Introduction

n a cold, damp morning in the autumn of 190 BC, twenty-five

thousand Roman and Italian soldiers were ordered to march out
of their fortified camp and form themselves for combat. They
were very far from home, marshalling upon a foreign plain in the fabled
land of Asia. Some of the citizen-soldiers had listened to the debates in
Rome to wage war here, watching as some elite politicians counselled
diplomatic patience while others demanded immediate war. A few soldiers
had even voted in the citizens assembly to formally declare a state of war
between the Roman people and King Antiochus. Many had volunteered
for service after rumours of the Kings magnificent wealth excited hopes
for even a small share of the spoils, yet most were conscripts, peasant
boys who had little reason to know or care about a distant king and the
vast eastern empire he ruled.
A few were able to hear the fine words of their general, as he rode about
at dawn haranguing his troops, laying out the rewards of victory and the
bitter consequences of defeat. Their commander had chosen to fight in
the horseshoe of two rivers, so that water blocked all hope of retreat.
Intermittent rain fell on the soldiers as they shivered in ranks, and
the enemy battleline was obscured by a dense bank of fog. As the sun
rose, burning off the mist, the teenaged skirmishers in the front line saw
before them an enormous horde, the combined strength of Asia. Dense
ranks of pikemen presented an impenetrable mass of iron, ash-wood and
bronze, above which loomed the shadow of elephants. From a distance
it seemed that the Romans confronted not an army, but rather the walls
and towers of an impregnable city. More dangerous was a long line of
cavalry, both horse and rider heavily armoured, specifically massed to
crash through the Roman legions. Among the metal-clad troopers was
the hostile King himself, prepared to personally lead the charge against
the Roman invaders. Scanning his foe, the King identified a weakness in

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xviii Antiochus the Great

the Roman line, and on his command his cavalry surged forward: 16,000
hooves pounded across the plain. Any Roman who believed the bellicose
rhetoric promising an easy victory over the effeminate Greeks and Asians
knew now that he had been badly deceived. Panic gripped the overstretched Roman infantry line, and the legionaries turned and fled back
toward the ramparts of their camp. The entire Roman left wing collapsed
before the horsemen of Media, Phrygia, and Syria. In hot pursuit of the
fleeing Roman infantrymen was the Great King himself, Antiochus III.

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