Chapter 5

• Great Pyramid at Giza


  The only "wonder" still standing
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon

  Built around 600 BC by King Nebuchadnezzer to please his Queen Semiramis, who hankered for the coolness of mountains and greenery of her own birthplace in this hot, flat desert area
• The gardens were not hanging at all, but were built on a huge square palace made of brick and carried on massive brick arched supports; the extensive elevated gardens in the interior were watered by a unique mechanical system
• Some traces of the original brick arches were found by archeologists in the beginning of this century in the center of the old city of Babylon
• It took Rome many centuries to expand from a small rural community to a great power that controlled the whole of Italy either by domination or alliance
• Rome shared the Mediterranean world with Phoenician Carthage in North Africa and the Greek Macedonian kingdom ruling over most of the Greek peninsula and the islands surrounding it
• Farther east, other powerful Greek kingdoms continued to be ruled by the descendants of the Macedonian successors of Alexander the Great: the Seleucids controlled Asia Minor and Syria; and the Ptolemys ruled over Egypt
• In 284 BC, a group of mercenaries from the Italian mainland called Mamertines (sons of Mars) took possession of Messana at the northeast corner of Sicily
• The Mamertines began to expand their hold on the area, and the king of Syrakuse, Hieron II, moved against them
• The Mamertines called on both Carthage and Rome to come to their aid, and the Romans defeated them both in this first conflict
• By 264 BC, the first of three Punic (Carthaginian) Wars broke out between Rome and Carthage
• Rome finally drove out the Carthaginians from western Sicily, and shortly later, Rome also occupied the Carthaginian islands of Corsica (241 BC) and Sardinia (238 BC)
• Carthage began settling across the Straits of Gibraltar into the Spanish peninsula in 237 BC, and gradually spread this hold east to the Ebro River
• Hannibal, the brilliant son of Hamilcar Barca, marched his way overland and over the Alps to attack Italy itself
• The second Punic War (218-202 BC) did not defeat Rome, and Scipio attacked and defeated the Carthaginians at their bases in Spain, and was victorious over Hannibal himself at the Carthaginian city of Zama in North Africa
• The third Punic War of 153-146 BC ended with the Romans storming the capital city of Carthage, resulting in a final victory for them
• When the Romans occupied the Illyrian coast to stop pirate raids in the Adriatic Sea, Philip V, the capable king of Macedonia, felt threatened and concluded an alliance with Hannibal
• The Aitolian League, a confederacy of city-states in western Greece, called on Rome to help them against Macedonian aggression
• Philip and Antiochos III, who ruled the vast Seleucid empire in the east, agreed to invade Egypt together and divide it between them
• In 197 BC, at Kynoskephalai, in central Greece, two Roman legions finally met in battle the Macedonian phalanx, and the ensuing battle resulted in a large-scale slaughter of Greek troops by the Roman army
• In 191 BC, the Romans, aided by Philip, finally met the Seleucid army at Thermopylai and soundly defeated them
• A year later, the Romans, again with the help of Greek allies, moved aggressively into Asia Minor, and the two armies met in a major battle at Magnesia, in Ionia, where the Seleucid army was decimated
• Over the period 171 to168 BC, the Romans defeated the Macedonians in a series of battles, and to end the Macedonian problem they abolished the monarchy and divided the area into four autonomous republics for better control
• Resistance grew throughout the remaining city-states of the Greek peninsula, and many battles were fought against the Romans
• Corinth, as leader of the Achaian League of Greek cities, became strongly anti-Roman, and the Romans made a brutal example of Corinth when they defeated the Corinthians in battle
• When Attalos III, a Greek descendant of the Alexander successor Eumenes, died in 133 BC, he bequeathed to Rome his kingdom of Pergamos (in Latin, Pergamum), in western Asia Minor
• Revolts against the Romans within Italy in 89 to 88 BC, gave the ambitious and vigorous King Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontos, an independent kingdom along the southern Black Sea coast, the inspiration to move into Asia Minor and against Roman rule in the area
• Mithradates incited a general massacre of Italians in many parts of Roman Asia Minor, and swept west through the Aegean, with Athens as well as other Greek cities revolting from the Romans and joining him
• In 87 to 86 BC, the Roman general Sulla arrived in Greece with a large army to stop Mithridates, and in revenge for disloyalty he first attacked and burned Athens and Piraeus
• The next fifty years were uniformly bad throughout the Greek peninsula, as the area was now merely a small subjugated corner of the vast Roman Empire, without specific borders
• Rivalries between strong Roman leaders were to lead to civil wars in Italy that would eventually involve the Greek peninsula, as a victim rather than as a participant
• The next fifty years were uniformly bad throughout the Greek peninsula. The area was now merely a small subjugated corner of the vast Roman Empire, without specific borders.
• Roman trade with the east was now direct, and the former trading advantage of Greece's geographical location was lost, with the obvious impact on its economy.
• Advantage was taken by Roman officials on the local administrations and populace, and the weakened economy of the Greeks declined further.
• Little protection was provided by the Romans against frequent pirate raids on the extensive Greek coastline and islands, and the Greeks did not have the means to defend themselves.
• Rivalries between strong Roman leaders were to lead to civil wars in Italy that would eventually involve the Greek peninsula, as a victim rather than as a participant.
• The struggle for supremacy between Caesar and Pompey in the 50's BC brought their respective armies into Greece for the decisive battle, pillaging the countryside during their winter lay-up in Epiros and Macedonia and on their march across Greece.
• On August 9, 49 BC, on a plain west of Pharsalos in Thessaly, north of Thermopylai, Pompey's larger army was outmaneuvred, a large number were killed, and Caesar was victorious.
• Pompey fled to Egypt to whose ruler Ptolemy XII Auletes he had some years earlier been helpful politically and financially; he now planned to seek help to organize another army in the struggle against Caesar.
• Pompey's plans to involve Egypt would compromise her interests, and in any event young Ptolemy's royal counsellors (he was only 13 years old at the time) did not believe Pompey was likely to succeed.