[2] He had two brothers, the elder of whom was Eumenes, the younger Attalus. Eumenes had a son of the same name, who succeeded to the possession of Pergamum, and was then sovereign of the places around, so that he overcame in a battle near Sardes1 Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, and died after a reign of two-and-twenty years. Attalus, the son of Attalus and Antiochis, daughter of Achæus, succeeded to the kingdom. He was the first person who was proclaimed king after a victory, which he obtained in a great battle with the Galatians. He became an ally of the Romans, and, in conjunction with the Rhodian fleet, assisted them in the war against Philip. He died in old age, having reigned forty-three years. He left four sons by Apollonis, a woman of Cyzicus,—Eumenes, Attalus, Philetærus, and Athenæus. The younger sons continued in a private station, but Eumenes, the elder, was king. He was an ally of the Romans in the war with Antiochus the Great, and with Perseus; he received from the Romans all the country within the Taurus which had belonged to Antiochus. Before this time there were not under the power of Pergamum many places which reached to the sea at the Elaïtic and the Adramyttene Gulfs. Eumenes embellished the city, he ornamented the Nicephorium2 with a grove, enriched it with votive offer- ings and a library, and by his care raised the city of Perga mum to its present magnificence. After he had reigned forty-nine years he left the kingdom to Attains, his son by Stratonice, daughter of Ariarathus, king of Cappadocia. He appointed as guardian of his son, who was very young,3 and as regent of the kingdom, his brother Attalus, who died an old man after a reign of twenty years, having performed many glorious actions. He assisted Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, in the war against Alexander, the son of Antiochus, and was the ally of the Romans in the war against the Pseudo-Philip. In an expedition into Thrace he defeated and took prisoner Diegylis, king of the Cæni.4 He destroyed Prusias by exciting his son Nicomedes to rebel against his father. He left the kingdom to Attalus his ward. His cognomen was Philometor. He reigned five years, and died a natural death. He left the Romans his heirs.5 They made the country a province, and called it Asia by the name of the continent. The Caïcus flows past Pergamum through the plain of Caïcus, as it is called, and traverses a very fertile country, indeed almost the best soil in Mysia.
1 Sart.
2 A building raised in commemoration of a victory. It was destroyed by Philip of Macedon, Polyb. xvi. 1. It appears, however, that he restored it to its ancient splendour, as forty-five years afterwards it was devastated a second time by Prusias, king of Bithynia, which Strabo notices hereafter.
3 The circumstances are differently narrated by Plutarch ‘On brotherly love,’ and by Livy, xlii. c. 15 and 16.
4 Diegylis, king of the Cæni, a Thracian people, was the father-in-law of Prusias.
5 Aristonicus, brother of Attalus, and a natural son of Eumenes, for some time contended with the Romans for the possession of this inheritance; but finally he was vanquished and made prisoner by the consul Perperna, carried to Rome, and there died in prison. B. xiv. c. i. § 38.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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