Rome Enters the Hellenistic Picture

A History of Mankind (168)

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Pergamum, the wealthiest and most influential state in Asia Minor during the Third Century BC, became independent in 281 BC, on the death of Seleucus. It was centered on the city of the same name, an easily-defended Greek metropolis south of Bithynia, founded later than historic Greek poleis along the western Anatolian coast.

The polis of Pergamum was still a smallish settlement by the time Xenophon ended his Anabasis there in 399 BC, with no inkling that the town would later have an important impact in the history of world politics and technology; or of the fact that it would become the capital of the first Asian province of the Roman Republic.

Philetaerus, a general under Lysimachus, founded the later-called Attalid dynasty that ruled Pergamum during its heyday. From the beginning, the kingdom struggled to remain independent in the face of Seleucid claims and Gallic raiding in Anatolia.

Only the capital city’s fortifications and timely victories in pitched battles over the Seleucids, notably in Sardis (261 BC), allowed Pergamum to keep enough breathing room for a while; eventually, an alliance arranged with Rome under long-reigning Attalus I (r. 241-197 BC), during the Second Punic War, put the small kingdom in the Republic’s orbit and crosshairs.