pounds).  Still heavier were the blows aimed at the Rhodian commerce.  The very prohibition of the import of salt to, and of the export of shipbuilding timber from, Macedonia appears to have been directed against Rhodes.  Rhodian commerce was still more directly affected by the erection of the free port at Delos; the Rhodian customs-dues, which hitherto had produced 1,000,000 drachmae (41,000 pounds) annually, sank in a very brief period to 150,000 drachmae (6180 pounds).  Generally, the Rhodians were paralyzed in their freedom of action and in their liberal and bold commercial policy, and the state began to languish.  Even the alliance asked for was at first refused, and was only renewed in 590 after urgent entreaties.  The equally guilty but powerless Cretans escaped with a sharp rebuke.

Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War

With Syria and Egypt the Romans could go to work more summarily.  War had broken out between them; and Coelesyria and Palaestina formed once more the subject of dispute.  According to the assertion of the Egyptians, those provinces had been ceded to Egypt on the marriage of the Syrian Cleopatra:  this however the court of Babylon, which was in actual possession, disputed.  Apparently the charging of her dowry on the taxes of the Coelesyrian cities gave occasion to the quarrel, and the Syrian side was in the right; the breaking out of the war was occasioned by the death of Cleopatra in 581, with which at latest the payments of revenue terminated.  The war appears to have been begun by Egypt; but king Antiochus Epiphanes gladly embraced the opportunity of once more—­and for the last time—­endeavouring to achieve the traditional aim of the policy of the Seleucidae, the acquisition of Egypt, while the Romans were employed in Macedonia.  Fortune seemed favourable to him.  The king of Egypt at that time, Ptolemy vi, Philometor, the son of Cleopatra, had hardly passed the age of boyhood and had bad advisers; after a great victory on the Syro-Egyptian frontier Antiochus was able to advance into the territories of his nephew in the same year in which the legions landed in Greece (583), and soon had the person of the king in his power.  Matters began to look as if Antiochus wished to possess himself of all Egypt in Philometor’s name; Alexandria accordingly closed its gates against him, deposed Philometor, and nominated as king in his stead his younger brother, named Euergetes ii, or the Fat.  Disturbances in his own kingdom recalled the Syrian king from Egypt; when he returned, he found that the brothers had come to an understanding during his absence; and he then continued the war against both.  Just as he lay before Alexandria, not long after the battle of Pydna (586), the Roman envoy Gaius Popillius, a harsh rude man, arrived, and intimated to him the command of the senate that he should restore all that he had conquered and should evacuate Egypt within a set term.  Antiochus asked time for consideration; but the consular drew with his staff a circle round the king, and bade him declare his intentions before he stepped beyond the circle.  Antiochus replied that he would comply; and marched off to his capital that he might there, in his character of “the god, the brilliant bringer of victory,” celebrate in Roman fashion his conquest of Egypt and parody the triumph of Paullus.