Syria and Egypt

While in the peninsula of Asia Minor Rome thus substantially conducted the government and, although much was done without or in opposition to her wishes, yet determined on the whole the state of possession, the wide tracts on the other hand beyond the Taurus and the Upper Euphrates as far down as the valley of the Nile continued to be mainly left to themselves.  No doubt the principle which formed the basis of the regulation of Oriental affairs in 565, viz.  That the Halys should form the eastern boundary of the Roman client-states,(35) was not adhered to by the senate and was in its very nature untenable.  The political horizon is a self-deception as well as the physical; if the state of Syria had the number of ships of war and war-elephants allowed to it prescribed in the treaty of peace,(36) and if the Syrian army at the bidding of the Roman senate evacuated Egypt when half-won(37), these things implied a complete recognition of hegemony and of clientship.  Accordingly the disputes as to the throne in Syria and in Egypt were referred for settlement to the Roman government.  In the former after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes (590) Demetrius afterwards named Soter, the son of Seleucus iv, living as a hostage at Rome, and Antiochus Eupator, a minor, the son of the last king Antiochus Epiphanes, contended for the crown; in the latter Ptolemy Philometor (573-608), the elder of the two brothers who had reigned jointly since 584, had been driven from the country (590) by the younger Ptolemy Euergetes ii or the Fat (d. 637), and had appeared in person at Rome to procure his restoration.  Both affairs were arranged by the senate entirely through diplomatic agency, and substantially in accordance with Roman advantage.  In Syria Demetrius, who had the better title, was set aside, and Antiochus Eupator was recognized as king; while the guardianship of the royal boy was entrusted by the senate to the Roman senator Gnaeus Octavius, who, as was to be expected, governed thoroughly in the interest of Rome, reduced the war-marine and the army of elephants agreeably to the treaty of 565, and was in the fair way of completing the military ruin of the country.  In Egypt not only was the restoration of Philometor accomplished, but—­partly in order to put an end to the quarrel between the brothers, partly in order to weaken the still considerable power of Egypt—­Cyrene was separated from that kingdom and assigned as a provision for Euergetes.  “The Romans make kings of those whom they wish,” a Jew wrote not long after this, “and those whom they do not wish they chase away from land and people.”  But this was the last occasion—­for a long time—­on which the Roman senate came forward in the affairs of the east with that ability and energy, which it had uniformly displayed in the complications with Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus.  Though the internal decline of the government was late in affecting the treatment of foreign affairs, yet it