g that year, king Antiochus, after having spent the winter
at Ephesus, took measures for reducing, under his dominion, all the
cities of Asia, which had formerly been members of the empire. As to
the rest, being either situated in plains, or having neither walls,
arms, nor men in whom they could confide, he supposed they would,
without difficulty, receive the yoke. But Smyrna and Lampsacus openly
asserted their independence: yet there was a danger that if what they
claimed were conceded to these, the rest of the cities in Aetolia and
Ionia would follow the example of Smyrna; and those on the Hellespont
that of Lampsacus. Wherefore he sent an army from Ephesus to invest
Smyrna; and ordered the troops, which were at Abydos, to leave there
only a small garrison, and to go and lay siege to Lampsacus. Nor did
he only alarm them by an exhibition of force. By sending ambassadors,
to make gentle remonstrances, and reprove the rashness and obstinacy
of their conduct, he endeavoured to give them hopes that they might
soon obtain the object of their wishes; but not until it should appear
clearly, both to themselves and to all the world, that they had gained
their liberty through the kindness of the king, and not by any violent
efforts of their own. In answer to which, they said, that "Antiochus
ought neither to be surprised nor displeased, if they did not very
patiently suffer the establishment of their liberty to be deferred to
a distant period." He himself, with his fleet, set sail from Ephesus
in the beginning of spring, and steered towards the Hellespont. His
army he transported to Madytus, a city in the Chersonese, and there
joined his land and sea forces together. The inhabitants having shut
their gates, he surrounded the walls with his troops; and when he was
just bringing up his machines to the walls, a capitulation was entered
into. This diffused such fear through the inhabitants of Sestus and
the other cities of the Chersonese, as induced them to submit. He
then came, with the whole of his united forces, by land and sea, to
Lysimachia; which finding deserted, and almost buried in ruins, (for
the Thracians had, a few years before, taken, sacked, and burned
it,) he conceived a wish to rebuild a city so celebrated, and so
commodiously situated. Accordingly, extending his care to every object
at once, he set about repairing the walls and houses, ransomed some
of the Lysimachians who were in captivity, sought out and brought ho