|
The Battle of Magnesia was fought in 190 BC near Magnesia ad Sipylum, on the plains of Lydia (modern Turkey), between the Romans, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, the famed general Scipio Africanus, with their ally Eumenes II of Pergamum against the army of Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid Empire. The resulting decisive Roman victory ended the conflict for the control of Greece. Centuries: 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - 1st century BC Decades: 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC - 190s BC - 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC 140s BC Years: 195 BC 194 BC 193 BC 192 BC 191 BC - 190 BC - 189 BC 188 BC...
Magnesia ad Sipylum was a city of Lydia, situated about 65 km northeast of Smyrna on the river Hermus at the foot of Mount Sipylus. ...
Lydia (Greek ) is a historic region of western Anatolia, congruent with Turkeys modern provinces of Ä°zmir and Manisa. ...
This article is becoming very long. ...
The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic successor state of Alexander the Greats dominion. ...
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (2nd century BC) was Roman general and statesman. ...
This article deals with the Roman general who defeated Hannibal in the Second Punic War. ...
Categories: Stub ...
Silver coin of Antiochus III. The reverse shows Apollo seated on an omphalos. ...
This article is becoming very long. ...
Silver coin of Antiochus III. The reverse shows Apollo seated on an omphalos. ...
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 191 BC between a Roman army led by Manius Acilius Glabrio and a Seleucid force led by Antiochus III the Great. ...
The Battle of the Eurymedon was fought in 190 BC between Roman forces and a Seleucid fleet. ...
The Battle of Myonessus was fought in 190 BC between a Macedonian fleet and a Roman fleet. ...
Centuries: 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - 1st century BC Decades: 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC - 190s BC - 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC 140s BC Years: 195 BC 194 BC 193 BC 192 BC 191 BC - 190 BC - 189 BC 188 BC...
Magnesia ad Sipylum was a city of Lydia, situated about 65 km northeast of Smyrna on the river Hermus at the foot of Mount Sipylus. ...
Lydia (Greek ) is a historic region of western Anatolia, congruent with Turkeys modern provinces of Ä°zmir and Manisa. ...
This article is becoming very long. ...
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (2nd century BC) was Roman general and statesman. ...
This article deals with the Roman general who defeated Hannibal in the Second Punic War. ...
Coin of Eumenes II Eumenes II of Pergamum (ruled 197 - 160 BC) was king of Pergamon and a member of the Attalid dynasty. ...
Silver coin of Antiochus III. The reverse shows Apollo seated on an omphalos. ...
The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic successor state of Alexander the Greats dominion. ...
The main historical source for this battle is Livy whose account distorts history to magnify Roman military glory and moral superiority.
The Battle Antiochus was driven out of Greece following the defeat of his expeditionary force at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Roman navy with its Rhodian and other allies defeated and outmanoeuvered the Seleucid navy permitting the Roman army to cross the Hellespont. The theatre of war moved to Asia with the Roman army under the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio. The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 191 BC between a Roman army led by Manius Acilius Glabrio and a Seleucid force led by Antiochus III the Great. ...
After his defeat in Greece, Antiochus had retired to his main army in Asia Minor, where he set up an entrenched camp protecting the approach to Sardis and his fleet base at Ephesos. According to Grainger he had two phalanxes one of 10,000 professional soldiers and one of 16,000 semi-professional military settlers, together 26,000 men + 3,000 Galatians and 4,700 light infantry. Antiochus also had 6,000 heavy cataphract cavalry + 2,000 other heavy cavalry: the royal horse guards + 2,500 Galatian light cavalry + 500 Greek light cavalry + 1,200 steppe-nomad horse-archers = 12,000+ cavalry in total. He also had scythed chariots and 54 elephants and a unit of camel-borne arab archers. The allied side had up to 43,000 Roman and Italian, mainly heavy, infantry + 6,000 Greek, mainly light, infantry with a total of c.5,000 cavalry + 16 elephants. Sarmatian Cataphracts The word cataphract (from the Greek κατάφÏακτος) was what Greek- and later Latin-speaking peoples used to describe heavy cavalry. ...
The scythed chariot was a modified war chariot invented by the Persian emperor Cyrus by at least 401 BC. A scythed chariot was simply a war chariot with a blade mounted on both ends of the axle. ...
The great Roman success was to get Antiochus to fight a battle at all, before a new consul was sent out from Rome and before winter stopped the campaign. Scipio had successfully crossed the river and set up a camp only about 4 kms from the camp of Antiochus. One suspects that the Romans won the campaign more with the spade, than the sword. The battle ground appears to have been too constricted for the cavalry advantage of Antiochus to tell. Scipio's further advance from his camp had the river protecting his left. Except for 4 squadrons (turma) all the allied cavalry was on its right as the battle started.
As in almost all ancient battles, different reconstructions are possible. Grainger has the battle start on the Seleucid left with a failed attack by the scythed chariots which disrupted the Seleucid cavalry on that wing. Perhaps at the same time, there was a charge on the right by the Seleucid cavalry wing commanded by the king himself. That charge broke their opposing infantry leading to a pursuit by the Seleucid horse, leaving the field to unsuccessfully attack the Roman camp. The Roman ally Eumenes, commanding all their cavalry on the right of the Roman-Allied army then counterattacked the Seleucid left, already disrupted by the scythed chariots, and broke it. In the centre of the battle line, the Seleucids had arrayed their pike phalanx with elephants in the intervals. The Roman attack ultimately managed to drive off the elephants in order to outflank and destroy the phalanx. There was further fighting at the Seleucid camp before that fell.
Conclusions After an armistice was arranged between Antiochus and Rome the Roman army waged a campaign against the Galatians which politically undermined the Seleucid position in Asia Minor. The Romans had had a tremendous advantage throughout their campaign from their much more limited political objective. All the small powers could ally themselves to Rome because Rome sought no political annexations at this time. Conversely, the strategy of Antiochus had never made sense. The Aegean Sea was a natural frontier for a state based in Babylonia, as Xerxes discovered. If Antiochus had wanted to advance west into Greece, he needed to turn his state into the leading naval power in the Mediterranean, from nowhere, before sending his army west. Xerxes (the Greek form of the Persian KhshayÄrsha) is the name of two Persian kings of the Achaemenid dynasty: Xerxes I, reigned 485–465 BC. Xerxes II, reigned 424 BC. Xerxes may also refer to: Xerxes, an Armenian king, killed about 212 BC by Antiochus III the Great. ...
The treaty forced upon Antiochus III by the victorious Romans was crippling, in the Treaty of Apamea Antiochus was forced to pay a huge war indemnity of 15,000 Talents along with giving up significant territory in Asia Minor. The Taurus Mountains became the new frontier. The Seleucid navy was limited by treaty. It weakened the already fractious Seleucid Empire and halted all ambitions of Antiochus III in becoming a latter day Alexander in his own right. The Treaty of Apamea of 188 BC, between the Roman Republic and Antiochus III (the Great) had to give Romans control over the west side of Anatolia and placed under the control of a client king at Pergamum. ...
A talent is an ancient unit of mass. ...
An alternate view is that the real threat to the Seleucid Empire came from the east. The Taurus was a defensible frontier and the Seleucids were better off without having to deal with the turbulent politics of Greece and gained by having a great distance between them and Rome. Most of the lands lost had only been recaptured in 213 BC. Large parts of the Seleucid Empire of that time would never see a Roman army in the succeeding centuries. The economic powerhouse of the Seleucids was Babylonia which was never consolidated into the Roman Empire.
Trivia - Before the battle Antiochus asked Hannibal, who had fled to him, whether the vast and well-armed formation would be enough for the Roman Republic, to which Hannibal replied, "Yes, enough for the Romans, however greedy they may be." (Granger p320 states neither Hannibal nor Scipio Africanus were present at the battle.)
Hannibal is one of the most common prenames in Punic and we know several military commanders (strategos) with this prename during the Punic Wars, while their family names or nicknames are often not recorded. ...
External link John D. Granger The Roman War of Antiochus the Great 2002 Leiden-Boston |
Feeds |
Contact