f the
subjugation of Philip by the Romans (which might easily be foreseen),
in order to secure the kingdom of Egypt, which he had previously been
willing to share with Philip, for himself alone. Notwithstanding the
close relations of Rome with the court of Alexandria and her royal
ward, the senate by no means intended to be in reality, what it was in
name, his "protector;" firmly resolved to give itself no concern
about Asiatic affairs except in case of extreme necessity, and to
limit the sphere of the Roman power by the Pillars of Hercules and the
Hellespont, it allowed the great-king to take his course. He himself
was not probably in earnest with the conquest of Egypt proper--which
was more easily talked of than achieved--but he contemplated the
subjugation of the foreign possessions of Egypt one after another, and
at once attacked those in Cilicia as well as in Syria and Palestine.
The great victory, which he gained in 556 over the Egyptian general
Scopas at Mount Panium near the sources of the Jordan, not only gave
him complete possession of that region as far as the frontier of Egypt
proper, but so alarmed the Egyptian guardians of the young king that,
to prevent Antiochus from invading Egypt, they submitted to a peace
and sealed it by the betrothal of their ward to Cleopatra the daughter
of Antiochus. When he had thus achieved his first object, he
proceeded in the following year, that of the battle of Cynoscephalae,
with a strong fleet of 100 decked and 100 open vessels to Asia Minor,
to take possession of the districts that formerly belonged to Egypt on
the south and west coasts of Asia Minor--probably the Egyptian
government had ceded these districts, which were -de facto- in the
hands of Philip, to Antiochus under the peace, and had renounced all
their foreign possessions in his favour--and to recover the Greeks of
Asia Minor generally for his empire. At the same time a strong Syrian
land-army assembled in Sardes.

Difficulties with Rome

This enterprise had an indirect bearing on the Romans who from the
first had laid it down as a condition for Philip that he should
withdraw his garrisons from Asia Minor and should leave to the
Rhodians and Pergamenes their territory and to the free cities their
former constitution unimpaired, and who had now to look on while
Antiochus took possession of them in Philip's place. Attalus and the
Rhodians found themselves now directly threatened by Antiochus with
precise