Dr Simon Elliott

So Philip V, at the height of the Second Punic War, while Hannibal is winning in Italy, thinks it's a good idea to side with Hannibal.

So he's aware of Rome.

He's thinking, actually, we do need to get rid of these Romans.

I think he's after loot.

I think basically they all think that the Roman world's about to collapse so that everyone wants to pile in.

But his embassy to Hannibal gets intercepted at sea by the Romans.

So the Romans now have in their sights the Hellenistic world for the first time.

The Greek world.

There's a difference here, Dan.

It's very important for the rest of Roman history.

When Alexander the Great defeated Darius III, the last Achaemenid Persian king, he inherited the wealth of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which is an astonishing amount of money.

And it dwarfs anything you would get in the Western Mediterranean or Italy, backwaters.

This is effectively, in this known world, all the wealth.

That's it.

And then it gets divvied out when he dies in 323 BC amongst all of his various commanders who then found the various kingdoms of the Hellenistic world.

So you have the kingdom of Macedon, the Antigonids.

You have... Ptolemy and Egypt.

Ptolemy and Egypt.

The Seleucid kingdom in Syria and Iraq, etc.

They're dripping in wealth.