The Day of Eleusis

The Perils of Schematism: Polybius, Antiochus Epiphanes and the 'Day of Eleusis'Author(s): M. Gwyn MorganSource: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte Geschichte, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1990), pp. 37-76Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436137Accessed: 31/08/2010 06:29

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Polybius, Antiochus Epiphanes and the 'Day of Eleusis' 37

THE PERILS OF SCHEMATISM: POLYBIUS, ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES AND THE 'DAY OF ELEUSIS' *

The 'Day of Eleusis' is probably one of the most famous episodes in all Rome's dealings with the Hellenistic powers. As the story is usually told, Antiochus IV Epiphanes was pressing the siege of Alexandria in order to gain control of Egypt, when a Roman embassy headed by C. Popillius Laenas (cos. 172) caught up with him in the suburb of Eleusis, and presented him with a senatus consultum ordering him to cease and desist. When the king said he needed time to consult with his advisers, Popillius Laenas drew a circle in the sand around him and insisted that he respond before he took another step. Whereupon Antiochus, in high dudgeon, yielded to the Roman demand and withdrew his army from Egypt a few days later.'

Polybius clearly thought this a major humiliation for Antiochus and proof, with the victory over Perseus at Pydna, that the Romans completed their conquest of the oecumene in 168. A majority of modem scholars have accepted both these propositions. If there has been reluctance to endorse Otto's

* 'The inspiration for this paper was provided by a fascinating presentation on "Hellenism and

Persecution: Antiochus IV and the Jews", delivered by Prof. E. S. Gruen at a Symposium on Hellenistic History and Culture, organized by Profs. Peter Green and Karl Galinsky and held at the University of Texas at Austin in October 1988. 1 wish to thank Profs. Gruen, Green and J. H. Kroll for their comments on this paper. Which is not to involve them in the errors that remain.

I See Polybius 29,27, 1-8 (cf. 30,27 and 30,7-8); Diodorus 31,2; Livy 45,12,1-6; Cicero, Phil. 8,23; Valerius Maximus 6,4,3; Velleius 1,10,1-2; Plutarch, Mor. 202 F; Appian, Syr. 66/350-1; Justin 34,3,1-4; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 50; Zonaras 9,25; cf. Pliny NH 34,24 (confused). Granius Licinianus, p. 4 Flemisch, without mentioning the 'Day of Eleusis' avers that Antiochus thought of declaring war on Rome, but this is obvious fantasy (see M. Martina, Athenaeum 62, 1984, 190ff.). For convenience of reference, the following works are cited - save in Walbank's case - by author's name and page number only: Bevan = E. R. Bevan, The House of Seleucus II, London 1902; Bouche-Leclercq = A. Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire des Seleucides, 2 vols., Paris 1913-14; De Sanctis = G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani IV 12, Florence 1969; Gruen = E. S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, 2 vols., Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984; Jouguet = P. Jouguet, "Les debuts du regne de Ptolemre Philometor et la sixieme guerre syrienne", RPh 63, 1937, 193-238; Meloni = P. Meloni, Perseo e la fine della monarchia macedone, Rome 1953; M0rkholm = 0. Morkholm, Antiochus IV of Syria, Copenhagen 1966; Niese = B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten III, Gotha 1903; Otto = W. Otto, Zur Geschichte der Zeit des 6. Ptolemaers, Munich 1934; Passerini = A. Passe- rini, "Roma e l'Egitto durante la terza guerra macedonica", Athenaeum 13, 1935, 317-342; Pedech = P. Pedech, La methode historique de Polybe, Paris 1964; Swain = J. W. Swain, "Antiochus Epiphanes and Egypt", CPh 39, 1944,73-94; Walbank, Comm. = F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius III, Oxford 1979; Walbank, Papers = F. W. Walbank, Selected Papers, Cambridge 1985; Will = E. Will, Histoire politique du monde hellenistique 112, Nancy 1982.

Historia, Band XXXIX/1 (1990) K Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart

38 M. GWYN MORGAN

suggestion that the episode unhinged the king's mind,2 it is commonplace to declare that, after Eleusis, Antiochus "renounced his claims to pursue an independent foreign policy in the Mediterranean" ,3 or even to assert that the incident was as great a setback to the Seleucid realm as had been the defeat of Antiochus III at Magnesia some twenty years before.4 Yet neither proposition would be thought convincing, were it not Polybius who advocated them. Despite the historian's not being - it seems - the only Greek of the time to think in such terms,5 and despite his willingness to defend his idea even unto death, the proposition that the 'Day of Eleusis' marked a significant turning point in Seleucid history, already assailed by Gruen,6 misrepresents seriously the position in which the kings of Syria found themselves after Magnesia. As for the humiliation, a careful examination of the known details of Antiochus' second campaign in Egypt will support not only Passerini's view that, when Popillius Laenas arrived, Antiochus already knew the war was unjustifiable, even unwinnable,7 but also Tarn's seemingly more startling observation that, at Eleusis, Antiochus "was the one man there who was not astonished."V8

It might be extreme to suggest that Antiochus welcomed the Romans' intervention at Eleusis or the manner of it, but their interference had the merit of extricating him from a highly embarrassing and frustrating situation at relatively small cost, and that ought to have been matter for relief rather than for the resentment which, Polybius insists, the king felt then and later.9 It has always been recognized, of course, that the historian's views on Antiochus are not entirely reliable. The king's disregard for decorum clearly offended Poly- bius, nor did he hesitate to report that the royal subjects transformed the title 'Epiphanes' into epimanes.'? The distortion, however, should not be attributed to bias, since Polybius makes as little of this manic aspect in his assessment of Antiochus' foreign policy as he does of the king's having spent some twelve

2 Otto 84ff. 3 Thus J. Briscoe, Historia 18, 1969, 49; cf. Therese Liebmann-Frankfort, La frontiere orien-

tale dans la politique exterieure de la Republique romaine, Brussels 1969, 126; A. N. Sherwin- White, Roman Foreign Policy in the East, London 1984,47 f.

4 So Bevan 145 and De Sanctis 326. 5 Such could be concluded from the enormous increase (J. S. Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 7)

in the number of offerings made to the goddess Roma in Asia Minor after 167, but no doubt the Asiatic Greeks heard of Pydna too. Likewise, there was some unrest in Coele-Syria during 168 (see Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 56), while a rumour of Antiochus' death induced Jason to seize Jerusalem (11 Macc. 5,5-7) - though neither the chronology nor probability warrants the supposition of Will 337, that the rumour itself was created by what happened at Eleusis.

6 E. S. Gruen, Chiron 6, 1976, 73ff.; cf. Gruen 660. 7 Passerini 331ff. and 336ff., emphasizing the unjustifiable nature of the war and implying

that it was unwinnable (as indeed it was). 8W W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India3, Chicago 1984, 192; cf. Swain 87. 9 Polybius 29,27,8; 30,27,2 and 30,8.

10 Polybius 26,1a and 26,1 (cf. also 31,9,4): repeated by Diodorus 29,32; Livy 41,20,1-4; Granius Licinianus, pages 4-5 Flemisch; and Justin 34,2,7.


years as a hostage in Rome." Indeed, we would never gather from his account that the knowledge of Romans Antiochus gained during his enforced stay was anything but superficial.'2 The real problem is one of incomprehension or, better, of type-casting.

When Polybius talks of the foreign policy implemented by a Ptolemaic or Seleucid ruler, as Pedech has observed, he tends to regard that policy as a reflection of what he perceives as the monarch's personality.'3 Thus, Ptolemy IV Philopator's neglecting to exploit his victory over Antiochus III at Raphia is not only adjudged paradoxical by the historian, but taken as evidence of the king's moral degeneracy - neither a perceptive nor a persuasive verdict.'4 By the same token, so it can be argued, Polybius puts little stress on Antiochus' supposedly manic behaviour or his understanding of Romans when the subject is foreign policy, because that is an area in which it is necessary to credit him with the rational, orthodox and - above all - predictable activities ordai- ned for a Hellenistic ruler by the historian's own concept of Realpolitik: if, for example, Antiochus invaded Egypt, he must have meant to conquer it - another proposition which, as we shall see, cannot withstand critical scrutiny. Which brings us to the point, that it is entirely legitimate to wonder whether a king who, like Antiochus, not only refused to play his assigned role in small matters but also delighted in confounding people's expectations at that level, was straightforward in large matters. We know, for instance, that Antiochus diverged significantly from previous Seleucid policy toward the Jews (com- mitting a serious error of judgement in the process) for reasons which remain obscure to this day. But no less telling for any assessment of the king's behaviour at and after Eleusis, we know too that Antiochus simply abandoned that policy when it proved unworkable.'5 And finally, we know from Diodorus that Antiochus pursued a policy of openness diametrically opposed to the secrecy in which other monarchs of his day wrapped their plans; whereas they tried to build up their power without Rome's knowledge, so says the chronic-

11 Antiochus was handed over to the Romans in the winter of 190/189 (Polybius 21, 17, 8; Appian, Syr. 39/200), and we know that he was in Athens by 178/177 (S. V. Tracy, Hesperia 31, 1982, 61f.).

12 There is every reason to think that Antiochus was not only familiar with but educated in the Roman fashion (cf. D. Braund, Rome and the Friendly King, London and New York 1984, 14f.), in the same way as the 5,000 troops he paraded at Daphne in 166 were not just equipped, but trained, in the Roman manner (cf. Braund 115f.). The view advanced in the text seems to me enough to explain Polybius' reluctance to grant Antiochus this understanding. But there is a further possibility, that Polybius considered himself the first Greek truly to understand Ro- mans; he certainly "goes out of his way to emphasise his friendship with Scipio; in a sense it forms part of his credentials as the interpreter of Rome" (F. W. Walbank, Polybius, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972, 8).

13 Pedech 140, nevertheless concluding that Polybius' portrayal of Antiochus is acceptable, "'melange bizarre de bonhomie et de megalomanie".

4 See especially Claire Preaux, CE 40, 1965, 364ff. 5 For the evidence on this highly controversial topic see Morkholm 135ff.

40 M. GWYN MORGAN

ler disapprovingly (31,16,1), Antiochus "put his entire kingdom on the stage and left nobody in the dark about his concerns." The king being therefore somewhat unconventional by the standards of his time, we are faced with the distinct possibility that Polybian schematism has affected his presentation of Antiochus no less than it has his interpretation of the 'Day of Eleusis'.

I. Polybian Schematism and the Third Punic War

Polybius says explicitly that the original plan for his History was to show how the Romans brought the oecumene, the entire civilized world, under their control in the mere fifty-three years between 220 and 168.16 The plan rests, first and foremost, on the historian's own insistence that the period he described, like the work in which he described it, was a unity with a clear beginning, a fixed duration, and an undisputed end.'7 In actuality, his chosen termini are equally arbitrary, based more on a series of arresting (sometimes not so arresting) coincidences than on the concatenation of events he himself described. There is no need here to discuss the grounds on which 220 has been called into question as the starting-point for the History.'8 For any assessment of the 'Day of Eleusis' the important consideration is whether the Romans, as of 168, could reasonably be thought the undisputed masters of Macedonia and Greece, of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, and - what is all too often forgotten - of Carthage too.

It will not do simply to pass these various areas in review, since it can be maintained that, even after every objection has been mustered, they yield only alternatives to Polybius' interpretation rather than a refutation of it. What will bring out clearly the schematism inherent in the historian's approach is a consideration of the reasons he gives for extending his work beyond 168 and, more particularly, his account of the Third Punic War, this conflict having rather more to do with his revised plan than seems generally to have been recognized. In his original scheme, after all, Polybius essentially wrote off Carthage after Zama (cf. 3,3,1). Its function was fulfilled once it lost the Hannibalic War. For whether the Romans' victory at Zama was the first step

16 See especially Polybius 3, 1-3. It fudges the emphasis to single out the few occasions where he says the Romans conquered "practically all the civilized world" (1,1,5; 1,2,7; 6,2,3). Normally, he dispenses with the adverb (1,3,9 and 4,1; 3,1,4, 2,6, 3,9, 4,2, 118,9; 8,2,4; 39,8,7). For a useful conspectus of the other terms he employs to describe the situation see Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, If. and D. Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo romano, Naples 1978, 15ff. It goes without saying that the barbarians are normally excluded from the definition, save when they impinge in the "civilized world", a point demonstrated by Polybius' sometimes careless and misleading ac- counts of the wars in the west (see below, appendix).

17 Polybius 3,1,5; Walbank, Polybius 66ff. 18 See Walbank, Polybius 68ff. and Papers 313ff.; also T. S. Brown, Phoenix 18, 1964, 124ff.


in their progress to world empire or their inspiration to take that first step,'9 there was little more to be said - until the Third Punic War supervened. Now, Polybius offers two main reasons for extending his History through 146 (3,4-5). First, there is the need to provide a description of the nature of Roman rule and how others assessed it; to this we shall return presently. More important for our present purposes is his second reason, to give an account of the troubles of 152-146, and since he characterizes them as tUpcCXz Kcdi Ktvflclt;, meaningless uprisings, unpredictable and irrational, against the dominant power of Rome,20 this must be seen as a proclamation of his faith in the validity of his original plan and of his determination to defend it against all comers.2'

One can hardly quibble with the use of terms like EapaXi KaLt Kiztiv7ct to describe Andriscus' revolt in Macedonia or the bellum Achaicum. Even if Polybius' account is unnecessarily virulent, each was but a tempest in a teapot.22 Insofar as Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt are concerned, it may similarly be conceded that, by 152, any disturbances here were equally unimportant. With Carthage the situation is significantly different, since our other sources demonstrate that the Romans took the Third Punic War far more seriously than does Polybius. Though willing to grant that the war was a momentous event (36,1,1), he tends thereafter to play down its importance as a challenge to Rome. Thus he says of the debates in the senate beforehand only that the Romans had decided on Carthage's destruction some time earlier, "but they were looking for a suitable occasion and a pretext appealing to people at large (TOi5; eK-u6;). For the Romans very rightly paid a good deal of attention to this aspect ... and their disagreements among themselves on this occasion about the effect (sc. of Carthage's destruction) on the opinion of people at large almost induced them not to go to war".23

As is well known, this account differs markedly from the descriptions of lengthy debates between Cato and Scipio Nasica provided by the other sources.24 Indeed, Polybius' account has frequently been used to deny the

19 It is represented as the first step at 1,3,6; 15,9,2 and 10,2; as the inspiration at 3,2,6 and 5,104,3. The two views can be reconciled: see P. S. Derow, JRS 69, 1979, 2ff.

20 Polybius 3,4,1-2 and 12-13; see Walbank, Papers 333f. (dating) and 336ff. (terminology). 21 Cf. Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 2. 22 Cf. Walbank, Papers 337 and 339. 23 Polybius 36,2; cf. also frag. 99 B-W. The date at which the Romans are supposed first to

have decided to go to war is fixed ca. 152 by Polybius 3,5,4-5, and this coincides with the date of Cato's first speech on the subject: see A. E. Astin, Cato the Censor, Oxford 1978, 127ff. and 283ff. The expression oi tKT6; is often rendered "world opinion", but I follow Walbank, Comm. 654, that it is better taken to denote "people generally outside the governmental circles where the decision was taken".

24 See Diodorus 34/35,33,3-5; Livy, Epit. 48-49; Plutarch, Cato Maior 26-27; Florus 1,31,4-5; Appian, Pun. 69/313-5; Augustine, civ. Dei 1,30; Orosius 4,23,9; Ampelius 19,11; Zonaras 9,26; cf. also Pliny, NH 15,74-76; [Aurelius Victor], de vir. ill. 47,8.

42 M. GWYN MORGAN

historicity of those debates,25 even though he too reports disagreements within the curia and, at that, disagreements lasting for several years. What ought rather to have attracted attention is his opening Book 36, a book in which the Third Punic War bulked large, with a refusal to provide many speeches. The historian's duty, he says sternly (36,1,7), is to discover by the most careful research what was actually said, and from that to select for his reader only the most vital and effective arguments. There was no reason for him to make a comment of this particular kind at this particular point, unless he was writing for an audience which expected speeches of the type attributed by the other sources to Cato and Scipio Nasica, and expected them at this very point. Moreover, when Polybius limited himself to "the most vital and effective arguments", he was able to sidestep what might otherwise have seemed a major obstacle to his own overall interpretation, namely, that both parties to the dispute rested their cases on the thesis that Carthage was a formidable foe. Cato certainly urged the city's destruction out of fear, and though Scipio Nasica stressed the necessity of fighting a bellum iustum, his key argument was based on metus hostilis, the need for a strong enemy to keep the Romans on their toes: "oui l'un voyait un peril, I'autre voyait un remede."26 For Polybius to have given prominence to such fears in his account, however, would have seemed to make a nonsense of his claim that, after 168, the Romans dominated the oecumene and all else was TacpCXt Kti civriotg. In that case, the Romans had no reason for fears of these dimensions, no matter how expressed.

Nor is this all. It is time to recur to Polybius' other reason for extending his History, to provide a description of the nature of Roman rule and how others assessed it. The books which cover 167 through 153, as is well known, provide an almost unbroken series of cynical remarks about Roman policy, and of setbacks befalling those who failed to realize how the Roman mind worked, all of this because of the importance Polybius attached to his reader's grasping the essential point that, in the last resort, the Romans would always pursue their own best interests. In the books which cover 152 through 146 this approach is tempered to an extent by Polybius' own involvement in affairs and that of his friend Scipio Aemilianus. But nor is it forsaken, least of all in his account of the debates which went on in the senate between 152 and 149. In a History written for the guidance of wise men, it would never do to create the impression that fear could stop the Romans once for all from pursuing their

25 See W. Hoffmann, Historia 9, 1960, 309ff., esp. 341. Hoffmann places unjustified stress on the failure of Cicero, Brut. 79, to mention Scipio's speech. Cicero is concerned with Scipio's overall competence as an orator; for all the references to Cato in the Brutus, we would never gather from this work alone that Cato delivered speeches against Carthage.

26 Pedech 197; cf. M. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften II, Wiesbaden 1963,62 and 68ff.; A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus, Oxford 1967, 272ff., and Cato the Censor 125ff., 283ff.


own best interests. Rather the reverse. For his purposes, therefore, it was enough to record the existence of the debates and what he chose to consider the key argument, the need for a suitable occasion and pretext for carrying out the decision to destroy Carthage. There was nothing to be gained by dwelling on the assorted views expressed at the time, or by giving them misleading prominence. What counted was Roman determination and, at the last, Roman readiness to act.27

This interpretation is confirmed by the famous passage in which Polybius records Greek reactions to the Romans' treatment of Carthage and Andriscus (36,9-10). The section which deals with Carthage, as both Pedech and Wal- bank have seen, is arranged chiastically, to begin and end with the pro-Roman opinions to which Polybius himself subscribed.28 Now, just as the first pro- Roman argument rests on the thesis that the Romans were right to destroy a threat to their own security, the nub of Cato's case and a reflection of Scipio Nasica's stress on metus hostilis (9,3-4), so the second anti-Roman argument (which Polybius counteracts by attaching to it the second, much longer pro- Roman argument) starts from the premise that the Romans employed deceit against the Carthaginians, and so failed to fight a bellum iustum (9,9-11). Which is not an echo of Scipio Nasica's objections to a declaration of war until proper grounds existed, but a perversion of his case: proper grounds did exist - in Roman eyes - as of 149.29 The important consideration, however, is not whether this proves that the substance of the debates recorded by the other sources is historical (it does not, and cannot), but why the passage is placed where it is.

Although the opening sentence seems to require the conclusion that these opinions were voiced after 146, Polybius unquestionably set the entire piece under 150/149.30 This placing, it may be suggested, was chosen not only to

27 Though Polybius will on occasion gloss over disputes within the senate (cf. Walbank, Papers 166; A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, Cambridge 1975, 26f.), that will not explain his procedure here, since he clearly states that there were major differences of opinion within the curia (36,2,4). The same objection can be made against any attempt to apply to this episode the suggestion of Richardson, PBSR 47, 1979, 7ff., that Polybius sometimes envisaged the Republic as the equivalent of a Hellenistic monarch. But if we accept the theory of Walbank, Papers 325ff., that a third (unexpressed) reason for Polybius' extending his History lay in his own relationship with Scipio Aemilianus, a personal story proving the possibilities for symbiosis between Greek and Roman, that would have given still more importance to the Third Punic War, as the theatre in which that symbiosis first manifested itself, and would have made a "correct" understanding of the war yet more pressing.

28 Pedech 198f.; Walbank, Papers 168ff., 286ff., 339. For other, less satisfactory interpretations see K.-E. Petzold, Studien zur Methode des Polybios und ihre historische Auswertung, Munich 1969, 62f.; Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 55ff.; W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republi- can Rome 327-70 B. C., Oxford 1979, 272.

29 Cf. Walbank, Comm. 653f. and Papers 340. 30 For the setting of the passage see Walbank, Comm. 44ff. and 663f. That the views reported

postdate 146 rests on the employment of KaT-IroFTcoav at 9,1, since the verb regularly means

44 M. GWYN MORGAN

provide a timely defence of Roman behaviour, but also to indicate that such views were circulating in Greece (differently nuanced, no doubt) before as well as after 146.3' It could be objected, of course, that senatorial meetings on weighty matters like the declaration of war were normally confidential, but this signifies little. As Polybius observed on another occasion, there was never any shortage of people to claim intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a royal palace or the Roman curia,32 and those inclined to speculate in 150/149 would have had little difficulty elaborating arguments (for or against any specific action by Rome) not too dissimilar to those expressed, however secretly, in the senate. And when the passage is viewed in this light, it becomes less important to decide whether the opinions expressed in Greece before 146 derived ultimately from the senate, than it does to recognize Polybius' concern that similar misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the Roman position not lead to further disasters. In duty bound to report some at least of the anti- Roman rhetoric of the time, he took care to enclose it within a cordon sanitaire of eminently more sensible, pro-Roman opinions.

This is not to imply that Polybius distorted the record wilfully. In hindsight, the fears of Carthage expressed between 152 and 149 may have seemed as groundless to the senators as they have to so many scholars since, although this is hardly suggested by Appian's account of the rejoicing in Rome which followed the news of Carthage's fall.33 Despite the ferocious resistance the Carthaginians had still managed to offer and the considerable exertions re- quired of the Romans, the Third Punic War did turn out to be merely a footnote to the two earlier struggles. In hindsight, therefore, Polybius could justifiably consider the war tcpaxl' Kaci Kiviic;tg. Nonetheless, his presentation distorts the record, misrepresenting the situation within the senate between 152 and 149, giving the war's origins a character significantly different to the one it bore in the minds of the principal actors at the time, and obscuring - among other things - the reasons why Scipio Nasica in 151 blocked the construction of a permanent theatre in Rome (see appendix). It is pointless to wonder whether Polybius would have told the story differently, had he not already decided that 168 was the decisive year for the establishment of Rome's domination over the oecumene. The crucial consideration is that he had arrived at that conclusion beforehand, and tailored his account accordingly.

Nor can this interpretation be undermined by claiming that the historian

"to crush" in Polybius (A. Mauersberger, Polybios-Lexicon 1 3, Berlin 1966, 1327), and its use here is not likely to be due to the epitomator.

31 Cf. Pedech 198; Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 54; Walbank, Papers 293. 32 Livy 41,24,3, undoubtedly Polybian and rightly given much play by E. Bikerman, REG 66,

1953, 484 and 499. The best discussion of the confidentiality of senate meetings is that by Harris, War and Imperialism 255.

33 Appian, Lib. 134/633-135/638, a passage whose importance is justly emphasized by H. Bel- len, Metus Gallicus - Metus Punicus, Wiesbaden 1985, 3f.


simply made an honest mistake, for example, overestimating Cato's influence in the senate and thinking his advocacy of Carthage's destruction the prevai- ling opinion from the start, held in check only by the quest for a suitable pretext and occasion.3" That cannot excuse Polybius' cursory treatment of debates occupying three full years. The distortion is deliberate, brought about by what he considered the needs of his audience. Since his History was meant to be useful,35 his readers could learn little from the protracted debates which so took up the senate's time save, perhaps, that the patres too could miscon- ceive a situation - not a fruitful lesson when these same men were the arbiters of the Mediterranean world. Better by far to mention the debates as briefly as possible and to put the emphasis on two key points: first, that the Romans would always pursue their own best interests, though they might wait until they had formal justification for a truly drastic step; and second, that any misunderstanding or misrepresentation of their basic position, all too easily brought about, would lead as inevitably to disaster in the future as it had done in the past.

II. Polybius and the 'Day of Eleusis' Since Polybius' account of the Third Punic War shows him capable of

schematism, it is legitimate to call into question next the grounds on which he determined that 168 was indeed the year in which the Romans completed their conquest of the oecumene. With Macedonia and Greece, of course, there is no problem. It was in 168 that the Macedonian monarchy was destroyed, and it was after Pydna that the Romans deported Greek hostages by the thousand, Polybius himself amongst them, to Italy. There was reason to maintain that the Romans' writ ran in Asia Minor too. It was also after Pydna that Rhodes and Pergamum were punished because - so at least the Romans thought - they had had the temerity to try to teach the senate its business by interceding on Perseus' behalf during the final stages of the war.36 The trouble begins when we turn to Egypt and Syria, since it is Polybius' contention that at the 'Day of Eleusis' the Romans imposed their wishes, willy-nilly, on the two other great powers of the Hellenistic World, intervening in the Sixth Syrian War to halt the dissolution of the one and the expansion of the other.37

34 Polybius had personal experience of Cato's influence and reason to overestimate his power: see 35,6 with Astin, Cato the Censor 124f. and Momigliano, Alien Wisdom 26f. Indeed, Cato could have come swiftly to represent a majority in the senate (cf. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften II 45), since Scipio Nasica was hardly the leader of a "peace party" (cf. Hoffmann, Historia 9, 1960, 343f.).

35 See Walbank, Polybius 6, for the relevant passages. 36 For the facts see Gruen 569ff. It makes no difference to my case whether the Romans'

actions rested on a misapprehension (so Gruen 556ff.). 37 See especially Polybius 29,27,11-13; cf. Livy 45,13,5; Valerius Maximus 6,4,3. It goes far

beyond the available evidence, however, to suggest that Agatharchides thought Eleusis the

46 M. GWYN MORGAN

Polybius himself certainly had grounds for thinking that the Ptolemaic realm was in a state of dissolution at this time. In the winter of 169/168, after all, the Lagids sent an embassy to the Achaean League to request help against Antiochus, asking for a contingent of troops under Lycortas and Polybius or, failing that, for the services simply of these two men as military advisers. Though both requests were ultimately refused, the historian could justifiably take it as a sign of weakness that they were ever made.38 Again, Polybius may or may not be Livy's source for the melodramatic presentation made to the senate at the start of 168 by the ambassadors of Ptolemy Euergetes II and Cleopatra,39 but he definitely reported the squabbling which broke out between Ptolemy VI Philometor and Euergetes after Antiochus' withdrawal from Egypt; it was in this context, indeed, that he echoed the opinion Scipio Aemilianus voiced nearly thirty years later, during his tour of Egypt, that the country could become a great power, if ever it found rulers worthy of it.40 When we add to this Polybius' weakness for reflections on the passing of empires,4' it must have been easy for him to conclude that in 168 Egypt was truly in a state of dissolution.

There are nonetheless three vital facts which cannot be fitted into his picture. First, the Lagid realm had been the sick man of the Mediterranean for years; it was this which had lent plausibility to the allegations made in 203/202, that Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III were plotting to carve up between them Ptolemaic possessions outside Egypt.42 Second, no matter what Polybius thought, Antiochus IV was unable to take Alexandria in either of his campaigns, not just in the second campaign seemingly so rudely inter- rupted by the Romans, and without Alexandria he had nothing. Whatever the city's precise political and juridical status within the kingdom, to the outside world Alexandria was Egypt.43 Third, and this is by far the most significant point, some twenty years earlier the Romans themselves had imposed their wishes on Egypt, willy-nilly, in a matter of vital importance to her rulers; in the

confirmation of Ptolemaic tyranny in Egypt and proof that only the distant Sabaeans were now safe from Roman intervention (thus P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1, Oxford 1972, 550).

38 Polybius 29,23-25 (note especially 23,5 and 8; 24,4; 25,7). On the part played in this episode by Q. Marcius Philippus (cos. I1 169) see below, note 78.

39 Livy 44,19,6-12. Since H. Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen uber die Quellen der vierten und funften Dekade des Livius, Berlin 1863, 262f., this passage has regularly been declared annalistic, but see below, note 102.

40 Polybius obviously admired Philometor as a man (39,7), but not as a ruler (see, e. g., 31,10 and 17-20). Scipio's remark, preserved by Diodorus 33,28b,3, is echoed at Polybius 31,10,8.

41 Witness his account of Scipio Aemilianus at Carthage (38,21,1-3), with the comments of Momigliano, Alien Wisdom 22f., and Musti, Polibio e l'imperialismo 41f.

42 For the pact see Gruen 387f., 614ff., and 678f. 43 The importance of Alexandria is rightly stressed by Bevan 138; Bouche-Leclercq 255; De

Sanctis 303; Otto 58; and Jouguet 215. There will be more to say on the subject in part Ill below. The city's political and juridical status is discussed by Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1 106ff.


peace treaty they concluded with Antiochus III at Apamea they confirmed his right to Coele-Syria, that perennial bone of contention which he had taken back from the Lagids during the Fifth Syrian War, and did so without even bothering to consult the Ptolemaic court." So far as Egypt is concerned, therefore, the 'Day of Eleusis' may have seemed superficially attractive because it fell in the same year as Pydna, but the country was actually in no more and no less parlous a condition than it had been before 168 or would be after that date, nor did the Romans' intervention on this occasion betoken any change in their basic attitude toward the kingdom.

As a way of looking at Seleucid history after 168, Polybius' theory has even less to recommend it, as Gruen has emphasized.45 Whatever Antiochus Epi- phanes learnt, or failed to learn, from his experiences at Eleusis, he gave no sign of having been intimidated by the episode. Hence the massive show of force at Daphne in 166, simultaneously a bid to outshine the celebrations which L. Aemilius Paullus had staged at Amphipolis the previous year, a demonstration of his own military successes in Egypt, and an advertisement for the anabasis on which, apparently, he intended emulating his father's achievements.' Hence too his behaviour when the Roman embassy headed by Ti. Gracchus appeared in Antioch shortly after the festival: though he showed the envoys every courtesy, his attitude - characterized as servile by Polybius and by Diodorus as reprehensible - indicated no substantive conces- sion on his part. For if the Romans were concerned about breaches of the Treaty of Apamea (and Antiochus could perhaps have been said to be viola- ting its provisions by maintaining war elephants) and about the king's plans for his army, they never made an issue of either point. Convinced of Antio- chus' goodwill, they returned to Rome to persuade other senators of the same thing - much to Polybius' disgust.47 And hence, finally, Diodorus' describing

44 H. Winkler, Rom und Agypten im 2. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Diss., Leipzig 1933, 24f.; Otto 30; Will 231f.; Gruen 682ff. Hence the Ptolemaic attempts, rumoured or real, to take back the lost territories shortly before 180 (Morkholm 66; Gruen 649), ca. 173 (see below, note 65), and in 170/169 (see below, part Ill).

45 E. S. Gruen, Chiron 6, 1976, 73ff. Note too the trenchant comments of M. 1. Rostovtzeff, A Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World 1, Oxford 1941, 67.

46 J G. Bunge, Chiron 6, 1976, 53ff. 47 Polybius 30,27,1-3 and 30,7-8; Diodorus 31,16,1 and 17. Though it will be necessary to recur

to this embassy in part III, it is worth noting here that Polybius 30,27,2 says that the Romans found nothing in Antiochus' conduct 7pwTpCtTt 4t9LpacaLv EXov; to judge by his use of the term elsewhere (2,36,5; 4,21,5; 22,10,4), napaTpLtI3T connotes "friction" between persons of more or less equal standing. In any event, whatever the bearing of the relevant clauses in the Treaty of Apamea (below, note 49), Antiochus maintained war elephants throughout his reign. Thus, he is said to have used them in his invasion of Egypt (I Macc. 1,17), to have provided the Romans with such beasts in the war against Perseus (Polyaenus 4,21, probably to be rejected: see Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 30 n. 54; Otto 47 n. 1), and to have employed between 22 and 80 of them against the Jewish rebels (I Macc. 3,34; 6,30,34-37,43--46; II Macc. 11,4; 13,2 and 15; cf. Josephus, AJ 12,295). He certainly paraded between 36 and 42 at Daphne (Polybius 30,25,11 with Walbank,

48 M. GWYN MORGAN

Antiochus as the most powerful king of his day at the time he attacked Armenia in 164.48 Whatever the interpretation we choose to place on Cn. Octavius' decision in 163 to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Apamea by hamstringing the royal elephants and burning the Seleucid fleet, and on the senate's failure even to demand the punishment of his assassin Leptines,49 it remains the case that the patres took no such forceful measures while Antio- chus himself was still alive.

To this, however, it can be objected that Polybius' interpretation is nonetheless sound, inasmuch as no Seleucid monarch challenged Rome after 168 and, whatever the senate's role in the process, Syria had lapsed into TapCCXil Kctt KiVflc;tg by 152, thanks to the struggle between Demetrius and Alexander Balas. Which brings us to the real obstacle to Polybius' view, namely, that no Seleucid monarch went so far as to challenge Rome after Magnesia, more than twenty years before the 'Day of Eleusis'.

It hardly seems likely that once the Treaty of Apamea had been signed in spring 188, Antiochus III sent the senate a letter to thank its members sincerely (non dissimulanter) for providing him with a more compact and more ma- nageable kingdom.50 But how he might have comported himself in any subsequent dealings with Rome we shall never know, since he left almost immedia- tely for his eastern provinces and perished there in June or July 187.51 It is perhaps to compensate for this that modern historians have tended to make an enemy of Rome out of his son and successor, Seleucus IV.52

There are no grounds for such an assessment. That the new king offered the

Comm. 452). 48 Diodorus 31,17a; cf. also 30,15; Appian, Syr. 45/234; II Macc. 1,13; and for the king's

posthumous popularity, M0rkholm 184f. 49 The clauses in the Treaty of Apamea relating to warships and elephants have caused nearly

as much confusion as those dealing with the territorial limitations on the Seleucid monarchs have aroused controversy. Essentially, the treaty declared that the king could maintain no elephants and only ten warships. There is no convincing evidence that the naval clauses of the treaty were breached either by Seleucus IV (note 53) or by Antiochus IV (below, part 111), but the latter certainly maintained elephants (above, note 47). Since we cannot plausibly argue that these clauses were not binding on the successors of Antiochus III (thus E. Paltiel, Antichthon 13, 1979, 30 ff.), and it begs the question to hold that the Romans interpreted the terms elastically because they trusted Antiochus (so, e. g., Niese 171f.), it is probably best to maintain that these clauses, like the territorial clauses, took effect only if the king showed signs of moving into Asia Minor, Europe or the Aegean. the areas of prime concern to Rome, and that there was no ban on such weaponry when it was pointed in other directions (cf. Will 224); which is why we hear so much more about elephants than we do about warships after 189. From this, however, it would follow that Cn. Octavius' actions in 163 were unjustified, overzealous, and highly embarrassing to the senate, essentially the view of Gruen, Chiron 6, 1976, 81ff.

50 Valerius Maximus 4,1, ext. 9, dismissed by Niese 89 n. 3. 51 See H. H. Schmitt, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Antiochos' des Grofen und seiner Zeit,

Historia Einzelschr. 6, Wiesbaden 1964, If. 52 Thus Niese 90; Bevan 124; Bouche-Leclercq 228 and 240; Will 303f. Gruen 644ff. rightly

protests against such an interpretation, but tends - I think - to overestimate the king's indepen- dence and successes.


Achaean League ten warships when he sought a renewal of friendship with them in 185 tells us nothing, not even that he was breaking the naval clauses of the Treaty of Apamea.53 Again, when Phamaces of Pontus went to war with Eumenes of Pergamum, so we are told by Diodorus (29,24), Seleucus took it into his head to aid the forner, sallied forth with his army and then, at the last minute, remembered that such action would contravene the Treaty of Apa- mea. Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain this bizarrerie, but since it was not the Romans who reminded him of his obligations,54 it illu- strates only Seleucus' unreliability as an ally and the feeble excuses he was willing to offer for his behaviour. Which bears on his one remaining, supposedly anti-Roman act: soon after Perseus succeeded to the Macedonian throne, apparently in 178, Seleucus married off his daughter Laodice to the new monarch, meanwhile taking care not to breach the clause in the Treaty of Apamea which forbade Syrian warships to enter the Aegean except when carrying tribute (i. e., instalments of the indemnity), envoys or hostages, by persuading the Rhodians to convey the bride to her groom.55 In any circumstances this would not have been a union imposing binding ties on either ruler,56 but it is hard to see how Perseus could have expected much of a father-in-law who had left Pharnaces twisting slowly in the wind.57 In short, Seleucus' known actions cannot plausibly be considered anti-Roman - or even particularly successful. The Achaean League declined the warships, Phamaces was abandoned to his fate, and Perseus never gave sign of being impressed by Laodice's father. Appian may, after all, be right to declare

53 Polybius 22,7,4; cf. Diodorus 29,17. The ships cause concern for Bevan 123 n. 2, Bouche-Lec- lercq 229, Morkholm 33, and Gruen 645 n. 164; but the Treaty of Apamea did not forbid the building of warships, only their use by the Seleucid fleet, an observation which applies also to the statement by II Macc. 4,20 that warships were being built early in Antiochus' reign.

54That the mission of T. Quinctius Flamininus in 183 (Polybius 23,5,1) had anything to do with Seleucus' change of mind can be ruled out on chronological grounds (Walbank, Comm. 221: cf. De Sanctis 258).

55 For the marriage see Polybius 24,5,8; Livy 42,12,3; Appian, Mac. 11,2; SIG3 689. 56J. Seibert, Historische Beitrage zu den dynastischen Verbindungen in hellenistischer Zeit,

Historia Einzelschr. 10, Wiesbaden 1967, 44. 5 The elaborate speculations with which Meloni 119f. and 122ff. tries to prove that Perseus

initiated the match founder on the fact that Livy 42,12,3 credits the statement that the Macedoni- an was non petentem sed petitum ultro to Eumenes of Pergamum; as the close friend of Antiochus IV (below, note 66), he stood to gain nothing by palliating Perseus' behaviour and drawing attention to any Seleucid initiative (cf. Seibert 43f.). It is not even necessary to assume that Eumenes was the target of the marriage, so far as it had one. In 186 Seleucus had named his first son Demetrius; though sometimes taken as a gesture of solidarity with the Antigonids (M0rkholm 34; Gruen 645), it could also have been construed as a claim to the Macedonian throne (Bevan 124f.), for example, by Philip V, son of one Demetrius and father of another, and a king with whom Seleucus was never able to make contact (cf. Bouche-Leclercq 228f., offering other reasons). Indeed, Seleucus' seeking a marriage alliance with Perseus may have been an attempt to remedy this gaffe and to reassure the Macedonian of Syrian goodwill.

50 M. GWYN MORGAN

Seleucus a weak and ineffective king.58 If we turn now to the early years of Antiochus' reign, from his accession

through the outbreak of the Sixth Syrian War, we find here too a tendency, albeit not as marked, to assume that he was suspect in Roman eyes from the start. It has been emphasized, for example, that the senate kept the king's nephew Demetrius in Rome not just as a hostage, but as a possible replace- ment for his uncle.59 And Morkholm considers it significant that though Antiochus ascended the throne in 175, it was the Romans who first established diplomatic contact with him, in 174 or 173, and that his response, "an act of courtesy which usually followed close on the accession of a king", came only in 173.6?

Such an approach ignores several important considerations. First, there is no convincing evidence that the Romans ever saw Demetrius as a means of putting pressure on Antiochus.61 More important, in 175 the new king had only recently ended a twelve-year stay in Rome (above, note 11), and the senate must have had - as he himself knew - a pretty fair idea of how he would conduct himself in his new role. Again, the circumstances in which Antiochus came to the throne were hardly straightforward,62 a fact which surely explains not only his own failure to send ambassadors to Rome any sooner, but also the Romans' sending legates to him in 174 or 173: their intent may well have been merely to see that he was in control.63 Next, the embassy

58Appian, Syr. 66/349; cf. Polybius, frag. 96 B-W; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 48. The comment militates against the suggestion that Seleucus' diplomacy enjoyed other unattested successes (so Bevan 123; Gruen 647), and one could argue as easily that Antiochus' energetic diplomacy (M0rkholm 51ff.) was meant to make up for his predecessor's failures. As for the view that the Romans decided to exchange Antiochus for the king's son Demetrius, because they were displeased with the king or fearful of his intentions (Bevan 124; Bouch&ILeclercq 240f.; M0rkholm 35f.; Will 303ff.), Appian, Syr. 45/232 states explicitly that Seleucus set up the exchange.

59 See Will 307, 309, 322. 60 M0rkholm 64; cf. Niese 93 n. 2 and Otto 32 n. 1. Livy 42,6,6-12 is the only source for these

embassies, and the dating is difficult. That sent by Antiochus reached Rome after the consuls for 173 had left for their provinces (hence the reference to the praetor urbanus at 42,6,10), but before they returned at the end of the summer, L. Postumius Albinus to hold elections (Livy 42,9,7-8), M. Popillius Laenas to berate the senate for disapproving of his conduct (Livy 42,9,1-2), i. e., between Roman April and October, equivalent to January through June by Julian reckoning (P. S. Derow, Phoenix 27, 1973, 345ff.). Despite Morkholm 64 n. 3, we cannot use the fact that the censors for 174 were still in office to argue that the embassy fell early in the year. Censors entered office in Roman April or May (J. Suolahti, The Roman Censors, Helsinki 1963, 75), and those for 174 would still have been active late in the summer of 173. As for the Roman embassy to Antiochus, we know only that it preceded the Seleucid mission (Livy 42,6,12); even if the one embassy led to the other, both can be fitted comfortably into 173.

61 See especially Polybius 31,2,3 and 13,8; E. Paltiel, Antichthon 13,1979, 42ff. 62 See Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49a; Bevan 127f. and 133; A. Aymard, Historia 2, 1953/54,

49 ff.= Etudes d'histoire ancienne, Paris 1967, 240ff.; M. Zambelli, RFIC 88, 1960, 363ff.; Morkholm 40ff.; J. G. Bunge, Historia 23, 1974, 57ff.; Will 309.

63 Whether the embassy was dispatched in 174 or 173 (above, note 60), its purpose was not to discover Antiochus' views on Perseus (so, rightly, Otto, 32f.); though the senate was supposedly


which Antiochus sent to Rome in 173 made handsome amends for any previous neglect, real or fancied. Headed by Apollonius, the embassy brought with it the final instalment of the indemnity imposed at Apamea and overdue since 177. The impact of this gesture was reinforced by Apollonius' honeyed words. For he not only voiced the king's wish to renew the alliance the Romans had concluded with his father, but also dilated on the kindly treatment Antiochus had received during his time in Rome and on his promises of officium in return (Livy 42,6,6-11). Small wonder that Apollonius was given a most cordial reception and the king's request granted: there could be no doubt of Antiochus' wish to remain on the senate's good side. Apollonius may also have given an undertaking that his master would steer clear of Perseus' intrigues,T' especially if - as is sometimes argued - the embassy's timing was itself connected with renewed Ptolemaic threats to Coele-Syria and the king's wish to take out insurance in Rome.65 Finally, and most significantly, there was nobody to gainsay these protestations of devotion. The Romans' chief source of information on Asia and Perseus' inveterate enemy throughout the 170s was Eumenes of Pergamum, and with Eumenes Antiochus was always on the best of terms.'M

Of the next contact between Rome and Antiochus, and the last before the outbreak of the Sixth Syrian War, we know only that another Roman embassy sent east to test the political waters returned home in 172 with the report that Antiochus had rejected overtures from Perseus and, like Eumenes and Ptole- my Philometor, had promised to place his resources at the disposal of the Republic.67 Once again the senate had no reason to doubt the king's goodwill, and Livy reinforces this impression in his Polybian survey of the situation at the start of the consular year 171: Antiochus, he says, omnia et per suos legatos senatui et ipse legatis eorum enixe pollicitus erat.68 There is no need here to go

beginning to worry seriously about the Macedonian king in 173 (cf. Livy 42,2,1-2 and 6,2), they sent out the first of their missions on this matter only around the time Apollonius arrived (Livy 42,6,4-5). The embassy is considered a courtesy visit by M0rkholm 64 and Gruen 648 n. 178.

64 Cf. Jouguet 218f. Though Morkholm 65 doubts that any specific undertaking was given, it was not lost on the Romans how close Apollonius stood to his king (Livy 42,6,12), and as M0rkholm 65 n. 5 concedes, Livy 42,29,6 shows how the Romans understood the embassy.

65 So Otto 31ff.; Passerini 332; Swain 80; Gruen 648ff. Though Livy's silence proves nothing, the chronological uncertainties and terminological difficulties render this suggestion hazardous.

66 For Eumenes and Perseus see, e.g., Gruen 408ff. For Eumenes and Antiochus see especially Polybius 30,30,4-7 and Appian, Syr. 45/235.

67 Livy 42,26,7-8; cf. Appian, Mac. 11,4. There is some confusion in Livy over the number and timing of the embassies sent to the east at this stage (Broughton, MRR I 412f.), but here only Antiochus' renewed assurances to the senate matter.

68 Livy 42,29,6 (from Polybius: Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 248). The concomitant statement that Antiochus planned to exploit the Romans' preoccupation with Perseus to attack Egypt (inminebat quidem Aegypti regno), the basis for the sinister vision of Antiochus which Bikerman, REG 66, 1953, 5Off. attributed to the Romans, is clearly Polybius' own view, and should not be ascribed to the senate (cf. Pedech 148).

52 M. GWYN MORGAN

into Antiochus' conduct during the Sixth Syrian War, nor even to anticipate the findings of the third part of this paper, since the arguments over the king's intentions in his two invasions of Egypt have never centred on the question whether he was seeking to challenge Rome, least of all by going to war with her.69 And on any interpretation of the 'Day of Eleusis' he backed down the moment the Romans confronted him. There being, therefore, no evidence that a Syrian ruler ever challenged Rome after Magnesia, it follows that the importance with which Polybius invested the 'Day of Eleusis' is misplaced as regards the Seleucid monarchy no less than Egypt.

The only way of salvaging Polybius' interpretation, so far as I can see, would be to argue that the 'Day of Eleusis' could have brought home to many Greeks, as it may perhaps have done, something of which they had not been too sure beforehand, namely, that Rome was now the dominant power in the Mediterranean.70 But even this is a matter of perceptions, not realities, and Polybius was supposedly dealing with realities, picking 168 as the decisive year because the Romans then became dominant, not because Roman domi- nance was then accepted by Greeks too dense to recognize it any sooner. Which means that this argument too falls to the ground. For in 168 only Macedonia and Greece could accurately be said to have been brought, once for all, under Roman control. Magnesia had ended any Seleucid claims to predominance in the Mediterranean, and at Apamea Egypt's ambitions had simply been disregarded by the Romans when they confirmed the claims of Antiochus III to Coele-Syria.

Polybius, we must surely conclude, was seduced by the coincidence of Pydna and Eleusis, mainly because of the entrancing possibilities this offered for matching his History with the period it covered and for creating a unity - so he could persuade himself - with a clear beginning, a fixed duration, and an undisputed end. Moreover, his treatment of the wars of 152-146 and, especially, his account of the senatorial debates leading into the Third Punic War show that once he had created this unity, he never thought to modify or abandon it, striving instead to accommodate later events to the scheme he had already elaborated. But just because Polybius gave way to his own schematism, there is no need for us blindly to follow his lead. We ought rather to keep in mind the possibility that a historian capable of structuring his work as a whole in the way Polybius did would tend also to misrepresent the situation in detail, not wilfully (let it be said once again), but because his preconceived ideas on the necessity for useful lessons conditioned his interpretation and presentation of the specific facts too. And it is from this angle that we can best

69 On Granius Licinianus' absurd tale see above, note 1. 70 See above, note 5.


consider Polybius' account of Antiochus' behaviour and policies during the Sixth Syrian War.

III. Antiochus and the Sixth Syrian War

My purpose in this part of the discussion is not to consider the Sixth Syrian War as a whole (though it may often seem that this is what is happening), but to make three points: first, that from the moment Antiochus IV invaded Egypt for the first time, he kept one eye on the Romans, in case his actions produced equal - and adverse - reactions, and did all he could to counter so untoward an eventuality; next, that the way he conducted his second campaign in particular shows that, by the time Popillius Laenas arrived, the king already knew that he could neither justify nor win the war; and finally, that whatever emotion the 'Day of Eleusis' aroused in the royal bosom, it was not the resentment with which Polybius insists on crediting him then and later.

Basic to most modem discussions of the war is the assumption - going back to Polybius himself - that Antiochus had it in mind to conquer Egypt, and was on the point of gaining control of the country when C. Popillius Laenas turned up at Eleusis.7' From which it would indeed seem to follow that the king was humiliated by the Romans' intervention, and must needs have felt due measure of resentment. It might seem strange that a man who, during his twelve years as a hostage in Rome, had formed a taste for things Roman should have continued to display that admiration even after such humiliation, for example, by placing 5,000 men equipped irf the Roman manner at the head of the columns of infantry which paraded at Daphne in 166, and by including in that parade 250 pairs of gladiators, who then demonstrated their prowess - no doubt to the shock and horror of sensitive Greeks - for the thirty days the

71 In the surviving fragments Polybius describes the war initially as fought simply for Coele- Syria (28,1,1 and 4), but the idea of conquest shows up in his own surmise at 28,17,5; he talks of the occupation of Egypt at 28,19,1 and 20,1, of its near conquest at 29,2,1, and of conquest averted at 29,27,11-13. But it is clear from Livy 42,29,6 (quoted above, note 68) that he suspected the worst even before the war broke out, and it is as well to remember that he subscribed to the idea that powers which could expand would do so (see below, note 140). Only the Jewish tradition accepts the idea of conquest wholeheartedly (I Macc. 1,16; Josephus, AJ 12, 242). For though Zonaras 9,25 thinks Antiochus aimed at conquest (this in a confused account), Livy's version of events is more nuanced in detail, as we shall see, and Appian, Syr. 66/349 and Justin 34,2,7 content themselves with statements that the king waged war on the Ptolemies. Among modern scholars, nonetheless, the view that Antiochus meant to conquer Egypt has been questioned, so far as I know, by but four scholars: Passerini 336ff.; H. Ludin Jansen, "Die Politik Antiochos' des IV", a work I know only from the summary by Pedech 152 n. 172; Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 183ff.; and Swain 79f. and 82f. - and Tarn and Swain should be discounted, since the basis of their opinion is the presumption that the king was already more interested in his anabasis than in Egypt. Still, signs of caution are beginning to appear: see Will 324; H. Heinen, ANRW I 1, Berlin 1972, 657 n. 82.

54 M. GWYN MORGAN

festival lasted.72 Yet this cannot be stressed, since it may be argued no less plausibly that Antiochus recognized that dropping his liking for Roman practices would be construed as proof of the very resentment he denied feeling. But what is incontestable is that Antiochus' stay in Rome gave him a much better appreciation of Roman sensibilities than was possessed by most other Hellenistic rulers of the time. Indeed, he proved this by his resolute refusal either to become entangled in Perseus' schemes for an anti-Roman coalition, or to intercede on the man's behalf during the Third Macedonian War, a trap into which both Rhodes and Pergamum fell, and a trap into which the Ptolemies too would have fallen, had it not been for the good offices of the princeps senatus, M. Aemilius Lepidus.73

When Antiochus invaded Egypt for the first time, during the winter of 17O/169,74 he was clearly acting in self-defence, even if his campaign took the form of a pre-emptive strike against an Egyptian army mustered to recover Coele-Syria and Phoenicia for the Lagids.75 Yet the king was careful to send an embassy to Rome before the fighting actually broke out, both to present his own case and to rebut any allegations that might be made against him by a Ptolemaic delegation which reached the city at about the same time.76 As it happened, so Polybius says, the delegates from Alexandria had not, or claimed not to have, been briefed by their master on his plans for Coele-Sy- ria.77 The senate could hardly reach a decision, therefore, but authorized the consul presiding at the meeting, Q. Marcius Philippus, to write a letter on the subject to the Ptolemaic court.78

72 For Daphne see Polybius 30,25-26; Diodorus 31,16; Livy 41,20,10-13; M0rkholm 97ff.; J. G. Bunge, Chiron 6, 1976, 53ff. Earlier instances of Antiochus' love of things Roman include his behaving like a Roman magistrate in Antioch (Polybius 26,la,2 and 1,5-6; Diodorus 29,32; Livy 41,20,1), and his employing a Roman architect, D. Cossutius, to complete the Pisistratid temple to Zeus Olympius in Athens and to build an aqueduct in Antioch (Vitruvius 7, praef. 15; M0rkholm 118f.).

73 For Antiochus himself see above note 12 (to which it may be added that, no doubt, he had other good reasons for avoiding any entanglement with Perseus: Jouguet 201f.); for Rhodes and Pergamum see above, note 36; and for Egypt see Polybius 28,1,7-8 and Diodorus 30,2 with the comments of A. M. Eckstein, Historia 37, 1988, 427.

74 The chronology is still disputed, but the view of Otto 40ff., T. C. Skeat, JEA 47, 1961, 107ff. and M0rkholm 69ff. remains most probable. There seems to have been little observance of the regular campaigning season during this war, unless we argue that Antiochus achieved his principal successes (this battle and the seizure of Cyprus: below, note 110) by ignoring the rules and catching his enemies off guard. Similarly with the various embassies dispatched by the interested parties (note especially Polybius 29,23,1); and yet winter voyages were not impossible, only unusual (J. Rouge, REA 54, 1952, 316ff.).

75 Otto 24ff. and 42ff.; M0rkholm 66f. and 73ff. 76 Polybius 27,19 and 28,1; cf. Diodorus 30,2. 77 Polybius 28,1,9. In Diodorus 30,2 the Egyptian ambassadors are made to defend their king's

conduct, but this is clearly incorrect (Walbank, Comm. 326). 78 Although it is often assumed that Philippus was already in Greece (Niese 170; Bouche-Lec-

lercq 253; Otto 22f. and 45; Jouguet 220; Swain 89; Briscoe, JRS 54, 1964, 72; Heinen, ANRW I 1, 655), there is more to be said for the view that he was still in Rome, even if a


It rather misses the point to describe this simply as an attempt by the senate to avoid making a decision which would anger one side or the other and possibly drive them into Perseus' arms.79 If the Egyptian ambassadors could not or would not make a case, the senate - whatever its wishes - could neither reach nor appear to reach a fair decision solely on the basis of what Antio- chus' emissaries had to say. Nor can it be considered a victory for Antiochus that Marcius Philippus was instructed to write only to the Ptolemaic court.80 There was no point in corresponding with the Seleucid, when his views were already abundantly clear. If anything, therefore, it was the Egyptian ambassadors who won this exchange, by securing the postponement of any decision.8' For it is important to realize, firstly, that the Romans always recognized a state's right to self-defence,82 and secondly, that in this particular case they could hardly favour Lagid attempts to recover territory which they themselves, at Apamea, had adjudged part of the Seleucid realm. Though the senators may have hoped that their own inability to reach a decision would cool the ardour of both sides for war, however, it also ran the risk of producing the very result it was supposedly meant to avert - unless, of course, they were already more confident that Antiochus would not be alienated by this result than they were of the likely Ptolemaic reaction to a different outcome. In other words, a

convincing case has not been made by its proponents (Bevan 135; De Sanctis 301 n. 191; Morkholm 73; Will 316; Walbank, Comm. 327). It is not just that this was standard procedure, or that Philippus must have spent about a month in Rome before leaving for his provincia (Livy 43,15,3 reports that he departed after celebrating the feriae Latinae. A year later, as Livy 44,19,4 says, L. Aemilius Paullus was in a hurry to reach Macedonia, celebrated these feriae as soon as possible, and fixed the date at [Roman] April 12). The point is important because only Polybius 28,1,9 justifies the assertion that Philippus had some kind of watching brief over eastern affairs (so Broughton, MRR I 423, citing also Livy 43,12,1 and 15,3, both of which credit him solely with Macedonia). Given that a magistrate, once he had taken up his province, was supposed to limit his attention to it (M. G. Morgan, Historia 28, 1969, 443), there could be no objection to Philippus' urging Rome's allies in her war against Perseus, e. g., the Achaean League, not to take sides in the Sixth Syrian War (Polybius 29,25,2), but he could not send even his own junior officers to intervene in that war. This is why Philippus consistently used intermediaries, like the Rhodians (note 101) and the Achaeans (note 126).

79 So Niese 170; Bevan 135; Bouch&Leclercq 252f.; Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 33; Otto 65; Passerini 333; E. Manni, RFIC 78, 1950, 233; M0rkholm 72f.; Will 316; Gruen 689. The more elaborate assumption that the senate made no decision because happy to see Egypt and Syria embroiled in a war that distracted both from aiding Perseus (De Sanctis 301; Otto 38; Jouguet 222; Heinen, ANRW I 1, 654f.) ignores the untoward results of such a conflict, that the winner would join Perseus or the loser appeal to him, thereby expanding the Third Macedonian War, not a welcome prospect for the Romans (cf. Bikerman, REG 66, 1953, 502f.; Gruen 656).

80 So Otto 45f. and M0rkholm 73. 81 To this extent there is force in the observation of Pedech 150f. (cf. Bikerman 502; Will 316;

Gruen 655), that both sets of ambassadors were more interested in presenting their cases than they were in securing a decision from the senate.

82The Romans were not obliged to help an ally who engaged in aggression or what they considered aggression (Passerini 328), and they could not object even when an overt enemy defended itself against a Roman ally, so long as the self-defence was not carried too far (cf. Passerini 336 and 338; Bikerman 487f.; Astin, Scipio Aemilianus 50f.).

56 M. GWYN MORGAN

decision against Egypt would probably alienate the Ptolemies, whereas a non-decision left the Seleucid free to go to war in his own defence, a prospect the senate could contemplate with equanimity because he had already assured them that he would act with all appropriate restraint.83

By the time this non-decision was reached, in any case, Antiochus had already won a victory in the field, defeating the Egyptian army crushingly in the frontier zone between Mt. Casius and Pelusium.4 Apparently, he resorted to sharp practice to gain control of Pelusium itself,85 but nor is this surprising, in that the gateway to Egypt was also the gateway into Coele-Syria. Otherwise, however, the king showed studied moderation. His aim, obviously, was to convince everybody that his sole concerns were the security of his own realm and the reestablishment of peaceful relations with Egypt. He certainly charm- ed ambassadors from various Greek states into accepting his version of events, even though he treated them to a lengthy disquisition on Seleucid claims to Coele-Syria.86 And the high point in his success came when, seemingly in early summer 169, he detached Ptolemy Philometor from his asso- ciation with Cleopatra II, his wife and sister, and his younger brother, Ptolemy VII Euergetes 1.j87 As a result of this manoeuvre, Antiochus was able some- how to pose as Philometor's patron and protector, and no matter what else this gave him, it provided him with a locus standi in Egypt, enabling him to fend off further Roman enquiries into the situation.88

Which brings us to the Roman embassy led by T. Numisius. Our only source, Polybius, reports merely that at some point in 169 the senate dispatched this embassy to reconcile the kings of Egypt and Syria, and that when

83 Passerini 339ff. (cf. Will 324) surmised that the Ptolemaic court was ill disposed toward Rome at this time, and not just because its interests had been ignored at Apamea. It might be more profitable to ask how long M. Lepidus kept silent about the Ptolemaic ambassadors' plan to mediate the war with Perseus (above, note 73). Even if we see this purely as a tactless manoeuvre, other senators may have been much more offended by it than was Lepidus (Eckstein, Historia 37, 1988, 427), and therefore much more suspicious of Egypt and more inclined to indulge Antiochus as far as they could.

84 Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49a; Diodorus 30,14; cf. Otto 46ff.; M0rkholm 73ff.; Walbank, Comm. 321ff. According to the Ptolemaic envoys heard by the senate at the start of 168, Antiochus had by then proved navali proelio superior (Livy 44,19,9). Like the statement in I Macc. 1,17, that Antiochus invaded Egypt "with a large fleet", this is clearly an exaggeration (cf. Niese 173 n. 3; Otto 46f.), and is probably best taken as an indication that Antiochus used a small squadron to screen his land forces in this battle, not as evidence for an engagement later in the year (Bevan 137; Bouche-Leclercq 256; Jouguet 232), nor as an error on Livy's part (Swain 90 n. 78).

85 Polybius 28,18; Diodorus 30,18,2 (cf. 14); M0rkholm 77. 86 Polybius 20,20,1-10 (note the sarcasm in ? 10); cf. Bouch&-Leclercq 256; Otto 50f.; Pedech

151; M0rkholm 78f.; Walbank, Comm. 355f. 87 The circumstances are obscure: Otto 49ff.; Jouguet 224ff.; M0rkholm 74ff. 88 The form taken by Antiochus' tutela over Philometor remains highly controversial (cf. Otto

52ff.; Jouguet 229ff. and 238; M0rkholm 79ff.; Will 319), but the precise details do not affect my case.


the Romans were unable to do this, they returned home &6rpaKTot tcXciAO.89 Since Polybius says expressly that the ambassadors were unable (&5uvaqtfi- avvT5;) to complete their mission, he cannot mean that Numisius and his associates were presented with a fait accompli, in the form of Antiochus' revealing his hold on Ptolemy Philometor, and so the absence of any need for a reconciliation.' In the light of the senate's attitude at the start of the official year, it is better to assume that they sent out the embassy, not when they learnt that the war had broken out, but as soon as they heard that Antiochus was carrying self-defence beyond just the defeat of the Egyptian army threatening Coele-Syria. Which betokens no major change in the senate's attitude. Numi- sius himself may have been something of an 'expert' on eastern affairs (he is named on the senatus consultum of 170 dealing with Thisbe, and he was a junior member of the decemviral commission which helped L. Aemilius Paullus regulate Macedonia in 167), but even though he appears also to have been a younger brother of C. Numisius, praetor in 177, he was still a lowly senator from a relatively undistinguished family, and to such as he the senate was not accustomed to give powers to intervene decisively in any war.9' The embassy is best seen as exploratory, therefore, its purpose to achieve a reconciliation between the kings if possible, and if not, to make Antiochus aware of the senate's concern and to reach a better understanding of his plans in and for Egypt.92

89 Polybius 29,25,3-4. The embassy clearly belongs in 169, but its exact date cannot be fixed (Walbank, Comm. 402). As my text implies, I think it occurred early in the year; but to set it later (so Niese 174; Jouguet 234f.; Swain 89f.) would only reinforce my point about the con- nexion between this mission and the one sent off by Antiochus before he left Egypt (see below).

90 So M0rkholm 84. There is neither reason nor need to believe that a change in the political situation in Rome prompted the embassy (so Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 33f.): Antiochus' overzealous pursuit of self-defence is ample reason (above, note 82). Nor is there merit in the extravagant but extraordinarily long-lived theory of Otto 61ff.: dissatisfied with the conclusion that, on his reckoning, Popillius Laenas arrived at Eleusis nearly a year after the dispatch of the Ptolemaic embassy to which he was supposedly responding (this is not a problem, as we shall see), Otto excogitated two Ptolemaic embassies, the first that of Euergetes and Cleopatra, the second dispatched by Philometor and Euergetes after their reconciliation; then he created two responses, Numisius' the first mission and the second Popillius Laenas'. The only foundations for the interpretation are alleged confusions and contradictions in Livy 44,19,6-12 (below, note 102), an obviously confused passage in Justin 34,2,8 (as Niese 174 n. 2 observed, a garbled version of Livy's account), the assumption that Philometor and Euergetes needed to send a fresh embassy to Rome like the one they sent to the Achaean League (they did not: see below), and a failure to appreciate that the Romans cared little for the chora, a great deal about Alexandria (below, note 103).

91 SIG3 646,5; Livy 45,17,3; Muinzer, RE 17, 1937, 1399ff. That the Romans valued "experts" is doubted by Gruen 203ff., with reason.

92 This is not to endorse the suggestion of Otto 63, that Numisius' lowly status would enable prominent senators to overlook any slight to him, still less that of Jouguet 234, that the aim was not to upset Marcius Philippus by infringing on his watching brief (see above, note 78). The ambassador's status was humble because the senate was concerned, but not unduly so (cf. Will 320, though he sets the mission under 168).

58 M. GWYN MORGAN

Nor - despite Polybius - was the mission entirely without effect. Though the king continued on his merry way, for the moment at least, it was even before he quitted Egypt that he dispatched a three-man embassy of his own, to distribute 150 talents of goodwill around the Mediterranean, fifty of them going to Rome as a contribution to the costs of the war against Perseus.93 No doubt, his ambassadors were instructed also to advertise the understanding their master had reached, or thought he had reached, by then with Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy Euergetes (see below), and to reiterate his claims that his primary concern remained the security of his own kingdom.94 The important point, however, is that the fifty talents given to the Romans was a pittance, by comparison not only with the huge sums the Seleucid rulers had been made to pay after Apamea, but also with the amounts Antiochus could have raised if only he had waited until he was back in Syria. Supposedly he acquired 1,800 talents just by helping himself to the treasures in the Temple at Jerusalem during the winter of 169/168 (II Macc. 5,21). His decision not to wait, but to use what little money he had with him (and it was little, since there had been no significant looting during the first campaign),95 surely indicates that he was feeling the diplomatic pressure being brought to bear on him, by the Romans especially, and decided to make the earliest possible response, to reassure them of his continuing goodwill and, to be sure, his unfailingly altruistic intentions.96

Whatever Antiochus' hopes of mollifying the Romans, he had no success with the inhabitants of Alexandria. Refusing to submit to puppet rule by Ptolemy Philometor, the citizenry in the summer of 169 reasserted the claims of Cleopatra and Euergetes to the throne. Whereupon Antiochus marched on the city and put it under siege, a proceeding which induced the inhabitants to send off to Rome the embassy which, heard by the senate at the start of the official year 168, painted a pathetic picture of the sufferings to which Alexan- dria was being subjected.97 By that time, however, Antiochus had withdrawn. Late in 169, he lifted the siege and returned to Syria, leaving Ptolemy Philome- tor in Memphis and a Seleucid garrison in Pelusium.98

93 Polybius 28,22 (for mtEQccvog meaning 'money' see Walbank, Comm. 86); cf. also Livy 45,11,8 and, perhaps, Diodorus' remarks about senators being bribed by Antiochus (31, 27a).

94 Cf. Livy 45,11,8; Will 320. 95 Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F49a must be referred to Antiochus' second campaign: cf. Ot-

to 57; Swain 86f. 96 That Antiochus had the failure of Numisius' mission very much in mind when he sent off

this embassy was suggested by Winkler, Rom und Aegypten 35. 97 For the situation in general see Otto 59ff.; Morkholm 84ff. However, the date at which the

embassy was dispatched from Alexandria cannot be fixed "at the very latest in late summer 169" (Otto 61), since neither Antiochus nor the various ambassadors sent hither and yon observed the usual limits on their activities (above, note 74); the embassy could well have left in the autumn.

98 Livy 45,11,1; I Macc. 1,20; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49b; cf. also Polybius 28,22-23.


At this point, it is customary to observe that the evidence is too fragmentary to permit us to recover Antiochus' reasons for leaving Egypt, and various hypotheses may be advanced, for example, that having failed to take Alexan- dria by assault, the king retired to lick his wounds;99 that he withdrew to collect more money and materiel, the restraints he had placed on himself and his men having left him short of cash (hence the visit to the Temple at Jerusalem); or that he was yielding at long last to the diplomatic pressure being exerted on him by Rome and by other Hellenistic states. Whatever validity these several theories may have as contributory causes, however, Polybius actually gives us the main reason for his withdrawal - as Swain almost alone seems to have recognized - apropos of the Rhodian embassy under Praxon (or Praxion), which arrived in the king's camp after he retreated from Alexandria but before he left Egypt.'00

When these ambassadors, perhaps overconfident because they came at the instigation of Q. Marcius Philippus, proceeded to lecture Antiochus at length on his own best interests, he abandoned his usual courtesy and cut short their exposition. But he went on to declare not only that Egypt belonged by right to his friend and ally, Ptolemy Philometor, but also that "fnow the Alexandrians wished to recall Philometor, he himself would certainly do nothing to prevent it."''l If we take this passage seriously, and we must, it tells us first that the prospects for a reconciliation between Philometor and Euergetes were already being aired at this stage (Philometor, presumably, was as disillusioned by Antiochus' failure to take Alexandria as Euergetes was terrified by his having made the attempt); and second, that Antiochus recognized that he could no longer justify his own activities in Egypt. Even if he could claim that his siege of Alexandria had brought about the talk of reconciliation, he must now

M0rkholm 86f. strangely concludes that Antiochus had achieved all his objectives, but he also criticises the king for not taking Philometor back to Syria with him.

99 The king certainly failed in an attempt to take the city by assault (Livy 45,11,1; Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F50), but the one other certainty is that Antiochus did not withdraw because of Jason's rebellion in Judaea. That belongs in 168 (Swain 84; Walbank, Comm. 359).

100 Polybius 28,23. The embassy's arrival in Antiochus' camp, as Walbank, Comm. 352 remarks, follows the dispatch of the king's three-man mission around the Mediterranean at the close of his first campaign (Polybius 28,22), since the two passages are taken, in this order, from the Excerpta de legationibus gentium.

10' Polybius 28,23,4; cf. Swain 84f. The genitive absolute is more likely to be temporal than causal, if we are guided by percentages (J. A. de Foucault, Recherches sur la langue et le style de Polybe, Paris 1972, 173). It is often given a conditional force which is simply impossible (Bevan 140; Bouche-Leclercq 258; Jouguet 234; Bikerman, CE 27, 1952,400). For the rest of the time, the passage is ignored (Niese 173; De Sanctis 303; Will 317; Gruen 654 and 656), dismissed as propaganda by Antiochus (M0rkholm 86; cf. Otto 59 and 64), or declared erroneous (Briscoe, JRS 54, 1964, 71 n. 55; Walbank, Comm. 359), though it certainly cannot be corrected on the basis of Livy 45,11,1-7 (see below). As for the involvement of Marcius Philippus, Polybius 28,17,15 does not say that the embassy was encouraged by him, but see Gruen, CQ 25, 1975, 71 ff., on the interrelationship between that passage and 28,17,4-9.

60 M. GWYN MORGAN

withdraw if he was not to arouse fresh suspicions about his own intentions - another reason for his being unusually testy with the Rhodians.

This snippet of information, admittedly, does not seem to fit too well with subsequent events. For one thing, Euergetes and Cleopatra apparently did nothing to recall the embassy sent off to Rome while Alexandria was under siege, or even to modify its instructions significantly. Given an audience by the senate at the start of the official year 168 (around March 16 by Roman reckoning, equivalent to a Julian date in early January), the ambassadors purveyed their outdated message with an abundance of histrionics, dwelling on the threat Antiochus posed to Alexandria and arguing that its fall would hand over the entire country to the Seleucid.02 There is no need to assume that the patres were deceived by the theatrics, but they obviously considered a threat to Alexandria far more serious than Antiochus' occupation of the chora - assaults on the first city of Egypt scarcely constituted self-defence. Hence the decision to dispatch C. Popillius Laenas and his associates extemplo and their departure intra triduum.'03

For another thing, Livy says explicitly - and there is no reason to doubt his testimony - that Antiochus seized Cyprus and launched his second invasion of Egypt because of the reconciliation between the Ptolemies during the winter of 169/168.'? This statement is often accepted without further ado, even though it entails also the conclusion that Antiochus now jettisoned the cloak of legality in which he had been able to wrap himself hitherto. Thus Tam's two explanations: "One possibility is that he miscalculated the strength of Perseus and thought that the Macedonian king might hold Rome off till, in weariness, she might accept his protectorate over Egypt as an accomplished fact; another is that, in vulgar parlance, he was just 'trying it on' to see how far

102 Livy 44,19,6-12. Cogent arguments against Otto's attacks on the reliability of this passage are marshalled by Swain 90f. and Gruen 657 n. 222, both observing that the text is much closer to Polybius 29,2 than Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 263 was willing to concede; cf. also Briscoe, CR 18, 1968, 85. However, since the date at which the embassy left Alexandria cannot be fixed precisely (above note 97), it is hazardous to suggest that the senate let the envoys wait (so Morkholm 88; Gruen 657f. and 690). The senate may well have thought the matter so serious that it should be considered by the new consuls; it was certainly the first embassy they heard after entering office (Livy 44,19,5-6).

103 Livy 44,19,13 and 20,1. There is no evidence, as Otto 74 admits, for his theory that Popillius Laenas was given secret instructions, just as there is no evidence that Popillius received further (different) instructions en route (so Briscoe, JRS 54, 1964, 72). His mission was to stop the war, if Antiochus was near, or came close to, Alexandria. The Roman preoccupation with Alexandria is brought out well by Polybius' comments on Marcius Philippus' thoughts about the situation (28,17,5) and by his own account of the embassy's dispatch (29,2,1-3). Alexandria's importance is also emphasised by Antiochus' resorting in both campaigns to Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt and an important town in its own right within the country, clearly in an attempt to compensate for his inability to gain control of the new capital (cf. Otto 68; Dorothy J. Thomp- son, Memphis under the Ptolemies, Princeton 1988, 150f.).

104 Livy 45,1 1,8: for the reconciliation itself see ibid. 2-7; Polybius 29,23,4.


he could go."'05 Attractive as such explanations may appear, and after all other rulers of the time - Masinissa amongst them - were perfectly willing to 'try it on',10 they fail to account adequately for the insouciance with which, ex hypothesi, Antiochus abandoned even a semblance of justification for his actions. It is hard indeed to believe that a monarch hitherto so adept at exploiting the claims of self-defence and, by his own admission, favourably disposed to a reconciliation between the Ptolemies, should have dropped all pretence and taken the offensive the moment he heard of that reconciliation - unless he had been provoked beyond measure by some untoward develop- ment.

What needs to be taken into account here, it seems clear, is the evidence from the Book of Daniel that both Antiochus and Ptolemy Philometor engaged in sharp practice: "and as for both these kings, their hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table".'07 Now, allegations that Antiochus acted in bad faith are commonplace in our sources. Both Polybius and Diodorus are at pains to point out that he had captured Pelusium by sharp practice in 169, and Livy tells us that similar charges of treachery would be made against him the moment he crossed the Egyptian border in 168.108 It is not surprising, therefore, that the Jewish evidence has been subsumed under this roster of misbehaviour. But the Book of Daniel tells us something that no other source reports, that there was sharp practice by Ptolemy Philometor as well. And once we recognize this, it becomes possible to explain how, after Antiochus had withdrawn from Egypt late in 169 because of the talk of reconciliation, the Ptolemies could not only neglect to modify the charge given to the embassy sent off to Rome while Alexandria was still under siege, but also follow up their reconciliation with the dispatch of fresh embassies, which would proclaim their reunion throughout the Hellenistic world and request military assistance against further Seleucid aggression.'" One might well ask how they could be so sure that such aggression would take place, unless Philometor was guilty of double-dealing likely to provoke Antiochus beyond measure.

Which brings us to Livy's statement that the moment Antiochus heard of

OS Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 192; cf. Otto 34f.; Swain 88; M0rkholm 96. 'n6 W. Hoffmann, Historia 9, 1960, 326f.; P. G. Walsh, JRS 55, 1965, 156ff. The senate chose not

to believe Masinissa's allegations that Carthage was intriguing with Perseus (cf. Meloni 127ff.), but nor did they hold the king's opportunism against him.

107 Daniel 11,27; cf. Porphyrius, FGrHist 260, F 49b. 108 For Pelusium see above, note 85; Livy 45,11,10 (quoted below); cf. also Polybius 29,26,1;

30,26,9; Diodorus 3 1,1. Too often these passages have been connected with Porphyrius' story that Antiochus procured hi

The Day of Eleusis

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