Tom Holland

And there he proclaims the freedom of the Greeks in flamboyant language.

At the same time, with a kind of completely unembarrassed hypocrisy, which will become very, very typical of Roman behavior over the succeeding decades, he also replaces the Macedonian garrisons that had been occupying various strongholds in Greece and which were colloquially known as the fetters of Greece.

with Roman garrisons.

So even as he is proclaiming the fact that I've defeated Macedon, I've freed Greece from Macedonian tyranny, Greece is now free, he is replacing those Macedonian garrisons with Roman garrisons.

And it means that Greece is now effectively, within less than a decade of the Battle of Zama, it's become a Roman protectorate.

Yeah, so there are basically three.

So there's Macedon, which governs Greece, but have now been defeated by the Romans.

There's the Ptolemies in Egypt, as you say.

And then there's the largest of the lot, the Seleucid Empire.

the Seleucid Empire, which at this point is ruled by Antiochus III, who is the heir of Seleucus, who had been one of Alexander's generals.

And under Antiochus, who comes to be known as Antiochus the Great, the Seleucid Empire reaches its furthest extent.

So it ends up stretching from the Aegean all the way to the frontiers of India.

And Antiochus understandably feels that as the ruler of an empire as massive as this, he doesn't need to put up with any nonsense from the Romans, who he views as kind of upstart barbarians.

And so when he crosses the Hellespont into Thrace, he moves from Asia into Europe and begins menacing the Greek cities on the eastern seaboard of the Aegean, so what's now the coast of Turkey.

And the Romans send protests.

He responds to the Roman ambassadors with absolute contempt.

And it's not just that he rules this massive empire.

It's not just that he rules the Romans as barbarians who should keep out of Greek affairs.

It's also the fact that by this point, he is in communication with the best possible man to advise him on how to defeat the Romans.

And that is, of course, Hannibal.