Livy, writing in the late first century BC, composed a long History of Rome from the city’s founding. This is Book 35. In Book 34, Rome repealed a wartime limit on women’s gold and carriages, Cato the Elder opposed the change and then governed Spain with the same severity, while Nabis of Sparta still unsettled Greece and Spain still wore out commanders.

Antiochus III, called the Great, king of the Seleucid realm in the Near East, looks at Greece and sees an opening. The Aetolians, a Greek people bitter after the Roman victory at Cynoscephalae, invite him as a counterweight. Hannibal, a guest at the Syrian court, urges a new fight with Rome. Embassies argue over freedom, treaty faith, and who struck first. Antiochus moves toward Europe with elephants and a royal train that treats Rome as a western tribe. Roman envoys try to keep Greek cities from taking a Seleucid master. The old slogan of freedom now has a second target. Book 35 is the pause before another eastern war: invitation, miscalculation, and a king walking toward a name he does not yet fear.