Livy, a Roman historian writing in the late first century BC, continues his History of Rome in Book 37. The last book left Antiochus, king of the Seleucid realm that stretched from Syria into Asia, driven out of Greece after Rome took Thermopylae; the war now follows him into western Turkey.

Lucius Scipio, wearing the fame of his brother who beat Hannibal in Africa, meets Antiochus at Magnesia. Scythed chariots and elephants fail against a legion, a Roman army unit that keeps its order. The Peace of Apamea strips the king of Europe and of Asia this side of the Taurus mountains, loads him with indemnity, and hands land to client kings. Eumenes of Pergamum grows rich on the settlement. Rhodes polices the sea-lanes as a friend. Rome orders the East without taking it all. Livy also records the other cargo: money, art, and the taste for both, and how those prizes begin to change the men who won them.