Legion Versus Phalanx by Cole Myke

Author:Cole, Myke [Cole, Myke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, War
ISBN: 9781472828422
Amazon: 1472828429
Goodreads: 36612245
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Published: 2018-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

VIII

MAGNESIA, 190 BC: NO REFUGE FOR HANNIBAL

Antiochus was displaying to him on the plain the gigantic forces which he had mustered to make war on the Roman people, and was maneuvering his army glittering with gold and silver ornaments. He also brought up chariots with scythes, elephants with turrets, and horsemen with brilliant bridles, saddlecloths, neck-chains and trappings. And then the king, filled with vainglory at the sight of an army so great and so well equipped, turned to Hannibal and said: “Do you think that all this can be equaled and that it is enough for the Romans?” Then the Carthaginian, deriding the worthlessness and inefficiency of the king’s troops in their costly armor, replied: “I think all this will be enough, yes, quite enough for the Romans, greedy as they are.”

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights

Magnesia may seem like a departure from the current narrative. The first three battles of the book are from the Pyrrhic War, and the fourth and sixth are from the Macedonian Wars, and now we are suddenly shoehorning in a battle from the Syrian War. The title of the war is actually misleading, as the Syrian War was a direct outgrowth of the Second Macedonian War, and indeed Cynoscephalae in particular, and you’ll see how this is actually a cohesive, linear narrative.

Part of this is because Antiochus III, one of the commanders at Magnesia, was a “successor” king like Philip V, the leader of the Seleucid dynasty, which was descended, like the Antigonids, from one of Alexander the Great’s generals. In order to understand Antiochus and his role in the battle, we must understand who the Seleucids were and how they came to face off against the might of Rome in the wake of Philip’s defeat at Cynoscephalae.

The “Syrian Greeks”

Growing up as a Jewish kid in New York, we looked forward to the celebration of Hanukkah every year. Jokingly called the “Jewish Christmas” (it usually falls at roughly the same time), it was a hit with kids as it involved a minimum of prayer and ceremony and a maximum of gifts and games. At the time I vaguely understood that the holiday celebrated a military victory, and something about miraculous oil lights burning longer than they should, but whatever. There were presents to open.

The holiday actually celebrates the victory of the Maccabean Jews over the “Syrian Greeks,” who were the Seleucids, the descendants of Alexander the Great’s general Seleucus I Nicator. Seleucus began his ascent to kingship with the city of Babylon in 312 BC. He and his descendants then gradually increased his empire’s holdings to include much of modern day Turkey, the Levant, and what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kurdistan. Don’t let the largely Balkan and “stan” territories fool you. Seleucus and his descendants were dyed-in-the-wool Hellenistic rulers, which is to say that they were culturally Greek. Apart from some Eastern flavoring, you’d have found a lot of similarities in the lifestyle, court culture and goals of Antiochus III and Philip V.

Seleucus, like Alexander the Great, expanded as far east as India.

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