this is clearly incorrect (Walbank, Comm. 326).
78 Although it is often assumed that Philippus was already in Greece (Niese 170; Bouche-Lec-
lercq 253; Otto 22f. and 45; Jouguet 220; Swain 89; Briscoe, JRS 54, 1964, 72; Heinen,
ANRW I 1, 655), there is more to be said for the view that he was still in Rome, even if a
It rather misses the point to describe this simply as an attempt by the senate
to avoid making a decision which would anger one side or the other and
possibly drive them into Perseus' arms.79 If the Egyptian ambassadors could
not or would not make a case, the senate - whatever its wishes - could neither
reach nor appear to reach a fair decision solely on the basis of what Antio-
chus' emissaries had to say. Nor can it be considered a victory for Antiochus
that Marcius Philippus was instructed to write only to the Ptolemaic court.80
There was no point in corresponding with the Seleucid, when his views were
already abundantly clear. If anything, therefore, it was the Egyptian ambassa-
dors who won this exchange, by securing the postponement of any decision.8'
For it is important to realize, firstly, that the Romans always recognized a
state's right to self-defence,82 and secondly, that in this particular case they
could hardly favour Lagid attempts to recover territory which they themselves,
at Apamea, had adjudged part of the Seleucid realm. Though the senators
may have hoped that their own inability to reach a decision would cool the
ardour of both sides for war, however, it also ran the risk of producing the very
result it was supposedly meant to avert - unless, of course, they were already
more confident that Antiochus would not be alienated by this result than they
were of the likely Ptolemaic reaction to a different outcome. In other words, a
convincing case has not been made by its proponents (Bevan 135; De Sanctis 301 n. 191;
Morkholm 73; Will 316; Walbank, Comm. 327). It is not just that this was standard procedure,
or that Philippus must have spent about a month in Rome before leaving for his provincia (Livy
43,15,3 reports that he departed after celebrating the feriae Latinae. A year later, as Livy 44,19,4
says, L. Aemilius Paullus was in a hurry to reach Macedonia, celebrated these feriae as soon as
possible, and fixed the date at [Roman] April 12). The point is important because only Polybius
28,1,9 justifies the assertion that Philippus had some kind of watching brief over eastern affairs
(so Broughton, MRR I 423, citing also Livy 43,12,1 and 15,3, both of which credit him solely with
Macedonia). Given that a magistrate, once he had taken up his province, was supposed to limit
his attention to it (M. G. Morgan, Historia 28, 1969, 443), there could be no objection to
Philippus' urging Rome's allies in her war against Perseus, e. g., the Achaean League, not to take
sides in the Sixth Syrian War (Polybius 29,25,2), but he could not send even his own junior
officers to intervene in that war. This is why Philippus consistently used intermediaries, like the
Rhodians (note 101) and the Achaeans (note 126).
79
So Niese 170; Bevan 135; Bouch&Leclercq 252f.; Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 33; Otto 65;
Passerini 333; E. Manni, RFIC 78, 1950, 233; M0rkholm 72f.; Will 316; Gruen 689. The more
elaborate assumption that the senate made no decision because happy to see Egypt and Syria
embroiled in a war that distracted both from aiding Perseus (De Sanctis 301; Otto 38; Jouguet
222; Heinen, ANRW I 1, 654f.) ignores the untoward results of such a conflict, that the winner
would join Perseus or the loser appeal to him, thereby expanding the Third Macedonian War,
not a welcome prospect for the Romans (cf. Bikerman, REG 66, 1953, 502f.; Gruen 656).
80
So Otto 45f. and M0rkholm 73.
81
To this extent there is force in the observation of Pedech 150f. (cf. Bikerman 502; Will 316;
Gruen 655), that both sets of ambassadors were more interested in presenting their cases than
they were in securing a decision from the senate.
82The Romans were not obliged to help an ally who engaged in aggression or what they
considered aggression (Passerini 328), and they could not object even when an overt enemy
defended itself against a Roman ally, so long as the self-defence was not carried too far (cf.
Passerini 336 and 338; Bikerman 487f.; Astin, Scipio Aemilianus 50f.).
56 M. GWYN MORGAN
decision against Egypt would probably alienate the Ptolemies, whereas a
non-decision left the Seleucid free to go to war in his own defence, a prospect
the senate could contemplate with equanimity because he had already assured
them that he would act with all appropriate restraint.83
By the time this non-decision was reached, in any case, Antiochus had
already won a victory in the field, defeating the Egyptian army crushingly in
the frontier zone between Mt. Casius and Pelusium.4 Apparently, he resorted
to sharp practice to gain control of Pelusium itself,85 but nor is this surprising,
in that the gateway to Egypt was also the gateway into Coele-Syria. Otherwise,
however, the king showed studied moderation. His aim, obviously, was to
convince everybody that his sole concerns were the security of his own realm
and the reestablishment of peaceful relations with Egypt. He certainly charm-
ed ambassadors from various Greek states into accepting his version of
events, even though he treated them to a lengthy disquisition on Seleucid
claims to Coele-Syria.86 And the high point in his success came when, see-
mingly in early summer 169, he detached Ptolemy Philometor from his asso-
ciation with Cleopatra II, his wife and sister, and his younger brother, Ptolemy
VII Euergetes 1.j87 As a result of this manoeuvre, Antiochus was able some-
how to pose as Philometor's patron and protector, and no matter what else
this gave him, it provided him with a locus standi in Egypt, enabling him to
fend off further Roman enquiries into the situation.88
Which brings us to the Roman embassy led by T. Numisius. Our only
source, Polybius, reports merely that at some point in 169 the senate dis-
patched this embassy to reconcile the kings of Egypt and Syria, and that when
83
Passerini 339ff. (cf. Will 324) surmised that the Ptolemaic court was ill disposed toward
Rome at this time, and not just because its interests had been ignored at Apamea. It might be
more profitable to ask how long M. Lepidus kept silent about the Ptolemaic ambassadors' plan
to mediate the war with Perseus (above, note 73). Even if we see this purely as a tactless
manoeuvre, other senators may have been much more offended by it than was Lepidus
(Eckstein, Historia 37, 1988, 427), and therefore much more suspicious of Egypt and more
inclined to indulge Antiochus as far as they could.
84
Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49a; Diodorus 30,14; cf. Otto 46ff.; M0rkholm 73ff.; Walbank,
Comm. 321ff. According to the Ptolemaic envoys heard by the senate at the start of 168,
Antiochus had by then proved navali proelio superior (Livy 44,19,9). Like the statement in I
Macc. 1,17, that Antiochus invaded Egypt "with a large fleet", this is clearly an exaggeration (cf.
Niese 173 n. 3; Otto 46f.), and is probably best taken as an indication that Antiochus used a small
squadron to screen his land forces in this battle, not as evidence for an engagement later in the
year (Bevan 137; Bouche-Leclercq 256; Jouguet 232), nor as an error on Livy's part (Swain 90
n. 78).
85
Polybius 28,18; Diodorus 30,18,2 (cf. 14); M0rkholm 77.
86
Polybius 20,20,1-10 (note the sarcasm in ? 10); cf. Bouch&-Leclercq 256; Otto 50f.; Pedech
151; M0rkholm 78f.; Walbank, Comm. 355f.
87
The circumstances are obscure: Otto 49ff.; Jouguet 224ff.; M0rkholm 74ff.
88
The form taken by Antiochus' tutela over Philometor remains highly controversial (cf. Otto
52ff.; Jouguet 229ff. and 238; M0rkholm 79ff.; Will 319), but the precise details do not affect my
case.
the Romans were unable to do this, they returned home &6rpaKTot tcXciAO.89
Since Polybius says expressly that the ambassadors were unable (&5uvaqtfi-
avvT5;)
to complete their mission, he cannot mean that Numisius and his
associates were presented with a fait accompli, in the form of Antiochus'
revealing his hold on Ptolemy Philometor, and so the absence of any need for
a reconciliation.' In the light of the senate's attitude at the start of the official
year, it is better to assume that they sent out the embassy, not when they learnt
that the war had broken out, but as soon as they heard that Antiochus was
carrying self-defence beyond just the defeat of the Egyptian army threatening
Coele-Syria. Which betokens no major change in the senate's attitude. Numi-
sius himself may have been something of an 'expert' on eastern affairs (he is
named on the senatus consultum of 170 dealing with Thisbe, and he was a
junior member of the decemviral commission which helped L. Aemilius
Paullus regulate Macedonia in 167), but even though he appears also to have
been a younger brother of C. Numisius, praetor in 177, he was still a lowly
senator from a relatively undistinguished family, and to such as he the senate
was not accustomed to give powers to intervene decisively in any war.9' The
embassy is best seen as exploratory, therefore, its purpose to achieve a reconci-
liation between the kings if possible, and if not, to make Antiochus aware of
the senate's concern and to reach a better understanding of his plans in and
for Egypt.92
89
Polybius 29,25,3-4. The embassy clearly belongs in 169, but its exact date cannot be fixed
(Walbank, Comm. 402). As my text implies, I think it occurred early in the year; but to set it
later (so Niese 174; Jouguet 234f.; Swain 89f.) would only reinforce my point about the con-
nexion between this mission and the one sent off by Antiochus before he left Egypt (see below).
90
So M0rkholm 84. There is neither reason nor need to believe that a change in the political
situation in Rome prompted the embassy (so Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 33f.): Antiochus'
overzealous pursuit of self-defence is ample reason (above, note 82). Nor is there merit in the
extravagant but extraordinarily long-lived theory of Otto 61ff.: dissatisfied with the conclusion
that, on his reckoning, Popillius Laenas arrived at Eleusis nearly a year after the dispatch of the
Ptolemaic embassy to which he was supposedly responding (this is not a problem, as we shall
see), Otto excogitated two Ptolemaic embassies, the first that of Euergetes and Cleopatra, the
second dispatched by Philometor and Euergetes after their reconciliation; then he created two
responses, Numisius' the first mission and the second Popillius Laenas'. The only foundations
for the interpretation are alleged confusions and contradictions in Livy 44,19,6-12 (below,
note 102), an obviously confused passage in Justin 34,2,8 (as Niese 174 n. 2 observed, a garbled
version of Livy's account), the assumption that Philometor and Euergetes needed to send a fresh
embassy to Rome like the one they sent to the Achaean League (they did not: see below), and a
failure to appreciate that the Romans cared little for the chora, a great deal about Alexandria
(below, note 103).
91 SIG3 646,5; Livy 45,17,3; Muinzer, RE 17, 1937, 1399ff. That the Romans valued "experts" is
doubted by Gruen 203ff., with reason.
92
This is not to endorse the suggestion of Otto 63, that Numisius' lowly status would enable
prominent senators to overlook any slight to him, still less that of Jouguet 234, that the aim was
not to upset Marcius Philippus by infringing on his watching brief (see above, note 78). The
ambassador's status was humble because the senate was concerned, but not unduly so (cf. Will
320, though he sets the mission under 168).
58 M. GWYN MORGAN
Nor - despite Polybius - was the mission entirely without effect. Though
the king continued on his merry way, for the moment at least, it was even
before he quitted Egypt that he dispatched a three-man embassy of his own, to
distribute 150 talents of goodwill around the Mediterranean, fifty of them
going to Rome as a contribution to the costs of the war against Perseus.93 No
doubt, his ambassadors were instructed also to advertise the understanding
their master had reached, or thought he had reached, by then with Ptolemy
Philometor and Ptolemy Euergetes (see below), and to reiterate his claims that
his primary concern remained the security of his own kingdom.94 The impor-
tant point, however, is that the fifty talents given to the Romans was a pittance,
by comparison not only with the huge sums the Seleucid rulers had been made
to pay after Apamea, but also with the amounts Antiochus could have raised if
only he had waited until he was back in Syria. Supposedly he acquired 1,800
talents just by helping himself to the treasures in the Temple at Jerusalem
during the winter of 169/168 (II Macc. 5,21). His decision not to wait, but to
use what little money he had with him (and it was little, since there had been
no significant looting during the first campaign),95 surely indicates that he was
feeling the diplomatic pressure being brought to bear on him, by the Romans
especially, and decided to make the earliest possible response, to reassure
them of his continuing goodwill and, to be sure, his unfailingly altruistic
intentions.96
Whatever Antiochus' hopes of mollifying the Romans, he had no success
with the inhabitants of Alexandria. Refusing to submit to puppet rule by
Ptolemy Philometor, the citizenry in the summer of 169 reasserted the claims
of Cleopatra and Euergetes to the throne. Whereupon Antiochus marched on
the city and put it under siege, a proceeding which induced the inhabitants to
send off to Rome the embassy which, heard by the senate at the start of the
official year 168, painted a pathetic picture of the sufferings to which Alexan-
dria was being subjected.97 By that time, however, Antiochus had withdrawn.
Late in 169, he lifted the siege and returned to Syria, leaving Ptolemy Philome-
tor in Memphis and a Seleucid garrison in Pelusium.98
93
Polybius 28,22 (for mtEQccvog meaning 'money' see Walbank, Comm. 86); cf. also Livy
45,11,8 and, perhaps, Diodorus' remarks about senators being bribed by Antiochus (31, 27a).
94
Cf. Livy 45,11,8; Will 320.
95
Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F49a must be referred to Antiochus' second campaign: cf. Ot-
to 57; Swain 86f.
96
That Antiochus had the failure of Numisius' mission very much in mind when he sent off
this embassy was suggested by Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 35.
97
For the situation in general see Otto 59ff.; Morkholm 84ff. However, the date at which the
embassy was dispatched from Alexandria cannot be fixed "at the very latest in late summer 169"
(Otto 61), since neither Antiochus nor the various ambassadors sent hither and yon observed the
usual limits on their activities (above, note 74); the embassy could well have left in the autumn.
98
Livy 45,11,1; I Macc. 1,20; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49b; cf. also Polybius 28,22-23.
At this point, it is customary to observe that the evidence is too fragmentary
to permit us to recover Antiochus' reasons for leaving Egypt, and various
hypotheses may be advanced, for example, that having failed to take Alexan-
dria by assault, the king retired to lick his wounds;99 that he withdrew to
collect more money and materiel, the restraints he had placed on himself and
his men having left him short of cash (hence the visit to the Temple at
Jerusalem); or that he was yielding at long last to the diplomatic pressure
being exerted on him by Rome and by other Hellenistic states. Whatever
validity these several theories may have as contributory causes, however,
Polybius actually gives us the main reason for his withdrawal - as Swain
almost alone seems to have recognized
-
apropos of the Rhodian embassy
under Praxon (or Praxion), which arrived in the king's camp after he retreated
from Alexandria but before he left Egypt.'00
When these ambassadors, perhaps overconfident because they came at the
instigation of Q. Marcius Philippus, proceeded to lecture Antiochus at length
on his own best interests, he abandoned his usual courtesy and cut short their
exposition. But he went on to declare not only that Egypt belonged by right to
his friend and ally, Ptolemy Philometor, but also that "fnow the Alexandrians
wished to recall Philometor, he himself would certainly do nothing to prevent
it."''l If we take this passage seriously, and we must, it tells us first that the
prospects for a reconciliation between Philometor and Euergetes were already
being aired at this stage (Philometor, presumably, was as disillusioned by
Antiochus' failure to take Alexandria as Euergetes was terrified by his having
made the attempt); and second, that Antiochus recognized that he could no
longer justify his own activities in Egypt. Even if he could claim that his siege
of Alexandria had brought about the talk of reconciliation, he must now
M0rkholm 86f. strangely concludes that Antiochus had achieved all his objectives, but he also
criticises the king for not taking Philometor back to Syria with him.
99
The king certainly failed in an attempt to take the city by assault (Livy 45,11,1; Porphyrius,
FGrHist 260, F50), but the one other certainty is that Antiochus did not withdraw because of
Jason's rebellion in Judaea. That belongs in 168 (Swain 84; Walbank, Comm. 359).
100 Polybius 28,23. The embassy's arrival in Antiochus' camp, as Walbank, Comm. 352 re-
marks, follows the dispatch of the king's three-man mission around the Mediterranean at the
close of his first campaign (Polybius 28,22), since the two passages are taken, in this order, from
the Excerpta de legationibus gentium.
10' Polybius 28,23,4; cf. Swain 84f. The genitive absolute is more likely to be temporal than
causal, if we are guided by percentages (J. A. de Foucault, Recherches sur la langue et le style de
Polybe, Paris 1972, 173). It is often given a conditional force which is simply impossible (Bevan
140; Bouche-Leclercq 258; Jouguet 234; Bikerman, CE 27, 1952,400). For the rest of the time, the
passage is ignored (Niese 173; De Sanctis 303; Will 317; Gruen 654 and 656), dismissed as
propaganda by Antiochus (M0rkholm 86; cf. Otto 59 and 64), or declared erroneous (Briscoe,
JRS 54, 1964, 71 n. 55; Walbank, Comm. 359), though it certainly cannot be corrected on the
basis of Livy 45,11,1-7 (see below). As for the involvement of Marcius Philippus, Polybius
28,17,15 does not say that the embassy was encouraged by him, but see Gruen, CQ 25, 1975,
71 ff., on the interrelationship between that passage and 28,17,4-9.
60 M. GWYN MORGAN
withdraw if he was not to arouse fresh suspicions about his own intentions -
another reason for his being unusually testy with the Rhodians.
This snippet of information, admittedly, does not seem to fit too well with
subsequent events. For one thing, Euergetes and Cleopatra apparently did
nothing to recall the embassy sent off to Rome while Alexandria was under
siege, or even to modify its instructions significantly. Given an audience by the
senate at the start of the official year 168 (around March 16 by Roman
reckoning, equivalent to a Julian date in early January), the ambassadors
purveyed their outdated message with an abundance of histrionics, dwelling
on the threat Antiochus posed to Alexandria and arguing that its fall would
hand over the entire country to the Seleucid.02 There is no need to assume that
the patres were deceived by the theatrics, but they obviously considered a
threat to Alexandria far more serious than Antiochus' occupation of the chora
- assaults on the first city of Egypt scarcely constituted self-defence. Hence the
decision to dispatch C. Popillius Laenas and his associates extemplo and their
departure intra triduum.'03
For another thing, Livy says explicitly - and there is no reason to doubt his
testimony
-
that Antiochus seized Cyprus and launched his second invasion
of Egypt because of the reconciliation between the Ptolemies during the winter
of 169/168.'? This statement is often accepted without further ado, even
though it entails also the conclusion that Antiochus now jettisoned the cloak
of legality in which he had been able to wrap himself hitherto. Thus Tam's
two explanations: "One possibility is that he miscalculated the strength of
Perseus and thought that the Macedonian king might hold Rome off till, in
weariness, she might accept his protectorate over Egypt as an accomplished
fact; another is that, in vulgar parlance, he was just 'trying it on' to see how far
102
Livy 44,19,6-12. Cogent arguments against Otto's attacks on the reliability of this passage
are marshalled by Swain 90f. and Gruen 657 n. 222, both observing that the text is much closer
to Polybius 29,2 than Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 263 was willing to concede; cf. also
Briscoe, CR 18, 1968, 85. However, since the date at which the embassy left Alexandria cannot
be fixed precisely (above note 97), it is hazardous to suggest that the senate let the envoys wait (so
Morkholm 88; Gruen 657f. and 690). The senate may well have thought the matter so serious
that it should be considered by the new consuls; it was certainly the first embassy they heard
after entering office (Livy 44,19,5-6).
103 Livy 44,19,13 and 20,1. There is no evidence, as Otto 74 admits, for his theory that Popillius
Laenas was given secret instructions, just as there is no evidence that Popillius received further
(different) instructions en route (so Briscoe, JRS 54, 1964, 72). His mission was to stop the war, if
Antiochus was near, or came close to, Alexandria. The Roman preoccupation with Alexandria is
brought out well by Polybius' comments on Marcius Philippus' thoughts about the situation
(28,17,5) and by his own account of the embassy's dispatch (29,2,1-3). Alexandria's importance is
also emphasised by Antiochus' resorting in both campaigns to Memphis, the ancient capital of
Egypt and an important town in its own right within the country, clearly in an attempt to
compensate for his inability to gain control of the new capital (cf. Otto 68; Dorothy J. Thomp-
son, Memphis under the Ptolemies, Princeton 1988, 150f.).
104
Livy 45,1 1,8: for the reconciliation itself see ibid. 2-7; Polybius 29,23,4.
he could go."'05 Attractive as such explanations may appear, and after all other
rulers of the time
-
Masinissa
amongst
them
-
were
perfectly willing
to
'try
it
on',10 they fail to account adequately for the insouciance with which, ex
hypothesi, Antiochus abandoned even a semblance of justification for his
actions. It is hard indeed to believe that a monarch hitherto so adept at
exploiting the claims of self-defence and, by his own admission, favourably
disposed to a reconciliation between the Ptolemies, should have dropped all
pretence and taken the offensive the moment he heard of that reconciliation -
unless he had been provoked beyond measure by some untoward develop-
ment.
What needs to be taken into account here, it seems clear, is the evidence
from the Book of Daniel that both Antiochus and Ptolemy Philometor enga-
ged in sharp practice: "and as for both these kings, their hearts shall be to do
mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table".'07 Now, allegations that
Antiochus acted in bad faith are commonplace in our sources. Both Polybius
and Diodorus are at pains to point out that he had captured Pelusium by
sharp practice in 169, and Livy tells us that similar charges of treachery would
be made against him the moment he crossed the Egyptian border in 168.108 It is
not surprising, therefore, that the Jewish evidence has been subsumed under
this roster of misbehaviour. But the Book of Daniel tells us something that no
other source reports, that there was sharp practice by Ptolemy Philometor as
well. And once we recognize this, it becomes possible to explain how, after
Antiochus had withdrawn from Egypt late in 169 because of the talk of
reconciliation, the Ptolemies could not only neglect to modify the charge given
to the embassy sent off to Rome while Alexandria was still under siege, but
also follow up their reconciliation with the dispatch of fresh embassies, which
would proclaim their reunion throughout the Hellenistic world and request
military assistance against further Seleucid aggression.'" One might well ask
how they could be so sure that such aggression would take place, unless
Philometor was guilty of double-dealing likely to provoke Antiochus beyond
measure.
Which brings us to Livy's statement that the moment Antiochus heard of
OS
Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 192; cf. Otto 34f.; Swain 88; M0rkholm 96.
'n6 W. Hoffmann, Historia 9, 1960, 326f.; P. G. Walsh, JRS 55, 1965, 156ff. The senate chose not
to believe Masinissa's allegations that Carthage was intriguing with Perseus (cf. Meloni 127ff.),
but nor did they hold the king's opportunism against him.
107
Daniel 11,27; cf. Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49b.
108
For Pelusium see above, note 85; Livy 45,11,10 (quoted below); cf. also Polybius 29,26,1;
30,26,9; Diodorus 3 1,1. Too often these passages have been connected with Porphyrius' story that
Antiochus procured his own coronation in Memphis, be it in 169 or 168. There is no convincing
evidence for that (M0rkholm 80ff.; Walbank, Comm. 358), and it might even be a fiction
designed deliberately to cover up what amounted to a coup by Euergetes and Cleopatra 11
(Bikerman, CE 27, 1952, 401f.).
109
For the appeal to the Achaean League see Polybius 29,23-25.
62 M. GWYN MORGAN
the reconciliation, he at once (extemplo) sent a fleet to seize Cyprus, in other
words, before the start of the campaigning season for 168."I The idea that he
wanted to deny the Ptolemies the island's natural resources (grain, timber and
metals) would be attractive, if there were evidence to suggest that the Seleucid
intended once again to besiege Alexandria, but as we shall see, he was in no
hurry to take that step."' Nor can we do much with the view that Ptolemy
Macron, governor-general of the island, regarded the reconciliation between
the Ptolemies as a threat to his own position, and therefore invited Antiochus
to take over the island."'2 This may well be what happened: though Livy
reports that the Seleucid fleet took Cyprus after a naval battle, there is no need
to imagine a large-scale engagement, or even that Antiochus broke the naval
clauses of the Treaty of Apamea."3 What is significant is that when the
Romans ordered the Seleucid forces out of the island, Ptolemy Macron left
with them, to pursue a rewarding career under Antiochus."4 To come back to
the main point, however, the Seleucid king had no compelling reason to take
over the island, by force or by invitation, during the winter of 169/168, unless
he believed himself to be threatened anew. And if
-
as seems most
probable
-
his aim was to protect the Syrian coastline against descents by an Egyptian
fleet in the same way as the continued occupation of Pelusium shielded his
kingdom against attacks by land,"5 it is legitimate to conclude that the reconci-
liation between the Ptolemies had not produced the result for which Antio-
chus himself had hoped, an end to the Lagid threats to Coele-Syria, the very
threats which had caused him to go to war in the first place.
Nor is it hard to see what was causing all the trouble: Pelusium, as has been
said before, the gateway to Coele-Syria as well as to Egypt and, let it be
remembered, the original target of sharp practice by Antiochus. Since Livy
states expressly (45,11,4-5) that the continued Seleucid occupation of Pelusi-
um was a major concern to Philometor and Euergetes after their reconcilia-
tion, the linkage is clear. When Antiochus had first invaded Egypt, he had
110
Livy 45,11,9, clearly set
-
as Bouch&-Leclercq 259 and Otto 78 n. 3 recognized
-
before
Antiochus' advance overland primo vere.
"I
For the island's resources see Sir George Hill, A History of Cyprus 1, Cambridge 1940, 173f.
As he points out, Ptolemy [II Euergetes I had bought grain from Cyprus when Egypt was
suffering from drought.
112 Ptolemy Macron's politics are not easily fathomed (see Hill 188 n. 5; M0rkholm, C & M 22,
1961, 35f.), but since the earliest attested instance of the island's going to a Ptolemaic cadet
follows Antiochus' seizure of the place (Hill 190ff.), it seems improbable that Macron thought he
was about to lose his post, or that Antiochus hoped to recreate the hostility between Philometor
and Euergetes by depriving one of them of his heritage.
113
Livy 45,12,7; cf. 11,9 and lI; also II Macc. 10,13. lt is notable that in Antiochus' second
campaign we hear only of this squadron and only off Cyprus. Presumably, the king had no plan
to blockade Alexandria by sea, and therefore no real hope of taking it from the land.
1'4
Livy 45,12,7; Morkholm 91f. and 108; Walbank, Comm. 311.
115
Cf. Bevan 143, using the same point to reach the opposite conclusion; Heinen,
ANRW I 1, 657 n. 82.
made haste to seize Pelusium. Once he acquired his "protectorate" over
Philometor, however, he gained another, perhaps more effective means of
controlling Lagid foreign policy, and there could be talk of surrendering the
fortress. But this was an option to be contemplated only so long as Philometor
remained the undisputed ruler of Egypt. When the Alexandrians reasserted
the claims of Euergetes and Cleopatra II, the situation changed again. Antio-
chus could hardly block the talks on a reconciliation, as he told the Rhodian
embassy, but he and Philometor must surely have reached some kind of
understanding, to the effect that the reconciliation would lead to a peace treaty
or at least a non-aggression pact between the brothers and himself, and that he
could hold onto Pelusium until that treaty or pact had been signed.
This, to be sure, is not how Livy tells the story. In his version of events
(45,11,1-8), there was no talk of a reconciliation between Philometor and
Euergetes prior to Antiochus' withdrawal from Egypt. Indeed, the Seleucid
left the country because he thought that the brothers would engage in an
internecine struggle, and he held onto Pelusium so that he himself would be
able easily to re-enter Egypt and defeat the exhausted victor. But Ptolemy
Philometor was too smart for him. Alerted by the presence of the strong
Seleucid garrison in Pelusium, he not only saw through Antiochus' dastardly
plan but convinced Euergetes of the dangers it posed to both of them. Whe-
reupon the brothers came to terms and Antiochus, exasperated by their
reconciliation, fulfilled their expectations and attacked again.
Livy's source here may well be Polybius, but if so, as Nissen commented,"6
he has abridged his original brutally. This indeed is proved clearly by Livy's
failure to mention the talk of reconciliation which preceded Antiochus' with-
drawal. Next, it should be noted that Livy knows nothing of any sharp
practice on Philometor's part: he is the innocent victim of a machiavellian
Seleucid, but manages to see the trap and save himself, his brother, and his
kingdom. This representation may well go back to Polybius, not so much
because he admired Philometor as a man (above, note 40), as because the
conspiratorial view of history which animates the passage rests on a principle
ever dear to the Greek heart, that of the tertius gaudens (cf. Thucydides 8,46).
And if this is not enough to make the account suspect, it may be emphasized
finally that the passage makes no sense. If, on the one hand, Antiochus and
Philometor together could not bring down Euergetes, and in 169 they could
not, there was no likelihood that Philometor alone could overpower his
brother, no matter how great his exertions. If, on the other hand, Antiochus
was supposedly planning to leave Philometor unsupported in Memphis, as
116
Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 273f. Livy's account is taken seriously by Bevan 141f.;
Bouche-Leclercq 258; De Sanctis 303f.; Otto 59 and 68ff.; Jouguet 235; Bikerman, CE 27,
1952, 401; and Will 317.
64 M. GWYN MORGAN
some kind of sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered by Euergetes (a scenario which
may well have crossed Philometor's mind), there was still no way the plotter
could profit from his arrangements. Euergetes had only to round up his
brother and retreat again into Alexandria, all of which he could achieve before
Antiochus had time to return, and the Seleucid would find himself in the very
position he had occupied late in 169, locked out of Alexandria and unable to
control Lagid foreign policy.
It should be clear, in other words, that Livy's account preserves less an
accurate record of events during the winter of 169/168 than Ptolemy Philome-
tor's self-serving version of his own behaviour. And since this account revolves
around the occupation of Pelusium, it may legitimately be concluded that
control of this fortress lay at the heart of the double-dealing which so exasper-
ated Antiochus. As we have seen already, there are grounds for thinking that
Antiochus withdrew from Egypt late in 169 because an imminent reconcilia-
tion between the Ptolemies, so he was led to believe, would produce a peace
treaty or a non-aggression pact between the brothers and himself, and there
would be no problem about his own continued occupation of Pelusium as a
guarantee, be it of Philometor's good faith or of his own protection, until that
treaty or pact was signed. Now, it is unnecessary to assume that Philometor
acted in good faith when he made whatever promises he made; since Antio-
chus had failed to restore him to Alexandria, he was probably willing to
promise the Seleucid anything, in order to get him out of the country and then
to try his hand alone at coming to terms with his brother. Which he did by
reneging on the promises he had made to Antiochus about Pelusium, and by
using the Seleucid occupation of the fortress as the lever to persuade Euerge-
tes of the wisdom of going through with their reconciliation.
If this is correct, of course, we must ask also why Euergetes was persuaded
of the wisdom of a reconciliation, when he could have rounded up Philometor
and retired into Alexandria before Antiochus could react. There are three
points to bear in mind. Firstly, Euergetes himself could hardly hope to reach
any accommodation with the Seleucid, since he owed his throne to the
Alexandrians' opposition to Philometor as Antiochus' puppet. To kill Philo-
metor at this juncture, therefore, might well provoke an invasion to "avenge"
the murder of the Seleucid's "ward", whereas reaching an agreement with
Philometor might forestall that invasion or, if it occurred, deprive Antiochus
of any legitimate grounds for making it - the very charge, as has been said
before, which was levelled against Antiochus the moment he entered Egypt in
168 (Livy 45,11,10). Secondly, whether Antiochus invaded Egypt or not, he
would not be inclined to cooperate with Philometor again; whatever claims he
might make for general consumption, he could not afford to trust Philometor.
So the latter would be cut off from Seleucid assistance in any subsequent
conflict between the brothers. And that meant, thirdly, that so long
as the
brothers survived a fresh Seleucid attack - and their subsequent tactics suggest
that in 168 Alexandria was in better shape to withstand a siege than it had been
the previous year"'7 - Euergetes would be free thereafter to settle accounts with
a brother bereft of foreign aid, the procedure he seems to have adopted once
the Sixth Syrian War was over."8
In short, Philometor and Euergetes came to terms once Antiochus had
withdrawn from Egypt and, in the process, double-crossed him by saying
nothing about a peace treaty and making an issue out of his continued
occupation of Pelusium. Knowing or suspecting that this would provoke
another invasion, they did nothing to modify the charge given to the embassy
sent off to Rome while Alexandria was still under siege, and dispatched new
embassies around the Hellenistic world, to advertise their reconciliation and
to harp on the imminent threat of further Seleucid aggression, a threat to
which, of course, Antiochus' control of Pelusium lent substance."9 Hence the
Syrian king's violent reaction. When he received word of the Ptolemies'
reconciliation but no news of any peace treaty or non-aggression pact, he
interpreted the Lagid concern for Pelusium as the sharp practice it was, seized
Cyprus immediately in order to drive home the point that he meant to deprive
the brothers of the chance to attack his realm by land or sea, and at the
beginning of spring 168 launched his second invasion of Egypt.
Here, however, Antiochus overplayed - or misplayed - his hand. As Livy
tells the story, the king marched his army south at the beginning of spring 168,
and was met by envoys from Alexandria at Rhinocolura, a frontier-village on
the coast road between Gaza and Pelusium: "Ptolemaei legatis agentibus
gratias, quod per eum regnum patrium recepisset, petentibusque ut suum
munus tueretur et diceret potius, quid fieri vellet, quam hostis ex socio factus
vi atque armis ageret, respondit non aliter neque classem revocaturum neque
exercitum reducturum, nisi sibi et tota Cypro et Pelusio agroque, qui circa
Pelusiacum ostium Nili esset, cederetur; diemque praestituit, intra quam de
condicionibus peractis responsum acciperet."'20 Since Antiochus' best course
tactically would have been to march at once on Alexandria,'2' his pausing to
offer terms and to give his opponents time for deliberation shows that he was
trying to recover the veneer of justification he had lost over the winter, and
was still conducting his operations with one eye on public opinion, in other
117
It was probably in 168 that the Ptolemies contributed grain to the Roman war effort (OGIS
760); though the date could be earlier, as is remarked by Morkholm 91 n. 11 and Heinen,
ANRW I 1, 656 n. 80, it was in 168 that they needed to win friends.
118
For their subsequent quarrels see Will 360ff., Gruen 692ff. Note also Livy 45,12,7.
119
Cf. above, note 109.
120
Livy 45,11,9-11. Antiochus' difficulties in justifying his second campaign are stressed,
rightly, by De Sanctis 304; Passerini 332 and 336; Pedech 151f.; and Will 321.
121 Passerini 337; cf. M0rkholm 93. The point is missed even by those who dwell on Antiochus'
need for speed in this campaign (De Sanctis 304; Otto 78; Jouguet 237).
66 M. GWYN MORGAN
words, with one eye on Rome. His demand for Pelusium and Cyprus, how-
ever, should not be seen simply as an attempt to ensure the war's continuance
(there were other means to achieve that objective). Since the terms themselves
were surely too extreme to be acceptable, he was playing to the gallery (he
was, after all, as gifted a public performer as his adversaries), dramatizing his
concern for the security of his own kingdom as forcefully as possible, and at
the same time drawing the Ptolemies' attention to the fact that he now had two
important bargaining chips to put on the table. But he must have been serious
about giving the brothers time to formulate a response, since he granted them
that pause for reflection, imagining - we may presume - that there would be
negotiations for peace in which he would trade off the occupied territory for a
satisfactory non-aggression pact.
The time for an Egyptian response came and went without result. Perhaps
the Ptolemies were already hoping for a Roman intervention that would save
them from the consequences of their own sharp practice, but they seem to
have been reasonably confident that Alexandria was in better shape to with-
stand a siege than it had been in 169.122 In any case, the brothers pulled off a
diplomatic coup by refusing even to respond. For this threw into high relief
the unreasonable nature of the Seleucid terms and, once again, put the king
squarely in the wrong. Hence the remarkable fact that Antiochus, once again,
declined to advance on his primary target, Alexandria. Instead, he marched
his army up to Memphis a second time, and then proceeded back to Alexan-
dria modicis itineribus, reaching his destination around the end of June or the
start of July.'23
There are four ways of explaining this restraint, none of them exclusive of
the others. First, Antiochus' leisurely promenade around the chora was meant
to discredit the Ptolemies in the eyes of their defenceless subjects, and to
create enough unrest either to bring them to the negotiating table or, by
encouraging mutual recriminations, to detach Philometor from his new found
allies. Such a move, it goes without saying, would also gratify Antiochus' own
troops, free now to plunder at will, and would replenish the royal coffers,
which had suffered as a result of his restraint during the first
campaign.'24
Second, his triumphal progress was meant to obscure the fact that Antiochus
122
That they were playing for time is suggested by Niese 175 (it was a customary Ptolemaic
tactic: Polybius 5,63,1-6). For Alexandria's condition see above, note 1
123
Livy 45,12,2; cf. Passerini 332 and 337f. Unfortunately, the way in which Livy uses the
expression elsewhere (30,12,7; 32,14,7; 38,40,4) indicates only that the rate of advance was
somewhere between slower than normal and extremely slow. The date, however, was fixed by
Otto 79f.
124 Cf. Passerini 338; M0rkholm 93. Antiochus' activities cannot plausibly be seen as an
attempt to conquer Egypt once for all and to protect his rear while he attacked Alexandria (so
Otto 79); so far as we know, he was meeting little opposition in the chora, while the looting in
which he now engaged was not calculated to pacify the local population.
could not, and knew he could not, take Alexandria itself; if the city was in
better shape to resist him than it had been in the previous year, he stood no
chance of capturing it and, as long as the Ptolemies remained united, no
chance of winning the war by conventional means. For without Alexandria, as
has been said before,'25 he had nothing, certainly in the sense that though he
might control the kingdom, he did not control its kings. Third, Antiochus
surely learnt early in his campaign of what had happened in the senate in
January, and of the importance the Romans attached to any move against
Alexandria itself.'26 Given that the encounter at Rhinocolura had not provided
the king with the justification for an all-out war, he needed to tread carefully
until he had no other option, the fourth possibility. Having spent several
months trying everything else, and having failed to achieve any of his objecti-
ves save the repair of his own finances, Antiochus could well have moved on
Alexandria in June deliberately, to precipitate Roman intervention: whatever
the risks to himself, that intervention would solve once for all the problem of
Ptolemaic threats to Coele-Syria, since the Romans tended to think that
territory part of the Seleucid realm, while the Lagids would not be able to
ignore Rome's emissaries the way they had ignored Antiochus.
That the king, by the summer of 168, knew the Sixth Syrian War to be
unwinnable as well as unjustifiable, and therefore brought the Romans down
on his own head, may seem incredible. Yet it fits perfectly with the rather
strange schedule followed by C. Popillius Laenas and his two colleagues, and
with the abrupt manner in which they brought the war to a close.
The surviving fragments of Polybius say nothing about the date at which
Popillius Laenas and his colleagues left Rome, the length of their trip, or their
itinerary. All that remains is the statement (29,2,1-3) that when the Romans
heard that Antiochus had gained control of Egypt and nearly (tctp' 6kiyov)
of Alexandria too, the senate decided that the growth of the king's power was
matter for concern, and so sent out this embassy to end the fighting and to
investigate the situation. Livy, as we have seen, credits the mission with
essentially the same function, but sets its dispatch at the start of the official
year 168 (around January 5 by Julian reckoning) and reports that it left in hot
haste (44,19,13 and 20,1). These details are often rejected, on the grounds that it
is difficult to see how an embassy which hurried out of Rome could have
taken a full six months to reach Eleusis, and that it seems odd that a mission
dispatched in response to the impassioned pleas of Ptolemy Euergetes and
Cleopatra should finally have intervened on their behalf and Philometor's
125
See above, notes 43 and 103.
126
This he could have learnt either from the envoys he had sent out at the close of 169
(Polybius 28,22), or from the Achaean embassy which, cognizant of Marcius Philippus' concern,
set out in 168 (ibid. 28,17,5; 29,25,6). Its arrival in Antiochus' camp is not attested.
68 M. GWYN MORGAN
too.127 None of this is problematical, once we recognize the importance of
Alexandria in Roman thinking. Just as Popillius Laenas and his colleagues
intervened in the interests of the rulers of Alexandria (as it happened, Philo-
metor as well as Euergetes and Cleopatra), so it was Antiochus' proximity to
the city which gave their mission its urgency.
Leaving Rome hurriedly in January 168, under the impression - sedulously
fostered by the ambassadors of Euergetes and Cleopatra - that Alexandria
was going to fall any minute, the Roman envoys soon discovered that Antio-
chus had withdrawn to Syria late in 169. Thereupon they slowed down, but
since they must also have seen that no end had been set to the war, they
continued on their way at a more relaxed pace: one of their functions was still
to investigate the situation. Hence they spent an unspecified amount of time at
Chalcis in Euboea, the Romans' main naval base in the Third Macedonian
War, and then moved on to Delos, where Popillius Laenas took part in naval
operations against a squadron of Perseus' warships (Livy 44,29,1-2 and
45,10,2). When the envoy heard the news of Pydna (June 22, 168 by Julian
reckoning), Livy continues, he gave up this job and "ad susceptam legationem
peragendam navigare Aegyptum pergit, ut prius occurrere Antiocho posset,
quam ad Alexandriae moenia accederet" (45,10,2-3).
This report, it may be emphasized, lends no support to the claim that the
Roman ambassadors could not travel on to Egypt any sooner because of the
threat posed by Macedonian warships in the Aegean.'28 Livy's narrative shows
that Popillius Laenas was not at all intimidated by these warships, and men-
tions Pydna only to explain why he gave up chasing them around the Aegean.
Nor does Livy endorse Polybius' opinion, which - be it noted - is explicitly
given as an opinion
(4oL
6OKEt: 29,27,13), that the Syrian king backed down at
Eleusis because he knew that Pydna had freed Roman troops for use against
himself. Far from linking Eleusis with Pydna, the Roman historian simply
takes it for granted
-
and he is not necessarily wrong for doing so - that when
Roman emissaries talked, Greek kings listened. Witness his account of the
reaction of P. Licinius Crassus (cos. 171) to a meeting with an obstreperous
Galatian chieftain; sent in 167 to mediate a war between this people and
Pergamum, Crassus discovered that Roman remonstrances made the trouble-
maker more defiant, "ut mirum videri possit inter tam opulentos reges, Antio-
chum Ptolemaeumque, tantum legatorum Romanorum verba valuisse, ut ex-
templo pacem faceret, apud Gallos nullius momenti fuisse".'29 In Livy's ac-
127
See especially Otto 60ff. and above, notes
90
and 102.
128
Otto 80; Jouguet 237 n. 3; M0rkholm 94.
129
Livy 45,34,13-14. All but hypnotized by Polybius' linkage of Pydna and Eleusis, modern
scholars consistently maintain that Popillius Laenas was instructed to wait on Delos for a
Roman victory. There is no ancient evidence to support this, since Polybius 29,2,3 cannot be
twisted to bear this meaning. And it is a counsel of desperation to invoke Livy 44,24,4 as
evidence that Livy linked the two episodes, since the comment is supposedly made by Perseus
count the focus is on Alexandria, and on the need for the Romans to reach the
city before Antiochus could. Which is borne out by what the historian goes on
to say about the five days the envoys spent berating the Rhodians for their
alleged failings during the Third Macedonian War (45,10,4-15). For he
emphasizes their reluctance to visit the place and their insistence on staying
briefly; indeed, Popillius himself, albeit vir asper ingenio, may well have
shown atrocitas and acerbitas also, because he knew that he had to reach
Alexandria as soon as possible.
And so we come to Popillius Laenas' gesture at Eleusis, drawing the circle
in the sand around Antiochus and insisting that the king respond forthwith to
the Roman demands for an end to the war. It is noteworthy, first, that neither
Polybius nor Diodorus knew why the envoy acted in the way he did: they
assumed that the Roman was somehow standing on propriety, refusing to
greet the king in an amicable, or even a courteous fashion, until he knew
whether the latter accepted the senate decree and proved himself a friend of
Rome.'30 This has the advantage of explaining how, as Polybius says (28,27,6),
the ambassadors could gather around Antiochus immediately afterwards and
show him every mark of friendliness, but it also implies that, in Polybius' and
Diodorus' opinion, the Romans had not meant to humiliate the king. For his
part, Livy attributes the gesture to Popillius Laenas' customary asperitas animi
(45,12,5). It is the other Roman sources which tend to take the envoy's action
as a deliberate attempt to intimidate Antiochus with an inspiriting display of
gravitas.'3' This makes less sense of the sequel: if the aim was to humiliate the
Seleucid, one wonders how the envoys could then expect Antiochus to
respond in kind to their own amiability. No great weight can be placed on this,
of course, since the Romans could be remarkably insensitive to the feelings of
others.'32 But there is also Justin's statement that Popillius Laenas and Antio-
chus had been friends in Rome (34,3,2).
Though Justin, or Trogus, could have deduced this friendship solely from
the cordiality which the emissaries showed the king once he had accepted the
senate's terms, and though there is little else in Justin's account to inspire
and the source for it is Polybius (Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 264). Besides, the arrange-
ment which is so often posited presupposes on the Romans' part not only a remarkable degree of
confidence in Aemilius Paullus and of prescience of his sweeping victory, but also a total
inability to remember that Antiochus, for all his sly tricks, would back down in the face of a
direct challenge (cf. Bouch6-Leclercq 261; no gamble was involved, despite Will 325).
130 Polybius 29,27,2-6; Diodorus 31,2,1-2. There is no point in discussing the legal basis for
Popillius Laenas' action. He did what he did because the senate wanted it done.
131 Cicero, Phil. 8,23; Valerius Maximus 6,4,3; Velleius 1,10,2; Justin 34,3,4; Porphyrius,
FGrHist 260, F50; Plutarch, Mor. 202 F; cf. also Josephus, AJ 12,246; Appian, Syr. 66/352;
Zonaras 9,25.
132
Cf. Polybius 20,9-10 and 22,10,1-13 with the comments of Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 6.
70 M. GWYN MORGAN
confidence, the statement need not be rejected out of hand.'33 There is nothing
prima facie improbable about the Seleucid's having formed friendships with
Roman nobles, even nobles supposedly as unlovely as the Popillii Laenates. -34
Besides, the statement accords well with the implications of the Polybian-Dio-
doran version, that the Roman was somehow standing on propriety and that
there was no intention to humiliate the king. If Popillius Laenas was a
personal friend of Antiochus, however, he must have been aware of the charm
the Seleucid could exert to get his own way, and he could then reasonably
have chosen to act in a manner which ensured that Antiochus would not - like
a Numidian princeling some sixty years later - confuse personal relationships
and public business. The gesture, in short, is best seen as a demonstration of
the firmness of the Romans' resolve, of their refusal to accept procrastination,
and of their determination not to be seduced into a more conciliatory stance
by Seleucid bonhomie - or not until they had the response they wanted.
For the aftermath Polybius is our most important source, and he declares
that the king was astonished by Popillius Laenas' behaviour (29,27,6:
4?vtca-
-6i; -rTo ytvo6lcvov Kait til'v
t?cpoXiv),
as well he might be. Whatever the
intended import of the gesture, it was truly "a new sort of diplomacy",'35 all the
more remarkable for coming from the official representative of a people who
prided themselves on summoning a consilium before taking any significant
action. But we can build little on this. In Polybian usage, the various forms of
4cvyoOct
betoken simply "la reaction de rationalistes, capable de s'adapter
a une realite nouvelle".'36 This fits well enough with the second part of
Polybius' statement that Antiochus left Egypt some days later
Papuv6[1cvo;
KCt CYThVOV, C'IKOV 6U TOt
KcCtpoI;
KaT6 -TO 6CCpv (29,27,8). It is the first
clause which causes a major problem. For whether we render this expression
"groaning and in bitterness of heart" or "deeply hurt and complaining",'37
Polybius himself all too evidently believed that the king resented the Romans'
intervention at Eleusis, both then and later. Nor is it an unreasonable belief, at
first sight. But even if we leave out of account Antiochus' being a somewhat
unconventional monarch, there are three reasons for wondering whether the
Greek historian's assessment is correct.
133
Cf. Niese 97 n. 5 and 175; 3Bevan 144; Bouch&-Leclercq 261; De Sanctis 325f.; Will 321. It has
to be dismissed as transparent invention' by E. Paltiel, Latomus 41, 1982, 231, in order to prepare
the way for his theory that Popillius Laenas wanted to provoke Antiochus into a war (ibid. 239f.;
cf. Swain 92f.), not a likely idea.
134 Cf. Livy 42,6,9. The brothers Laenas are almost universally traduced in ancient and modern
writings, but Harris, War and Imperialism 270f., provides a timely defence at least of the older
brother, Marcus.
135 Bevan
145.
136
M. R. Guelfucci, RPh 60, 1986, 232. The other passages are collected by A. Mauersberger,
Polybios-Lexicon 1 4, Berlin 1975, 1675.
137
The former is offered by Bevan 145, the latter by W. R. Paton.
First, when Polybius reports under 166/165 that there were senators who
still believed Antiochus resentful, he has also to report that Ti. Gracchus
persuaded them otherwise (30,27,2 and 30,5). Had a Roman aristocrat been
placed in what he believed the king's position at Eleusis to have been, he
would probably have felt dolor, if subjected to the treatment apparently meted
out to Antiochus. Though Gracchus was one of the best orators of his day,'38
his ability to persuade his peers differently must have rested, at least in part, on
the thesis that the king's position had not been what they thought it to be.'39
Second, we are dealing here, on a small scale, with another example of
Polybian schematism. As Walbank has observed, the historian took it for
granted that a state with the power to expand would expand.'" The reverse of
this coin is the assumption that a state denied the chance to expand or actually
robbed of its gains would inevitably resent such a setback - and Polybius
thought that Antiochus planned to conquer Egypt in 168 and was robbed of
his chance at Eleusis.'4' It is highly significant, therefore, that Polybius uses the
collocation
papuv6ogvog
Kact o-usvov in but one other passage: he applies it
to Philip V of Macedon when, in 183, he was forced to give up Aenus,
Maronea and the other Thracian towns he had been trying to recover since
187, and he sets it at the start of a section in his History which has long been
recognized as the most melodramatic and least satisfactory part of his portray-
al of that king.'42 And third, Polybius surely could not afford to entertain the
possibility that Antiochus was not resentful. That would have robbed the 'Day
of Eleusis' of its significance as a massive setback for the Seleucid kingdom, a
significance with which - as we have seen
- he was determined to invest it.
This is not to maintain that Antiochus welcomed his expulsion from Egypt,
still less the surrender of Cyprus, and least of all the brusquerie of Popillius
Laenas' gesture. It is arguable, however, whether all this produced resentment,
just as it is arguable whether the king would have found it politic to display
resentment publicly, no matter how temperamental his nature. What is certain
138
Malcovati, ORF4 98f.
139
The king's openness (Diodorus 31,16,1) no doubt reassured Gracchus about the direction in
which Antiochus' forces were being pointed (above, note 49), but not about any resentment. It is
absurd to maintain that Gracchus persuaded his peers by arguing that Antiochus was a buffoon,
not to be taken seriously (Bevan 147), and it explains nothing to suppose that Antiochus now
became Gracchus' client (so Paltiel, Latomus 41, 1982, 248f.).
140
Walbank, Papers 148f.; cf. Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 41.
141 Bikerman, REG 66, 1953,486 goes too far when he tries to make of 'resentment' a leitmotiv
in Polybius. The Aetolians caused Rome's war with Antiochus III out of 6pyf} (3,7,1), and
Hamilcar set out to cause the Second Punic War from
0uR64
(3,9,6).
142 Polybius 23,8,1. For Philip's situation at the time see F. W. Walbank, Philip V of Macedon,
Cambridge 1940, 223ff., esp. 241f.; Will 251. For Polybius' melodramatic portrayal see Walbank,
Papers 219ff.; Meloni 34f., 42ff., 68ff.; Bikerman, REG 66, 1953, 482ff.; Pedech 123ff.
Papuv6-
RiEvog
alone is used in similar contexts of
Philip (23,9,6),
and of the
Carthaginians
after the loss
of Sardinia in 238 (3,10,3). The remaining passages are collected by Mauersberger, Polybios-Le-
xicon I 1, Berlin 1956, 313f.
72 M. GWYN MORGAN
is that far too much stress tends to be placed on his reverses. Obviously, he lost
some face, but this could be countered by maintaining - as people clearly did
-
that the Roman
envoy
had acted in the loutish manner
typical
of these
western barbarians.'43 For the rest, however, gains outweighed losses. Nor is it
necessary to point out, once again, that the Romans' intervention extricated
Antiochus from a war he could neither justify nor win, even though that lends
piquancy to one remark in the message his ambassadors subsequently delive-
red to the senate, namely, that to him omni victoria pacem potiorem.'4" It is
enough to note that the Roman mission did not merely end the war. Whether
empowered to do so or not, it also set about regulating the overall situation.
Even as the envoys expelled Seleucid forces from Pelusium and Cyprus,
therefore, they reconfirmed Antiochus' right to Coele-Syria, and by ending
Lagid threats to the area, they granted to the king the objective for which he
had originally gone to war.'45 Moreover, the Seleucid left Egypt with an
undefeated army and a massive haul of booty, both paraded at Daphne in
166.'" And finally, there was no talk of the Treaty of Apamea, of any breaches
of its terms, or of any other sanctions against Antiochus. The king, in short,
was made to disgorge some ill-gotten gains and suffered minor dents in his
amour-propre, but he came away from Eleusis with his primary objective
achieved, a substantial profit, and the continued friendship of the Romans,
Polybius' schematism notwithstanding.
Appendix: of theatres in Rome and wars in Dalmatia
A better understanding of the atmosphere which prevailed in the senate
during the debates on Carthage between 152 and 149 will help explain two
other episodes in the 150s, for which satisfactory interpretations cannot be
offered so long as we cleave to the Polybian version of events. These centre on
Scipio Nasica's opposition to the construction of a permanent theatre in
Rome, and the motives for the campaigns which the Romans conducted in
Dalmatia in 156-155.
So far as concerns the theatre, the ancient sources tell us that Scipio Nasica
143
Cf. M0rkholm 96f.
144
Livy 45,13,2-6 (the quotation is from ? 2). There are no grounds for considering Antiochus'
letter more or less servile than those sent to the senate by other Hellenistic rulers at this stage (so
Bouch&-Leclercq 261), or for describing the senate's response as haughty (so M0rkholm 96). For
the king to be told that recte atque ordine fecisse (? 6) was high praise, if stock verbiage. The
response given to the Ptolemaic ambassadors seems more fulsome (Livy 45,13,7-8; cf. Bouche-
Leclercq 261; Will 345), but it promised their rulers something which had been conspicuously
lacking in the past two years, praesidium in fide populi Romani, and clearly did so in terms
indicating that they had best not cause any more trouble.
145
See M0rkholm 97; Heinen, ANRW I 1, 657f.
146 It is not accurate to say that the Romans "allowed" Antiochus to keep his booty
(M0rkholm 95); he took it (cf. I Macc. 1,19; Bouche-Leclercq 261).
blocked construction, successfully, on the ground that the vinlitas of the
populace would be sapped by the chance to sit down at the games.'47 On the
face of it, this is hardly the view one would expect a majority of senators to
embrace in the middle of the second century, when they were already guaran-
teed the best seats in the house, and for all the Roman moralising about
theatres it certainly inspires little confidence as a normal view on the subject."14
Hence there has been a tendency to seek another kind of explanation. Alt-
heim, for example, suggested that a permanent theatre would have secularized
the games by separating them from the temples and rituals with which they
had originated.'49 This, however, surely founders on the point, long ago
remarked by Wissowa,'50 that the theatre was situated where the ludi Megalen-
ses had been celebrated from the start. Moreover, it seems odd that Scipio
Nasica should have dwelt on the virilitas of the people when, on Altheim's
theory, he could have expatiated on the neglect of the gods, a far more
compelling theme.
A more attractive interpretation was offered by Lily Ross Taylor, suggesting
that the senate was concerned about the uses to which such a theatre would be
put during the 250 or so days in the year when there were no games; the
senate, she argued, wanted "to keep the people from following in their assem-
blies the custom of the frivolous 'Greeklings' who debated and voted while
seated".'5 The trouble with this view, of course, is that it has Scipio Nasica say
what, according to the sources, he did not say. Yet it rests on an important
point, that the Romans did sometimes sit down at their spectacles: "for the
prologues of Plautus' plays show that the audience sat, presumably on tempo-
rary seats provided for the occasion."'52 Nor is this all. Even if we disregard
the fact that this plan for a permanent theatre was one in a string of measures
improving facilities at the various games,'53 it is all too often forgotten that the
original proposal emanated from those guardians of Roman morality, the
censors, and that the censors in question, C. Cassius Longinus and M. Valeri-
us Messalla in 154, not only proposed such a theatre but let the first contracts
for its construction and, presumably, oversaw such building as took place
14" Livy, Epit. 48; Valerius Maximus 2,4,2; Velleius 1,15,3; Orosius 4,21,4; Augustine, civ. Dei
1,31; cf. Appian, BC 1, 28/125.
148 M. Adele Cavallaro, Spese e spettacoli, Bonn 1984, 202ff., and for the preferential treatment
given to senators, Livy 34,44,5 and 54,3-8; Cicero, har. resp. 24; Asconius 55-56 Stangl; Valerius
Maximus 3,4,3.
149
F. Altheim, Romische Religionsgeschichte I2, Baden-Baden 1951, 280.
150
G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer2, Munich 1912, 464 n. 1.
151
Lily Ross Taylor, Roman Voting Assemblies, Ann Arbor 1966, 30f. (the quotation is from
p. 31); cf. also C. Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, London 1980, 363.
152
Taylor 30; cf. G. E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy, Princeton 1952, 80f.
153
M. G. Morgan, "Politics, Religion and the Games in Rome, 200-150 B. C.", Philologus
(forthcoming).
74 M. GWYN MORGAN
before Scipio Nasica intervened.'54 Which raises the most significant conside-
ration of all: Scipio Nasica, it must be emphasized, did not try to intervene (or,
less probably, did not succeed in intervening) in 154, or 153, or even 152, all of
them - so far as we can tell - years in which he was present in Rome. As the
Livian tradition shows, he voiced his opposition to the theatre in 151, amid the
discussions about war with Carthage.'55 Given that Scipio Nasica at this date
was stressing metus hostilis, the need for a foreign enemy to keep the Romans
on their toes, it makes perfect sense that he should also have opposed the
theatre then, on the ground that it was sapping Roman virilitas, whereas
previously he had kept silent on the subject. The first attempt to build a
permanent theatre in Rome, in other words, fell victim to a very specific set of
circumstances, fears of Carthage which Polybius chose to downplay in his
account but fears which justifiably provoked concern about Roman virilitas.
To all this, admittedly, it can be objected that concern over Roman virilitas
was nothing new in 151, and therefore need not have been elicited specifically
by the Third Punic War. For Polybius states explicitly that the Romans
undertook a campaign against the Delmatae in 156, because the senate
thought the younger generation had become soft during the long years of
peace since Pydna and needed toughening up in fresh warfare (32,13,6-8).
Moreover, the incompetence which C. Marcius Figulus (cos. 156) showed in
the initial phase of his campaign, it could be said, lent a certain colour to the
senate's anxieties, while the mess was cleaned up, the war brought to a
victorious conclusion, and a triumph celebrated de Delmateis by none other
than Scipio Nasica, as consul for 155.156
Though Gelzer commented on Polybius' casual and careless reporting of
the wars in the west,'57 this particular account has seldom been challenged,
and then not convincingly.'8 More commonly, it is taken at face value,'59 or at
least pronounced "generally acceptable".''0 We can make little of the fact that
the other sources know nothing of any plan to toughen the youth of Italy,
since they can all alike be declared less reliable than Polybius. But there are a
number of shortcomings in the Greek historian's account. For a start, he
agrees with the other sources that tribes friendly to Rome had been harassed
154
For the sources see Broughton, MRR 1 449.
155
Livy, Epit. 48 and (especially) Orosius 4,21,4.
156
Polybius 32,9 and 13; Livy, Epit. 47; Florus 2,25,11; Strabo 7,5,5; Appian, Illyr. 11/31-32;
Frontinus, Strat. 3,6,2; Zonaras 9,25; Ampelius 19,11; [Aurelius Victor],
de vir. ill. 44,4; cf. also
Obsequens 16.
157
M. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften 111, Wiesbaden 1964, 174f.
158 J. J. Wilkes, Dalmatia, London 1969, 30f., against which see Walbank, Comm. 535. Gruen
430f. also doubts the account, but makes no case.
159
Astin, Scipio Aemilianus 48 and 117f.; Cato the Censor 179; Harris, War and Imperialism
233f.
160
Walbank, Comm. 535; cf. G. Zippel, Die r6mische Herrschaft in Illyrien, Leipzig 1877, 132;
De Sanctis 422f.; J. Dobias, Studie k Appianove Knize Illyrske, Prague 1930, 159 and 280.
by the Delmatae, and that a Roman embassy sent to protest had itself been
insulted; he even concedes that the Romans' official reason for going to war,
the reason given tots iKTo;, was the insult to the ambassadors.'6' This alone
suggests that the ulterior motive he so confidently ascribes to the senate, that
of stirring up the younger generation, is less a view expressed in the curia than
an interpretation imposed by him on their actions.
This in turn is confirmed by what we know of the embassy. It is worthy of
note that the Romans considered the complaints made against the Delmatae
weighty enough to merit the dispatch of a commission headed by a consular,
C. Fannius Strabo (cos. 161). Furthermore, they sent out this embassy perhaps
in 158 and certainly no later than 157, thereby giving their legates ample time
to investigate the situation and to report back.'62 The senate, it appears, was far
less trigger happy than we would expect, if they were merely looking for a
chance to put the younger generation through its paces. Polybius' facile
cynicism notwithstanding, it could even be argued that the Romans were not
only following their standard practice of investigating the rights and wrongs of
the case, but also hoping to avoid a recourse to arms by giving the mission
plenty of time to negotiate.
Which brings us to the outright inaccuracy of Polybius' version of events: it
is simply not true that the Romans had been enjoying unbroken peace since
168.'63 Both consuls for 166 had campaigned in Northern Italy and been
awarded triumphs for their successes; M'. luventius Thalna (cos. 163) had
fought in Corsica; and M. Fulvius Nobilior (cos. 159) had celebrated a tri-
umph over the Ligurians in 158. It is difficult to see how the youth of Italy
could plausibly be said to have had much chance to grow soft before 156, just
as it is difficult to imagine any significant change in that situation being
brought about by the dispatch of one or two legions across the Adriatic in
156.*I Clearly it is far simpler to suppose that Polybius was ignorant of the
campaigning which had been going on in the west, and gave a misleading
twist to this particular war because, here too, his primary concern was to
provide his readers with an instructively "realistic" appraisal of Roman fo-
reign policy.
And yet comments on Roman virilitas may well have been aired at the time.
One of the more interesting aspects of the ancient accounts of this war is that
while the Livian Epitome names both the Roman commanders, Marcius
161
Polybius 32,9,1-4; 13,1-3 and 9.
162
Polybius 32,9 clearly belongs under 158/157 (Walbank, Comm. 528), but there is no prima
facie reason for setting it under the later year (Walbank, loc. cit.) rather than under the earlier
(Wilkes 30; Gruen 430).
163 Cf. Gelzer 174; Walbank, Comm. 535. The sources for the campaigns which follow are
collected by Broughton, MRR I 437, 440 and 446.
164
At this period a consul normally commanded two legions (R. E. Smith, Service in the
Post-Marian Roman Army, Manchester 1958, 11ff.).
76 M. GWYN MORGAN
Figulus alone appears in the narratives of Florus and Appian, whereas Strabo,
Frontinus and Zonaras know only of Scipio Nasica's campaign.'16 What is
more, each man is credited with the capture of the enemy's stronghold,
Delminium, Marcius Figulus by Appian and Scipio Nasica by Frontinus. It is
surely not too fanciful to see in this a hint of recriminations, directed against
Marcius Figulus when Scipio took over his army and levelled at Scipio Nasica
when his claims for a triumph were debated. In such circumstances harsh
statements may well have been made about the performance - and the virilitas
- of Marcius Figulus' troops in the initial stages of his campaign, and perhaps
not only in the initial stages. But this is a far cry from Polybius' careless,
cynical and ultimately misleading statement that the senate thought it time to
reawaken the virilitas of the younger generation, and thus no obstacle to the
view that Scipio Nasica opposed the theatre in 151 because of fears aroused by
Carthage. The common denominator in the two episodes, so far as there was
one, was not a generalized concern about Roman virilitas but the person of
Scipio Nasica.
University of Texas, Austin M. Gwyn Morgan
165
Strictly, Scipio Nasica alone appears also in Ampelius 19,11 and [Aurelius Victor], de vir. ill.
44,4, but in those cases the layout of the material makes it inevitable. Scholars who remark on
the oddity tend to attribute it purely to a misuse or change of source (Zippel 130ff.; Dobias 160f.
and 280).

The Day of Eleusis

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The Perils of Schematism: Polybius, Antiochus Epiphanes and the 'Day of Eleusis'

Author(s): M. Gwyn Morgan

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