A Year's Truce Between Antiochus and Ptolemy
Meanwhile Antiochus, on arriving at the city which
bears his own name, immediately despatched an embassy to
Ptolemy, consisting of Antipater, his nephew, and Theodotus
Hemiolius, to treat of a peace, in great alarm lest the enemy
should advance upon him.
Peace between Ptolemy and Antiochus for a year, B. C. 217. |
For his defeat had
inspired him with distrust of his own forces,
and he was afraid that Achaeus would seize
the opportunity to attack him. It did not
occur to Ptolemy to take any of these circumstances into
account: but being thoroughly satisfied with his unexpected
success, and generally at his unlooked for acquisition of
Coele-Syria, he was by no means indisposed to peace; but even more
inclined to it than he ought to have been: influenced in that
direction by the habitual effeminacy and corruption of his
manner of life. Accordingly, when Antipater and his colleague
arrived, after some little bluster and vituperation of Antiochus
for what had taken place, he agreed to a truce for a year. He
sent Sosibius back with the ambassadors to ratify the treaty:
while he himself, after remaining three months in
Syria and
Phoenicia, and settling the towns, left Andromachus of
Aspendus as governor of this district, and started with his
sister and friends for
Alexandria: having brought the war to a
conclusion in a way that surprised his subjects, when they
contrasted it with the principles on which he spent he rest of
his life. Antiochus after exchanging ratifications of the treaty
with Sosibius, employed himself in making preparations for
attacking Achaeus, as he had originally begun doing. Such
was the political situation in
Asia.