atra 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
precisely the same danger as had driven them a few years before into
the war with Philip; and they naturally sought to involve the Romans
in this war as well as in that which had just terminated. Already in
555-6 Attalus had requested from the Romans military aid against
Antiochus, who had occupied his territory while the troops of Attalus
were employed in the Roman war. The more energetic Rhodians even
declared to king Antiochus, when in the spring of 557 his fleet
appeared off the coast of Asia Minor, that they would regard its
passing beyond the Chelidonian islands (off the Lycian coast) as a
declaration of war; and, when Antiochus did not regard the threat,
they, emboldened by the accounts that had just arrived of the battle
at Cynoscephalae, had immediately begun the war and had actually
protected from the king the most important of the Carian cities,
Caunus, Halicarnassus, and Myndus, and the island of Samos. Most of
the half-free cities had submitted to Antiochus, but some of them,
more especially the important cities of Smyrna, Alexandria Troas, and
Lampsacus, had, on learning the discomfiture of Philip, likewise taken
courage to resist the Syrian; and their urgent entreaties were
combined with those of the Rhodians.

It admits of no doubt, that Antiochus, so far as he