He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, and upright ones with him; thus shall he do: and shall give him the daughter of women, corrupting her: but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him. Daniel 11: 17 Antiochus III now had the means with which to make a drive on Ptolemaic Egypt itself but he would now dream of making war on the Roman Republic. Founded after the expulsion of the Tarquin Kings in 509 BC, the Roman Republic had hammered out the first form of representative government in history-as opposed to direct democracy in Athens. Rome survived a sacking in 390 BC by the Gauls under Brennus and had now occupied the Tiber valley, all of Italy, Sicily, Southern Gaul, Eastern Hispania, parts of Macedon and most of the Mediterranean Sea. Antiochus saw Rome as a threat to his ambitions and sought to make war to keep territory he desired in Greece from falling to the Republic. There was a problem however, as Ptolemaic Egypt had a treaty of friendship with Rome, ratified by the Roman Senate and agreed to by Ptolemy II Philadelphus about eighty years before. Antiochus sought to secure an agreement by Ptolemy V by giving to him his daughter Cleopatra and promising the Holy Land as a gift through that marriage. Still backed by those Jews who had abandoned God for their own interests, sarcastically labeled as upright ones, he hoped to obtain even Egypt for the Seleucid Empire as well as grabbing territory from Rome. Cleopatra would not go along with this plan as she decided to favor her husband and thus Antiochus IIIs plans to secure Egypts neutrality in his war with Rome and eventually acquire Egypt failed.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 03:41:38 +0000
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