마그네시아 전투 (기원전 190년)

Battle of Magnesia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Battle of Magnesia
Part of War against Anthiocus III
Date December 190 BC Location Near Magnesia ad Sipylum, Lydia (modern Turkey) Result Decisive Roman victory
Belligerents
Roman Republic	Seleucid Empire
Commanders
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, Scipio Africanus, Eumenes II of Pergamum	Antiochus III the Great
Strength
50,000	70,000
Casualties and losses
among others 300 Roman foot, 24 Roman and 15 Pergamenese horse [1]	50.000 dead and captured [2]

[hide] v • d • e Roman-Syrian War Thermopylae – Eurymedon – Myonessus – Magnesia

The Battle of Magnesia was fought in 190 BC near Magnesia ad Sipylum, on the plains of Lydia (modern Turkey), between the Romans, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, the famed general Scipio Africanus, with their ally Eumenes II of Pergamum against the army of Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid Empire. The resulting decisive Roman victory ended the conflict for the control of Greece.

The main historical sources for this battle are Livy and Appian.

Contents [hide] 1 Background 2 The Battle 3 Conclusions 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Background

Antiochus was driven out of Greece following the defeat of his expeditionary force at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Roman navy with its Rhodian and other allies defeated and outmanoeuvered the Seleucid navy permitting the Roman army to cross the Hellespont. The theatre of war moved to Asia with the Roman army under the new consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, younger brother of the great Scipio Africanus who accompanied him as legate. Antiochus was accompanied by Africanus's old enemy Hannibal, who had sought asylum with him.

After his defeat in Greece, Antiochus had retired to his main army in Asia Minor, where he set up an entrenched camp protecting the approach to Sardis and his fleet base at Ephesos. According to Grainger, he had two phalanxes: one of 10,000 professional soldiers, and one of 16,000 semi-professional military settlers, together 26,000 men, 3,000 Galatians and 4,700 light infantry. Antiochus also had 6,000 heavy cataphract cavalry and 2,000 other heavy cavalry: the royal horse guards (agema) and 2,500 Galatian mail clad cavalry. Apart from these, the Seleucid army seems to have also comprised 500 Greek light cavalry and 1,200 steppe-nomad horse-archers, which would amount to more than 12,000 cavalry in total. Antiochus also arrayed scythed chariots, 54 elephants and a unit of camel-borne Arab archers. The allied side had 2 legions, about 20,000 Roman and Italian infantry and 6,000 Greek, mainly light, infantry with a total of about 5,000 cavalry and 16 elephants. Antiochus is supposed to have asked Hannibal whether his vast and well-armed formation would be enough for the Roman Republic, to which Hannibal tartly replied, "quite enough for the Romans, however greedy they are."^[3] However, it seems that neither Hannibal nor Africanus were present at the actual battle.^[4]

[edit] The Battle

The Romans wished to fight this battle, before a new consul was sent out from Rome and winter would lead the campaign to a halt. Scipio had successfully crossed the river and set up a camp only about 4 km from the camp of Antiochus. Scipio's further advance from his camp was made with the river protecting his left, where he would rest his arrayed legions. Except for 4 squadrons (turmae) all the allied cavalry was on its right when the battle started.

As in almost all ancient battles, different reconstructions are possible. Appian has the battle start on the Seleucid left with a failed attack by the scythed chariots which disrupted the Seleucid cavalry on that wing. Roughly at the same time, there was a charge on the right by the Seleucid cavalry wing commanded by the king himself, which broke their opposing infantry leading to a pursuit by the Seleucid horse, leaving the field to unsuccessfully attack the Roman camp. The Roman ally Eumenes, commanding all their cavalry on the right of the Roman-Allied army counterattacked the Seleucid left, already disrupted by the scythed chariots, and broke it. In the center of the battle line, the Seleucids had arrayed their pike phalanx with elephants in intervals between the taxis. They seem to not have been able to really participate in the battle, having soon been encircled by the victorious enemy horse. Forming squares facing all sides, the phallangitai tried to march off the battlefield but their efforts were not successful, as they broke when the elephants panicked. Eventually, after further fighting, the Seleucid camp fell.

[edit] Conclusions

After an armistice was arranged between Antiochus and Rome the Roman army waged a campaign against the Galatians which politically undermined the Seleucid position in Asia Minor. The Romans had had a tremendous advantage throughout their campaign from their much more limited political objective. All the small powers could ally themselves to Rome because Rome sought no political annexations at this time. Conversely, the strategy of Antiochus had never made sense. The Aegean Sea was a natural frontier for a state based in Babylonia, as Xerxes discovered. If Antiochus had wanted to advance west into Greece, he needed to turn his state into the leading naval power in the Mediterranean, from nowhere, before sending his army west.

The treaty forced upon Antiochus III by the victorious Romans was crippling, in the Treaty of Apamea Antiochus was forced to pay a huge war indemnity of 15,000 Talents along with giving up significant territory in Asia Minor. The Taurus Mountains became the new frontier. The Seleucid navy was limited by treaty. It weakened the already fractious Seleucid Empire and halted all ambitions of Antiochus III in becoming a latter day Alexander in his own right. Polybius states the financial burden of war indemnity forced Antiochus III to loot temple treasuries. This alienated Seleucid subjects and further reducing the dynasty's prestige already sharply reduced by the decisive defeat suffered against the Romans.

An alternate view is that the real threat to the Seleucid Empire came from the east. The Taurus was a defensible frontier and the Seleucids were better off without having to deal with the turbulent politics of Greece and gained by having a great distance between them and Rome. Most of the lands lost had only been recaptured in 213 BC. Large parts of the Seleucid Empire of that time would never see a Roman army in the succeeding centuries. The economic powerhouse of the Seleucids was Babylonia which was never consolidated into the Roman Empire.

[edit] References

1. ^ Appian, Syriaca 7
2. ^ Appian, Syriaca 7
3. ^ Dexter Hoyos, Hannibal's Dynasty: Power and Politics in the Western Mediterranean, 247-183 BC, Routledge, 2005, p.203.
4. ^ Granger p320

[edit] External links

• http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/battles/magnesia.html

John D. Granger The Roman War of Antiochus the Great 2002 Leiden-Boston