Antiochus the Great

by Michael J. Taylor

  Despite the history of friendship between the Aetolian League and the city, the Aetolians considered Nabis too much of a loose cannon to be a reliable ally moving forward. Feigning a diplomatic mission, a small contingent of Aetolian troops murdered him while he reviewed the army outside the gates of Sparta. With the eccentric Nabis dead, the Aetolians hoped that Sparta might fall into line behind them.

  For a brief moment, it seemed that the Aetolian contingent would be welcomed as liberators in Sparta. However, the Aetolians quickly sacked the royal treasure-house and carried out a general orgy of looting. The Spartans regrouped and attacked the outnumbered Aetolian force, killing its leader and selling the captives into slavery. Sparta was now an official enemy. Without the aggressive leadership of Nabis, however, the once vaunted city-state quickly faded into political obscurity.53

  Chapter Eight

  The Roman War

  Chalcis

  After the resolution of the Aetolian council, Antiochus III gathered a small army of approximately 10,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. His fleet was modest: only 40 quinqueremes and 60 triremes, and he had 200 additional transports for grain and horses (by contrast, Scipio Africanus invaded Africa in 202 BC with 800 transports). The availability of shipping necessarily limited the size of his expeditionary force.

  The King then took a symbolic detour to Ilium where he sacrificed to Athena. For the Greeks, the Homeric legend of Troy represented the Hellenic victory over the barbarian, and the choice of Athena honoured the goddess who aided Achilles against Hector. Athena was also the patron goddess of the Athenians, who were then debating whether to join the Aetolian-Seleucid coalition.

  Alexander the Great also sacrificed at Troy prior to his storied invasion of Asia, yet the Great King was now advancing the other way, inverting the invasion paths of Agamemnon and Alexander, attacking from Asia into Greece. The most pressing symbolism of the act, however, came from the fact that the Romans claimed direct descent from the Trojans and the refugee Aeneas, a survivor of the sack of Troy.1 Antiochus’ sacrifice at Ilium petitioned the goddess to aid the Greeks rather than the Trojans in the coming war.

  Returning from the detour in the Troad, the King collected his fleet at the island of Imbros and proceeded to the Bay of Volos, disembarking at the recently secured port of Demetrias. The King then moved inland to Lamia, another strategic city on the coast of Thessaly, where he received news of an invitation to the Aetolian assembly. The announcement of the invitation before the King was politically staged for the approval of the crowd, and the citizens’ cheers reassured Antiochus (and the sceptics in the audience) of the welcome he might receive in Greece as a liberating hero.

  Boisterous cheers also met the King as he entered the council of the Aetolians, yet there were underlying tensions: the Aetolians were disappointed with the small force that the King brought with him. Having suffered from limited Roman aid in their war with Macedonia from 211 to 206, the Aetolians had a long history of disappointment with external allies, and Antiochus tried to assuage the fear that his commitment would be similarly lukewarm. He explained that the winter weather of the Mediterranean had prevented him from assembling a larger body of troops but promised to bring reinforcements once the sailing season began. In return, Antiochus asked the Aetolians to commit troops and to sell grain to his army (presumably at discount prices). Despite their reservations, the Aetolians elected Antiochus the strategos autokrator of the Aetolian League, thus affirming the military alliance and giving the Great King authority to command the Aetolian levy.2 The newly minted strategos autokrator dispatched a brigade of 1000 troops and advanced south against Chalcis. Located on the west side of the island of Euboea and facing the Attic mainland, Chalcis was another ‘fetter’, a military stronghold that gave access to important sea-lanes and strategic proximity to Attica and Boeotia. Antiochus did not have enough troops to storm Chalcis directly, so he engaged in armed diplomacy, showing the flag and hoping that the pro-Roman Chalcidians would embrace his cause. They did not.

  Joined by Aetolians ambassadors, Antiochus met with Chalcidian leaders outside the gates. Together, they urged Chalcis to unite with Antiochus. An Achaean League representative named Micythio was also present and urged the Chalcidians to remain aloof in the conflict. Micythio criticized the Aetolian proposition that Rome was oppressing the Greeks, citing as evidence the fact that Rome, true to Flamininus’ Ishmian declaration, had neither installed garrisons nor mandated tribute. (The Chalcidians had long been home to an oppressive Macedonian garrison, and they were grateful for the new Roman peace.) Micythio convinced them, and the Chalcidians bid Antiochus to prove his aims of friendship by withdrawing his small army from the island of Euboea. Lacking troops to capture the town, the King returned to Demetrias.

  The cool reception at Chalcis was a warning sign to Antiochus that the Greeks might be less than enthusiastic about his intervention. However, he gained more success in securing the aid of Amyander, the king of the Athamanians. The Athamanians were a tribe (ethnos) that lived in the rugged highlands of north-eastern Greece. Their history of alliance with the Aetolian League made them amenable to collaboration, but Antiochus courted King Amyander further. Amyander had married the daughter of an Arcadian nobleman named Alexander of Megalopolis. In grand fashion, this Alexander claimed lineage from Alexander the Great, and consequentially gave his children Macedonian royal names: Apamea, Philip, and yet another Alexander. Antiochus hinted to Amyander that in exchange for support, his brother-in-law Philip could be a serious contender for the Macedonian throne (Philip VI!). It was an idle promise, of course. Antiochus III was already sending feelers to the actual king of Macedonia, Philip V, to ensure his cooperation. Such casual lies were necessary to obtain support, troops and supplies.

  The city of Athens was violently split about whether to support Antiochus or Rome, and was teetering toward what the Greeks called stasis, or civil strife. A coalition of wealthy Athenians favoured the Romans, while the populist faction supported Antiochus III.3 As a rule, the Romans supported oligarchs in allied communities over populist impulses. Flamininus arranged for Achaean troops to enter the city, secure the key urban terrain of the port at the Pireaus, and silence democratic dissent.4 After a series of violent street clashes, the democrats were defeated, and Athens remained on the side of Rome.

  The Romans, meanwhile, did not declare war just yet, but effected their first forward deployment of troops. The praetor Marcus Baebius, previously stationed in Bruttium, crossed the Adriatic Sea from the south Italian port of Brundisium to Apollonia, on the coast of Epirus. He brought two legions with him, complemented by 15,000 allied Italian infantry and 500 allied horse.5 In all, this was an army of roughly 25,000 men. However, Baebius’ mission was not to secure Greece, but rather to watch over Macedonia, as the senate worried that Philip V might take advantage of the unstable diplomatic situation. Nonetheless, the arrival of Roman troops was a critical step toward open hostilities. While the bulk would be positioned against Macedonia, a small detachment was sent to intervene in Greece. 500 Romans (probably an ad hoc unit known as a cohort) were sent to Chalcis, joining Achaean and Attalid contingents that already reinforced the city.

  The presence of the Roman, Achaean and Attalid soldiers at Chalcis gave Antiochus a clear choice. Further operations against Chalcis would involve Roman casualties and prove a convenient causus belli for the Roman senate. While the Romans were often aggressors, for religious reasons they were still committed to the pretence that all formal wars be defensive in nature.

  By now Antiochus was ready to move against Chalcis in force. He ordered his lieutenant Polyxenidas to take the fleet and 3000 men and launch an assault against the city; he would follow with the main body of 6000 troops and a small contingent of Aetolian reinforcements. This force was no match for the 500 Achaeans and the handful of Attalid troops sent by Eumenes II to reinforce the city. The Romans’ detachment had not yet crossed to the island of Euboea, but stood paused en route at Delium. Ant
iochus’ troops fell upon the Roman cohort and inflicted heavy losses on the isolated detachment. The Achaean and Attalid soldiers within the city were permitted to depart under a truce. Antiochus now took possession of Chalcis, and of the entire island of Euboea: he now controlled two of the three fetters of Greece.6

  His next target was Thessaly itself, a vast plain in Northern Greece famous for its horses. The Thessalians had been subject to Philip V of Macedon, but had been liberated by the Romans. A few Thessalian cities subsequently joined the Aetoliean League, but most formed their own federal league: a new and tenuous polity. Antiochus engaged in negotiations to arrange for his own ‘liberation’ of Thessaly, but when Thessalian communities used the negotiations as cover for military preparations, Antiochus struck. He captured Pherai, a leading Thessalian city, and massacred a number of the defenders. Other Thessalian cities fell like dominoes, except Larissa, the largest city, which continued to hold despite the Great King’s siege.7

  A funeral

  In central Thessaly there lay a terrible sight: nearly 8000 sun-whitened skeletons. These were the remains of Macedonian soldiers killed in battle against the Romans nearly six years earlier. Philip V, in his hasty retreat from Cynoscephalae, had been unable to bury them, and the victorious Romans left them to rot as a potent reminder of their newly established power. With due diligence, Antiochus III sent a 2000-man detachment to collect the bleached bones and bury them with the proper funerary rites.

  Antiochus’ intention here was unclear, and piety alone probably does not explain the act. Certainly it was a gesture to the Greeks, as Greek mercenaries of Philip V numbered among the dead. It gave him an opportunity to contrast a fundamental Hellenic decency against a particularly brutal episode of Roman barbarism. Unfortunately, Antiochus permitted Philip of Megalopolis to accompany the burial party. This Philip, who harboured oversized ambitions against the Macedonian throne, could now claim that he had accomplished this act of royal piety, and Philip V took the mass funeral as an insult to his standing as king. His loyalty already wavering, he now set himself against Antiochus and formally declared his allegiance to Rome.8

  In Apollonia, the praetor Marcus Baeblius was concerned about the easy success of Antiochus’ Thessalian campaign and desired to relieve Larissa. He dispatched a detachment of 2000 men commanded by Appius Claudius, arranging with Philip V for the Romans to march across Macedonia and demonstrate before Larissa. The arrival of the Roman detachment, who took pains to exaggerate their strength by lighting extra campfires and building a larger camp, convinced Antiochus to withdraw his small force. Antiochus abandoned his siege of Larissa and returned to Chalcis. Both sides waited until spring to launch more ambitious operations.9

  The Romans prepare for war

  In November 192, the Roman consuls Scipio Nasica and Manius Acilius Glabrio took office (it was 15 March by the Roman count, four months off from the solar calendar). Both consuls had strong ties to Scipio Africanus: Scipio Nasica, as his name implies, was a cousin, and Acilius Glabrio was a ‘new man’ who rose through politics with Scipionic patronage. In 201 he had been one of several tribunes of the plebs to defend Scipio’s African command.10

  The voters of the comitia centuriata considered a formal proposal for war with Antiochus, and it easily passed, since Roman soldiers were already engaged in active fighting. Following the populus’ declaration of war, the consuls’ provinces were assigned by lot.11 Italy and the seething violence in Cisalpine Gaul, Liguria, and Bruttium, went to the consul Scipio Nasica, and Manius Acilius Glabrio received the province of Greece. Thus, he would command the first phase of the war against Antiochus the Great.

  Glabrio selected a command team that created a fine show of political unity and brought with him two senior military tribunes, Marcus Porcius Cato and Valerius Flaccus. Both men were ex-consuls: Marcus Cato, like Glabrio, was also a novus homo, the first member of his family from the village of Tusculanum to serve in the Roman senate.12 Cato had risen with the support of politicians strongly opposed to the Scipionic faction, most notably Fabius Maximus.13 Throughout his life, Cato displayed an almost pathological hatred of the Scipio brothers. Glabrio’s invitation to Cato to serve under him acknowledged his proven military skills. He had enjoyed significant successes while campaigning as a pro-consul in Spain in 194 BC.

  Serving as a fellow military tribune was Valerius Flaccus, a patrician who patronized Cato’s early career, and subsequently shared the consulship with him in 195 BC (the lifelong political allies would later share a censorship together in 184 BC). Flaccus (‘Skinny’) had also been a veteran supporter of Fabius Maximus. Their inclusion in Glabrio’s command team was a kind of olive branch from the Scipionic faction to its political enemies. The presence of two ex-consuls serving as subordinates also underlined the seriousness of the Roman war effort. The post of military tribune was a relatively junior office, usually held by young aristocrats at the start of their military and political career.14 Nonetheless, one of the great weaknesses of the Republican Roman military system was that command fell to amateur aristocrats, who led armies by virtue of election rather than experience. Thus, Glabrio, who had never commanded a field army, had two veteran lieutenants by his side. In the spring of 191 BC Glabrio crossed the Adriatic to Apollonia with an army of 20,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 15 war-elephants.15

  A wedding

  In Chalcis, Antiochus III celebrated his wedding to a young girl, the daughter of a local Chalcidian noble. He proclaimed her queen and gave her the grand name of Euboea, after the island on which Chalcis was located (unfortunately for young Euboea, her new nickname translates roughly to ‘Happy Cow-land’). It is unclear whether Queen Laodice had died or if Antiochus was beginning to practise Macedonian royal polygamy.16

  Antiochus made a grand show of politely wooing young Euboea. Hers was a social group that provided many Hellenistic kings with their mistresses, girls from families who would benefit by sending their daughters to court, but who were generally not politically powerful enough to warrant a formal marriage alliance.17 Antiochus diligently courted Euboea and obtained the permission of her father to marry, both respectful gestures targeted toward the parochial aristocrats who controlled most Greek poleis. The subsequent marriage was a political spectacle calculated to show Antiochus’ respect for Greek freedom and autonomy. Just as Euboea was a wife rather than a concubine, Antiochus would be an ally rather than a master to the Greek poleis. And by binding himself to a wife from Chalcis, he also signalled a determination to defend Greece from the impending Roman counterattack.18

  Unfortunately, Antiochus badly miscalculated the message that his marriage sent to his Greek allies. To those already questioning the King’s commitment to the Greek cause, the marriage read as one more unnecessary distraction. The Greeks believed that sexual activity was enervating and suspected that sexual exertion detracted from martial vigour.19 Rumours circulated that the King was more concerned with satisfying his lust with a young girl than with winning the war. To Greek eyes, the indulgent royal wedding party made Antiochus appear more a Dionysian reveller than the warrior-king that the hour called for. From a political perspective, the marriage was a dismal failure.

  But we should not allow ourselves to be deceived by propaganda against Antiochus transmitted through later literary sources. Polybius, who may reflect hostile Greek opinion, reports that Antiochus ‘getting married in Chalcis, passed the winter there, indifferent to the affairs at hand’.20 A brief overview of Antiochus’ campaign in the winter of 192/1 BC shows this accusation to be patently untrue, as the King had filled the winter with numerous diplomatic and military successes. It seems that his marriage did not affect the ability to conduct military operations.21

  Cultural differences around drinking habits further alienated his Greek support. The symposium, or drinking party, was a central part of Greek elite social life, yet these parties were also characterized by aristocratic restraint. At the start, a symposiarch (master of ceremonies) would set a l
imit to alcohol consumption and determine the proper mixture of water to wine (usually two to one). To become uncontrollably drunk at a symposium was shameful (e.g. Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium): for elite Greeks, public drinking and decorum went hand in hand.

  The symposia of the Seleucid court, however, combined Greek drinking rituals with boisterous Macedonian court culture. Macedonian nobles drank undiluted (akratos) wine, and drinking frequently took on a competitive aspect, with the king pointedly outdrinking the members of his court. Thus, Macedonian royal symposia traditionally concluded in heavy drunkenness, leaving the Greeks to conclude that Antiochus was a man ‘winesotted and revelling in strong drink’, lacking the kind of selfcontrol expected of a Greek aristocrat.22 Drinking and partying related to the nuptial festivities was one more cultural disconnect between Antiochus and his Greek supporters.

  By the start of the campaigning season in 191 BC, the Seleucid situation had further deteriorated. Tens of thousands of Roman soldiers were disembarking at Apollonia, and Antiochus’ plans of using a small expeditionary force and diplomacy to win the Greek cities seemed laughable. On a diplomatic blitz through Achaea and Athens in the winter of 191, Marcus Cato sarcastically proclaimed that ‘Antiochus wages war through letters, and fights with pen and ink.’23 Here, Cato was paraphrasing the famous fourth-century orator Demosthenes in order to reassure an audience of lettered Athenian elites that the Romans were not barbarians.