ern satrapies of Media
and Parthyene, and then the separate state which Achaeus had founded
on this side of the Taurus in Asia Minor. A first attempt to wrest
from the Egyptians the coast of Syria, the loss of which he sorely
felt, had, in the year of the battle of the Trasimene lake, met with a
bloody repulse from Philopator at Raphia; and Antiochus had taken good
care not to resume the contest with Egypt, so long as a man--even
though he were but an indolent one--occupied the Egyptian throne.
But, after Philopator's death (549), the right moment for crushing
Egypt appeared to have arrived; with that view Antiochus entered into
concert with Philip, and had thrown himself upon Coele-Syria, while
Philip attacked the cities of Asia Minor. When the Romans interposed
in that quarter, it seemed for a moment as if Antiochus would make
common cause with Philip against them--the course suggested by the
position of affairs, as well as by the treaty of alliance. But, not
far-seeing enough to repel at once with all his energy any
interference whatever by the Romans in the affairs of the east,
Antiochus thought that his best course was to take advantage of 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 Cleop