THE battle of Mount Panium marks an era in the history of the Jews. For a century since the battle of Ipsus they had been steadfast in their allegiance to the Egyptian throne. They now transferred it from the descendants of the Ptolemies to those of Seleucus Nicator, and their connection with the Syrian kings begins.

Antiochus, who had bestowed upon them so many privileges, did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory. His chief ally in the late campaign had been Philip of Macedon, who, at the conclusion of the third war against Carthage, found himself attacked by the forces of the great Republic of the West now commencing its conquest of the world. Deserted by his friend Antiochus, whose aid he might reasonably have expected, he was forced after three campaigns to sue for peace, and the Romans became supreme in Macedonia and Greece, B.C.197.

Five years afterwards Antiochus found his turn was come to feel the weight of the same all-conquering arms. In the year B.C.192 he crossed over into Greece on the invitation of the Ætolians, and under the expectation of a general rising of the Greeks ventured on a campaign with Rome, entrenching himself at Thermopylæ18. But in the following year the consul M.Acilius Glabrio attacked him in his entrenchments, and speedily put his whole army to flight. Thereupon the Syrian king hastened back to Asia, and employed himself in collecting a vast host from all parts of his dominions, wherewith to prosecute the campaign, which his friend Hannibal truly warned him was close at hand. In B.C.190 the Romans, under Scipio Africanus and his brother Scipio Asiaticus, crossed the Hellespont, and Antiochus confronted them in the neighbourhood of Magnesia19, at the foot of Mount Sipylus. His motley hosts, though aided by numerous elephants and the Macedonian phalanx, were utterly unable to resist the terrible Roman legions. Defeated with a loss of 50,000 men, the haughty Syrian was constrained to sue for peace. The conditions exacted by the conquerors were the death-blow of the Syrian empire. Antiochus was forced to cede all his dominions in Asia Minor west of Mount Taurus; to surrender all his ships of war, and retain no more than 10 merchant vessels; to keep no elephants; to raise no mercenaries in any of the countries allied with Rome; to pay down 2500 Euboic talents at once, and 12,000 more by instalments of 1000 a year; and to deliver up Hannibal and other enemies of Rome who had taken refuge in his dominions.