His words and warnings were in vain. The senate deprived the Rhodians
of their possessions on the mainland, which yielded a yearly produce
of 120 talents (29,000 pounds). Still heavier were the blows aimed at
the Rhodian commerce. The very prohibition of the import of salt to,
and of the export of shipbuilding timber from, Macedonia appears to
have been directed against Rhodes. Rhodian commerce was still more
directly affected by the erection of the free port at Delos; the
Rhodian customs-dues, which hitherto had produced 1,000,000 drachmae
(41,000 pounds) annually, sank in a very brief period to 150,000
drachmae (6180 pounds). Generally, the Rhodians were paralyzed in
their freedom of action and in their liberal and bold commercial
policy, and the state began to languish. Even the alliance asked
for was at first refused, and was only renewed in 590 after urgent
entreaties. The equally guilty but powerless Cretans escaped with
a sharp rebuke.

Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War

With Syria and Egypt the Romans could go to work more summarily.
War had broken out between them; and Coelesyria and Palaestina formed
once more the subject of dispute. According to the assertion of the
Egyptians, those provinces had been ceded to Egypt on the marriage of
the Syrian Cleopatra: this however the court of Babylon, which was in
actual possession, disputed. Apparently the charging of her dowry on
the taxes of the Coelesyrian cities gave occasion to the quarrel, and
the Syrian side was in the right; the breaking out of the war was
occasioned by the death of Cleopatra in 581, with which at latest the
payments of revenue terminated. The war appears to have been begun by
Egypt; but king Antiochus Epiphanes gladly embraced the opportunity
of once more--and for the last time--endeavouring to achieve the
traditional aim of the policy of the Seleucidae, the acquisition of
Egypt, while the Romans were employed in Macedonia. Fortune seemed
favourable to him. The king of Egypt at that time, Ptolemy VI,
Philometor, the son of Cleopatra, had hardly passed the age of boyhood
and had bad advisers; after a great victory on the Syro-Egyptian
frontier Antiochus was able to advance into the territories of his
nephew in the same year in which the legions landed in Greece (583),
and soon had the person of the king in his power. Matters began to
look as if Antiochus wished to possess himself of all Egypt in
Philometor's name; Alexandri