already related(28)
how the senate sought to humble and weaken this ally after the third
Macedonian war by unbecoming diplomatic arts. The relations--
perplexing from the very nature of the case--of the rulers of
Pergamus towards the free or half-free commercial cities within
their kingdom, and towards their barbarous neighbours on its borders,
became complicated still more painfully by this ill humour on the part
of their patrons. As it was not clear whether, according to the
treaty of peace in 565, the heights of the Taurus in Pamphylia and
Pisidia belonged to the kingdom of Syria or to that of Pergamus,(29)
the brave Selgians, nominally recognizing, as it would seem, the Syrian
supremacy, made a prolonged and energetic resistance to the kings
Eumenes II and Attalus II in the hardly accessible mountains of
Pisidia. The Asiatic Celts also, who for a time with the permission
of the Romans had yielded allegiance to Pergamus, revolted from
Eumenes and, in concert with Prusias king of Bithynia the hereditary
enemy of the Attalids, suddenly began war against him about 587.
The king had had no time to hire mercenary troops; all his skill
and valour could not prevent the Celts from defeating the Asiatic
militia and overrunning his territory; the peculiar mediation, to which
the Romans condescended at the request of Eumenes, has already been
mentioned.(30) But, as soon as he had found time with the help of his
well-filled exchequer to raise an army capable of taking the field, he
speedily drove the wild hordes back over the frontier, and, although
Galatia remained lost to him, and his obstinately-continued attempts
to maintain his footing there were frustrated by Roman influence,(31)
he yet, in spite of all the open attacks and secret machinations which
his neighbours and the Romans directed against him, at his death
(about 595) left his kingdom in standing un-diminished. His brother
Attalus II Philadelphia (d. 616) with Roman aid repelled the attempt
of Pharnaces king of Pontus to seize the guardianship of Eumenes'
son who was a minor, and reigned in the room of his nephew, like
Antigonus Doson, as guardian for life. Adroit, able, pliant,
a genuine Attalid, he had the art to convince the suspicious senate
that the apprehensions which it had formerly cherished were baseless.
The anti-Roman party accused him of having to do with keeping the land
for the Romans, and of acquiescing in every insult and exaction at
their hand