War in Syria

After Alexander's death, his Ministry occupied Babylonia, and in the following years, it competed with another Antioch of Alexander for Syria, making its position increasingly consolidated. He became king in 305 BC and was named Seleucus I (305 BC-280 BC). He ruled a large area of West Asia and Central Asia, with Syria as the ruling center, so he was also called the Kingdom of Syria.

The rule of the Syrian kingdom followed the autocratic regime of the Persian Empire. The central government has a huge bureaucracy with 25 counties. The governor is in charge of civil affairs, the general is in charge of military affairs, and the financial officer is in charge of taxation. Set up fortress cities and garrison troops in remote areas.

The kingdom of Syria has been expanding outward and has been in conflict with Egypt and Macedonia. From 276 BC to 195 BC, there were five wars for hegemony with Egypt in the Mediterranean, and then there was a war with Rome (from 192 BC to 190 BC), which was called the Syrian war in history.

During the Second Macedonian War, Syrian King Antioch III took the opportunity to expand his territory, crossed the Hellers Strait, and occupied the Thrace region of Macedonia slightly, which conflicted with the interests of Rome, which was expanding eastward at that time. After the Second Macedonian War, Rome became the master of Greece. What Rome did in Greece soon caused great dissatisfaction among the Greeks, so the Roman Union Etoria first rose up against Rome.

At the same time, they sent envoys to Syria to persuade the other side to send troops to Greece and defeat the Romans, hoping that Syria would become the real liberator of Greece. Antioch III was an ambitious man. He wanted to take this opportunity to annex Greece, so he agreed to the request of the Greek messenger and sent troops to attack Rome. The Syrian war broke out.

In the spring of 192 BC, Antioch III led an army consisting of 1000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 600 war elephants to land on the east coast of Thessaly. Rome organized 20,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 15 elephants to resist. The Roman army marched eastward, crossed the Adriatic Sea and soon entered Thessaly. Antioch III saw that the other side was powerful and fierce, and he was afraid that he was no match. He quickly sent people back to China to increase reinforcements. At the same time, he led the team around him to occupy the hot spring pass in central Greece, trying to use this impassable canyon to stop the Romans and wait for reinforcements.

The Romans, on the other hand, marched quickly at night while the other side was not paying attention, climbed over the mountains and cliffs, found the rear of the Syrians, and suddenly attacked them and beat them out of the water. Antioch III fled with 500 cavalry and never looked back. He first arrived at Calchi on the island of Youbeia, and then crossed the sea from there to the east and fled to Ephesus along the coast of Asia Minor. Syria's allies also fled to Rome, and finally only Etoria persisted in resisting.

The Roman Senate decided to organize a powerful navy to cross the Aegean Sea and March into Asia Minor. In BC 190, Roman consul Scipio Jr. led a great army into Syria. In order to relieve worries, Rome concluded a six-month truce with Etoria in central Greece.

Moreover, after Antioch III fled after the defeat, Rome was expected to attack Syria quickly. Therefore, he built a land and sea defense system in Cestos on the north bank of Heller Strait and Abidus on the south bank to prevent the Romans from attacking Asia Minor. At the same time, Lacey Marcia of Thrace stored a large number of munitions to ensure the supply of the battlefield.

The Roman navy crossed the Aegean Sea in the summer of 190 BC and arrived near Caius. Commander Li Wei ordered some ships to stay behind, pay close attention to training and exercises, and manufacture various instruments; The other part of the ship followed him to the channel to meet the arrival of the army. When Antioch III learned of this situation, he immediately decided to attack the part of the Roman navy left in Caius, and made a plan: the Syrian navy general sent a letter to the Roman military camp near Caius, falsely claiming that he would surrender to the Romans and join forces near Samos.

The Romans did sail the fleet to Samos. They didn't know that the Syrian fleet had been following them, and the Syrian army had occupied Samos first. Therefore, as soon as the Roman navy approached the meeting site, it was suddenly attacked and hurriedly abandoned the ship and fled to land. Only to be assassinated by Syrian infantry, the Romans suffered greatly. Only seven ships with fire containers escaped, because Syrians were afraid of fire and no ship dared to approach them. The remaining 20 ships were destroyed and captured, and most of the personnel were killed and captured.

Roman naval commander Li Wei immediately returned to Greece. He gathered all the ships and set out for Ephesus. He ordered some soldiers to prepare for a decisive battle with the Syrian navy at sea, while others landed on the enemy's coast, ready to attack each other's supplies. In September, the two armies met in the Sea of Ephesus.

At this time, Antioch III was stationed in Macchia, Lacey. He heard that the Romans used an iron container with fire tied to a long pole as a weapon and threw it on Syrian warships, which caused great harm to Syrians and made them panic. At the same time, Antioch III also considered that the Roman army would come soon, and it would definitely attack the Helegu Strait, thus forming a potential attack on him. So Antioch III took the initiative to leave Lacey Macchia and enter the hinterland of Asia Minor, where he assembled a large number of troops to prepare for war. Rome captured Lacimaca, got a lot of food, money and weapons originally stored here by Antioch III, and successfully crossed the unguarded ancient Heller Strait.

One morning at the end of February in BC 190, the two armies fought on the Magritzia Plain, east of Kaios and south of Hermes River. The two sides quickly deployed their respective teams.

The total strength of Antioch is 70,000, and the strongest is the heavy infantry arranged in the form of Macedonian phalanx with 10.6 million people, which is placed in the middle of the team and divided into10 teams, each with10.6 million people, with 50 people in the front row and 32 rows in depth. There are 22 elephants beside each team. "The phalanx is shaped like a city wall, and the war elephant is a fort tower on the city." Then the cavalry on both sides, respectively * * * 12000 people. In addition, the right wing is equipped with light troops, light cavalry and cavalry archers; The left wing is a mixed force and light cavalry composed of allies and other tribes. At the front of the procession are chariots and camels with sickles, followed by archers, catapults, javelin soldiers and light shield soldiers.

Antioch III and his son Seleucus respectively commanded the left and right sides of the team, while Philip commanded the central elephant team.

The Roman army was divided into three parts: left, middle and right. Near the river on the left, there are about 654.38 million Roman legions. Behind the legion are the Italian allies of 1 0,000, which are arranged in a three-line combat formation. Followed by Pagama Allies and 3000 light infantry in Asia; There are about 3,000 right-wing forces, composed of Roman, Italian and Pagama cavalry; In the middle are light troops and archers, and behind them is the War Elephant Hall.

Pagama's consuls Sipia Junior, Domitius and Omnis were the central, left and right commanders respectively. All troops * * * 30,000 people. Antioch III took the lead. He led the Syrian right-wing cavalry forward and broke through the left wing of the Roman army. The other side turned around and retreated hastily, causing confusion among the troops behind, and then retreated. Antioch III chased them far away.

At the same time, the left and middle of the Syrian army suffered defeat. Roman right-wing troops began to attack under the command of King Omnis of Pagama. Omnis ordered archers and other light troops to surround the chariot with sickles and shoot at the horses. After many horses were injured, they dragged the chariots around in horror, causing the camel team and the heavily armored cavalry originally deployed behind the defense line of the chariots to make a mess. Coupled with foggy weather, Syrians can't tell you from me. Omnis continued to pursue, and the cavalry focused on armor moved slowly, and was quickly caught up and killed by the Romans.

The Syrian phalanx troops deployed in the center had no chance to charge or evacuate their dense formation and were attacked by enemy weapons from all directions. They stretched out dense spears, challenged the Romans and wanted to fight hand to hand.

But the Romans just surrounded them, did not approach them, and constantly attacked them with javelins and arrows. Because of the dense phalanx, the Syrians could not resist and avoid the projectors of Roman soldiers, and suffered heavy losses and had to retreat. However, the elephants in the phalanx were scared out of control, scurrying around, out of control and trampled to death. In addition, Omnis led the right-wing Roman army to cooperate with Sipia, and the phalanx army quickly broke up and fled in confusion.

Moreover, Antioch III commanded the Syrian right wing to pursue the Roman left-wing soldiers far away, only to find that it was too far from the main battlefield, so he stopped moving forward and quickly turned back. On the way, I met the Roman right wing and the Central Army. After a period of fighting, Antioch III led the army to fight hard and returned to the main battlefield.

There was a fiasco in front of him: his soldiers, horses and elephants were lying in a pool of blood, and a large group of troops had collapsed. Unable to fight any more, he hurried away and returned to Syria the next day. In the Battle of West Asia in Magney, Antioch lost more than 50,000 people, most of the war elephants were killed and captured 15; Rome only lost more than 300 people. Antioch must make peace with Rome. The two sides concluded a peace treaty: Syria gave up all the territories of Thrace and Asia Minor; Return the prisoners of war and hand over all the elephants. Only 10 warships are allowed to be kept, and the rest are all handed in. Pay a huge sum of money and hand over Hannibal the Carthaginian star. Syria accepted it all (except for one thing, Hannibal's early release). Since then, the Syrian Kingdom has withdrawn from Xiaoya, and it has lost its previous important position.

The main reasons for Antioch III's failure in the campaign of magnesium oxide are: strategically, he made two fatal mistakes, namely, he easily gave up Lacimaca and its important munitions such as food and weapons; We should not easily remove the defense line in the Hellers Strait, so that the Romans can cross the Strait unimpeded. Tactically, the troops were improperly deployed. He should not shrink the most powerful infantry phalanx in the middle, making it useless and finally being annihilated by the Romans.

The long-term war for hegemony has consumed Syria's national strength. As early as after the first Syrian war, Pagama declared independence. After the second Syrian war, Daxia and Rest became independent one after another. After the campaign of magnesium oxide, the people's resistance struggle appeared again in all parts of the Syrian kingdom.

In BC 17 1 year, the people of Jerusalem launched a resistance struggle; In BC 176, the Jews rebelled against Antioch, and Epiphanes IV of Ocuss declared Judaism illegal. In BC 142, Judaism declared its independence. When Antiochus VII Sidetes conquered the Jews again, he was completely annihilated during the expedition and died in the battlefield; In 127 BC, the eastern part of the two river basins was no longer controlled by the Syrian kingdom. Since the middle of the 2nd century BC, the Syrian Kingdom has been in constant disputes, turbulence and uncertainty. In 64 BC, Rome Pompeii led an army to attack West Asia, and the Syrian kingdom perished. Syria became a province of Rome.