The time specified in the ultimatum expired, and Antiochus again advanced. Once more his armies crossed the Egyptian frontier, and, as on the former occasion, seem to have struck first for Memphis. The natives had come to hate the Macedonian dynasty, and an invader gathered adherents as he went. Then Antiochus turned north and slowly drew down upon Alexandria.

But while the Seleucid king was moving among the ancient cities and luxuriant fields of the Delta, the last fight of the house of Antigonus was fought out. The battle of Pydna (22nd June 168) ended the struggle of Perseus and extinguished Macedonia as an independent state for ever. This entirely altered the situation; Rome was now free to act strongly in Egypt. Gaius Popillius Laenas, the chief of the embassy which had been sent out early in the year to induce Antiochus to retire, was awaiting in Delos the issue of the Macedonian war when he received the news of Pydna. He immediately set sail for Egypt. Antiochus had almost reached Alexandria; he had crossed the Canobic branch of the Nile at a place called Eleusis, and was encamped in the sandy region to the east of the city when the Roman mission arrived. The historic scene which followed was one which Roman pride never allowed to be forgotten. Antiochus was prepared to receive Popillius-whom he had known in Rome -with that easy familiarity which belonged to him. As soon as he saw the ambassadors approaching he greeted Popillius in a loud glad voice and held out his hand as to an old friend. But the Roman came on with a grim and stony irresponsiveness. He reached the King a little tablet which he carried in his hand, and curtly bade him first read that through. Antiochus looked at it; it was a formal resolution of the Senate that King Antiochus should be required to evacuate Egypt. Then there sprang to his lips one of those diplomatic phrases which came so readily to him, something as to laying the matter before his Friends. But the Roman was determined he should not wriggle free. Το the amazement of the courtiers, he drew with his walkingstick a circle in the sand all round the King: Yes or No before he stepped outside of it! Such methods were certainly

a new sort of diplomacy, and Antiochus collapsed. When he got his voice, it was to say that he would agree to anything. The next minute he found the Romans shaking his hand and inquiring cheerfully how he did.1

2

X1130

Within a limited time prescribed by the ambassadors Antiochus withdrew completely from Egypt. "Groaning and in bitterness of heart" he retraced his way along the coast of Palestine. The "ships of Kittim had come against him, and Dav he was grieved and returned." 3 And meanwhile the Roman ambassadors proceeded to Cyprus, where the forces of Antiochus were carrying all before them. Ptolemy Macron, the governor of the island, had gone over to the Seleucid.1 But the appearance of the Roman ambassadors changed all this. They did not leave the island till they had seen the last Seleucid soldier out of it. It was shown that Rome set as strict a limit to the Seleucid dominion on the side of the Ptolemaïc realm as on that of Asia Minor. The humiliation of Eleusis was in a way worse than the humiliation of Magnesia.

After inflicting it upon Antiochus the Senate may have apprehended that he would feel some soreness. Not in the least so they were assured by his ambassadors, who presently came to bring his congratulations on the victory over Perseus. The satisfaction of pleasing the Senate was so great that no conquest seemed to Antiochus worth grasping at in comparison; orders delivered him by Roman envoys were equivalent to divine commands. The Senate replied that he had done well.5

But if Antiochus had been robbed of the substance of triumph, he could still rejoice in its outward circumstance. In the following year (167) Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, celebrated triumphal games at Amphipolis, to which the whole Greek world was invited.

1 Polyb. xxix. 27; Liv. xlv. 12; Diod. xxxi. 2; Vell. Paterc. i. 10; App. Syr. 66; Just. xxxiv. 3, 1 f.; Valer. Max. vi. 3.

2 Polyb. xxix. 27, 8.

3 Daniel 11, 30.

4 2 Macc. 10, 13. He is apparently the Ptolemy of Megalopolis mentioned in Polyb. xviii. 55, 6, and xxvii. 13. He is not to be confused with the Ptolemy, son of Agesarchus, who goes on an important mission to Rome in 203 (Polyb. xv. 25, 13), and is mentioned, as well as Ptolemy of Megalopolis, in Polyb. xviii. 55. 5 Liv. xlv. 13.

VOL. II

L

In this department Antiochus would not be bettered by a Roman. His envoys soon came in the track of those of Aemilius, bidding the Greeks to the great spectacle which a Greek king, the conqueror of Egypt, would display in Daphne, the paradise of Antioch. The invitation drew immense crowds

from all shores of the eastern Mediterranean.

The procession is described for us in some detail. Its first part was a military display, men of many nations in all sorts of gorgeous armour, gold, silver, and wonderful embroideries, horses of the purest Nisaean breed with bridles and frontlets of gold, mailed Scythian cavalry, Indian elephants, gladiators. And then followed the civil procession-the epheboi of Antioch with golden crowns, a thousand oxen dressed for sacrifice, nearly three hundred sacred legations from the Greek cities, ivory tusks, statues of every conceivable god or demi-god gilt or in cloth of gold, allegorical figures, splendid vessels, painted women who flung perfumes from golden jugs or were carried in litters with golden feet. It was an astounding profusion of treasure. Dionysius, the secretary of state (TOTOλOYρáþos), was represented by a thousand slaves who bore silver vessels, none of which weighed less than a thousand drachmas.

The festivities-games, gladiatorial shows, wild beast fights went on for a month. The chief city fountain sometimes ran with wine.1 Choice unguents were served from golden jars to the people in the gymnasium without price. At the palace, couches were laid for a thousand or fifteen hundred guests.

Antiochus was in his element. He outdid himself in indiscriminate familiarity. Functions which would naturally have been left to subordinates he insisted on performing himself-riding up and down the procession, shouting orders, standing at the palace door to usher in the guests, marshalling the attendants. He was up and down among the banqueters, sitting, standing, declaiming, drinking, or bandying jests with the professional mummers. The crowning moment was one evening towards the end of a feast, when the company had begun to grow thin. The mummers brought in a swaddled figure and laid it upon the ground. Suddenly, at the notes of

1 Heliodorus, frag. 6, F.H.G. iv. p. 425.

the symphonia, it started from its wrappings and the King stood there, naked. The next moment he whirled away in the fantastic dance of the buffoons. The banquet broke up in confusion.1

The festivities were hardly over and Antioch clear of the mob of revellers when the ominous face of the Roman envoy thrust itself upon the scene. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus headed a mission which came, after all this blare of trumpets, to see what was really going on. They were on the watch for some sign of ill-will in the Seleucid King, some coolness in their entertainment. But never had Antiochus been more genial and charming. He put his own palace at their disposal, he surrounded them with the state of kings. They returned declaring that it was incredible that this man could be cherishing any serious designs. There were few who could cover so deadly a hate with such disarming manners.2

1 Polyb. xxxi. 3; Diod. xxxi. 16.

2 Polyb. xxxi. 5; 6, 7.

CHAPTER XXIV

ANTIOCHUS THE GOD MANIFEST

WHILE Rome circumscribed the activity of Antiochus as a conqueror, he had great scope left him as the radiant champion and patron of Hellenism, both within his own dominions and abroad. He sustained this character abroad by bestowing magnificent presents upon the old seats of Hellenism in Asia Minor and Greece, and by throwing open to their artists and craftsmen lucrative employment in Syria. We may question whether any principal city did not look on some new embellishment, a temple, an altar, a colonnade, which declared continually the glory and the munificence of King Antiochus. The beloved Athens was, of course, chosen for special honour. To the south-east of the Acropolis stood the noble beginnings of a temple of Zeus Olympius, which Pisistratus had planned some 360 years before and left unfinished. Antiochus under

took to replace it by a new and more splendid fane. On his commission the Roman architect Decimus Cossutius began the construction of a gigantic temple surrounded by a double colonnade of Corinthian pillars, not in stone, like those of Pisistratus, but in Pentelic marble-" one of the largest Greek temples in the world," whose remaining columns, standing in bare isolation, make even to-day a principal feature of Athens. But Antiochus also did not live to finish what he began. His temple too stood for 300 years incomplete, the marvel of the world, till it was finished and opened by the Emperor Hadrian (130 A.D.). Another conspicuous gift of Antiochus

1 Polyb. xxvi. 1, 11; Liv. xli. 20; Vell. Paterc. i. 10; Paus. i. 18, 6 Vitruv. iii. 2, 8; vii. praef. 15, 17. See Frazer, Pausanias, vol. ii. p. 178 f.