of Pergamus had become the first power. Not led astray by
the traditions of the Alexandrine monarchies, but sagacious and
dispassionate enough to renounce what was impossible, the Attalids
kept quiet; and endeavoured not to extend their bounds nor to
withdraw from the Roman hegemony, but to promote the prosperity of
their empire, so far as the Romans allowed, and to foster the arts
of peace. Nevertheless they did not escape the jealousy and suspicion
of Rome. In possession of the European shore of the Propontis,
of the west coast of Asia Minor, and of its interior as far as
the Cappadocian and Cilician frontiers, and in close connection with
the Syrian kings--one of whom, Antiochus Epiphanes (d. 590), had
ascendedthe throne by the aid of the Attalids--king Eumenes II had
by his power, which seemed still more considerable from the more and
more deep decline of Macedonia and Syria, instilled apprehension
in the minds even of its founders. We have already related(28)
how the senate sought to humble and weaken this ally after the third
Macedonian war by unbecoming diplomatic arts. The relations--
perplexing from the very nature of the case--of the rulers of
Pergamus towards the free or half-free commercial cities within
their kingdom, and towards their barbarous neighbours on its borders,
became complicated still more painfully by this ill humour on the part
of their patrons. As it was not clear whether, according to the
treaty of peace in 565, the heights of the Taurus in Pamphylia and
Pisidia belonged to the kingdom of Syria or to that of Pergamus,(29)
the brave Selgians, nominally recognizing, as it would seem, the Syrian
supremacy, made a prolonged and energetic resistance to the kings
Eumenes II and Attalus II in the hardly accessible mountains of
Pisidia. The Asiatic Celts also, who for a time with the permission
of the Romans had yielded allegiance to Pergamus, revolted from
Eumenes and, in concert with Prusias king of Bithynia the hereditary