was at all capable
of forming a resolution and adhering to it, had already made up his
mind not only to attach to his empire the Egyptian possessions in
Asia, but also to make conquests on his own behalf in Europe and, if
not to seek on that account a war with Rome, at any rate to risk it
The Romans had thus every reason to comply with that request of their
allies, and to interfere directly in Asia; but they showed little
inclination to do so. They not only delayed as long as the Macedonian
war lasted, and gave to Attalus nothing but the protection of
diplomatic intercession, which, we may add, proved in the first
instance effective; but even after the victory, while they doubtless
spoke as though the cities which had been in the hands of Ptolemy and
Philip ought not to be taken possession of by Antiochus, and while the
freedom of the Asiatic cities, Myrina, Abydus, Lampsacus,(1) and Cius,
figured in Roman documents, they took not the smallest step to give
effect to it, and allowed king Antiochus to employ the favourable
opportunity presented by the withdrawal of the Macedonian garrisons to
introduce his own. In fact, they even went so far as to submit to his
landing in Europe in the spring of 558 and invading the Thracian
Chersonese, where he occupied Sestus and Madytus and spent a
considerable time in the chastisement of the Thracian barbarians and
the restoration of the destroyed Lysimachia, which he had selected as
his chief place of arms and as the capital of the newly-instituted
satrapy of Thrace. Flamininus indeed, who was entrusted with the
conduct of these affairs, sent to the king at Lysimachia envoys, who
talked of the integrity of the Egyptian territory and of the freedom
of all the Hellenes; but nothing came out of it. The king talked in
turn of his undoubted legal title to the ancient kingdom of Lysimachus
conquered by his ancestor Seleucus, explained that he was employed not
in making territorial acquisitions but only in preserving the
integrity of his hereditary dominions, and declined the intervention
of the Romans in his disputes with the cities subject to him in Asia
Minor. With justice he could add that peace had already been
concluded with Egypt, and that the Romans were thus far deprived of
any formal pretext for interfering.(2) The sudden return of the king
to Asia occasioned by a false report of the death of the young king of
Egypt, and the projects which it suggested of a landing in Cyprus