In the meantime the Romans had collected a fleet of eighty ships, and with
these they fought one hundred ships of their opponent off the coast of
Ionia; the victory of the former was decisive, all the ships of Antiochus
being captured or destroyed. This disaster, in connection with a signal
defeat he sustained by land, compelled him to submit; and the Romans,
always attentive to their maritime interests, which however they had not
hitherto pushed nearly to the extent which they might have done, refused to
grant him peace, except on the conditions, that he should cede all that
part of Asia which lies between the sea and Mount Taurus; that he should
give up all his vessels except ten; and that these should not, on any
account, sail beyond the promontories of Cilicia. The Romans, extremely
strict, and even severe, in enforcing the conditions of peace, not only
destroyed fifty covered galleys, but, the successor of Antiochus having
built additional vessels to the ten he was by treaty allowed to keep, they
compelled him to burn them.

The temporary success of the Carthaginians against the Romans induced
Philip, king of Macedon, to engage in that war which proved his ruin. The
advice of Hannibal, when an exile at the court of Antiochus, likewise led
to the disastrous war of that monarch with the same people; and by the
advice of Hannibal also, Prusias, king of Bythinia, was engaged in
hostilities with them. This king seems to have paid considerable attention
to naval and commercial affairs, for both of which, indeed, his territories
were admirably suited. In conjunction with the Rhodians, he made war
against the inhabitants of Byzantium, and obliged them to remit the tax
which they had been accustomed to levy on all vessels that sailed to or
from the Euxine Sea, The maritime war between this sovereign and the
Romans, who were at this time in alliance with Eumenes, king of Pergamus,
offers nothing deserving our notice, except a stratagem executed by
Hannibal. In order to compensate for the inferiority of Prusias' fleet,