Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/105

 CHAPTER VII Till'; EXPANSION OF ROMAN DOMINION The overthrow of Rome's great rival in the west prepared the way for her expansion in the east. There, in the century which followed the death of Alexander the Great, mx ^ _ 1. The Roman and preceded the second Punic War, we have seen conquests, a development of empires and states which may 200-136 B.C. here be recapitulated. In the far east beyond the State of the Tigris a new barbaric dominion was developing called the Parthian Empire under a native dynasty known as the Arsacidae. The Macedonian Seleucidae held the great kingdom of Syria from the Tigris to the Mediterranean, corresponding to the old Babylonian Empire at almost its fullest extent. The Macedonian Ptolemies ruled over Egypt, while Asia Minor had again broken up into kingdoms wherein Greek influences pre- vailed in various degrees ; very little in Armenia, in Pontus, and in Cappadocia, and more in the most westerly kingdoms of Bithynia and Pergamus. The Greek cities on the coast and on the islands had recovered their independence. In Europe the chief power lay with the Macedonian kingdom with which on the whole the Achaean League was on friendly terms, while Sparta and the Aetolian League were hostile to it. Now before the second Punic War began the Romans had been brought into contact with Greece by their intervention for the suppression of piracy in the Adriatic. At an Macedonian early stage of the Punic War Philip the young King Wars, of Macedon began to intrigue with Hannibal, and this led to counter intrigues between the Romans and the Aetolians, with whom Attalus, the King of Pergamus, associated himself. Before the end of the Punic War, Philip was intriguing with Antiochus 1)3