Battle of Magnesia

Bronze from Pergamon, likely depicting the Battle of Magnesia, in 190 BC, with Roman infantry, Seleucid phalangites and Attalid cavalrymen.

Date	December 190 BC
Location	Near Magnesia ad Sipylum, Lydia
Result	Decisive Pergamene-Roman victory

Belligerents

Roman Republic

Seleucid Empire

Commanders and leaders

Lucius Cornelius Scipio
Eumenes II of Pergamum

Antiochus III the Great
Zeuxis
Seleucus

Strength

30,000
(ancient sources)
50,000
(modern source)
16 war elephants

70,000
(ancient sources)
50,000
(modern source)

Casualties and losses

at least 349
(ancient sources)
5,000
(modern source)

up to 50,000 dead and captured
(ancient sources)
10,000
(modern sources)

The Battle of Magnesia was the concluding battle of the Roman–Seleucid War, fought in 190 BC near Magnesia ad Sipylum on the plains of Lydia between Romans, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio and the Roman ally Eumenes II of Pergamum, and the army of Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid Empire. A decisive Roman victory resulted in Roman domination over the internal affairs of a large part of the territory once controlled by the Seleucid Empire.

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

Antiochus was driven out of Greece following the defeat of his expeditionary force at the Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC). The Roman navy with the Rhodians and other allies outmaneuvered and defeated the Seleucid navy, permitting the Roman army to cross the Hellespont. The Roman army operated under the commands of the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, younger brother of Scipio Africanus, who accompanied him as legatus. The Carthaginian general and dire enemy of the Roman Republic Hannibal Barca, had fled to Antiochus' court after his defeat at the Battle of Zama and the end of the Second Punic War. Some believe that Hannibal was present at Magnesia. This is false, however, because Hannibal, who had commanded the fleet and lost at Eurymedon, had retreated and then fled to Crete for fear that Antiochus would lose and turn him over to the Romans.

In anticipation of the battle, Antiochus set up an entrenched camp protecting the approach to Sardis and his fleet base at Ephesus. According to both Livy and Appian, he posted his 16,000 strong phalanx, armed in the Macedonian fashion in the center in brigades (taxeis) of 1,600 men, 50 men wide and 32 men deep. He ordered intervals to be formed among the taxeis in which he placed 2 elephants each. On the right wing, next to the phalanx, he arrayed 1,500 Gallograecian infantry, 3,000 Galatian mail clad cavalry (cataphracti) and 1,000 agema cavalry, his royal household guards. Behind them he kept 16 elephants in reserve. Next to the agema, he placed a cavalry corps Livy calls argyraspides, 200 or 1,200 Dahae horse archers, 3,000 Cretan and Trallean light infantry, 2,500 Mysian bowmen, Cyrtian slingers and Elymaean archers. On the left, Antiochus arrayed another 1,500 Gallograecian infantry, according to Appian men from the tribes of the Tectosagi, the Trocmi and the Tolistoboii, 2,000 Cappadocians similarly armed and a miscellaneous force of 2,700. Next to them, he posted 1,000 heavy horsemen, the Companions, 3,000 more cataphracti and probably another 1,000 men of the agema. In front of them, he placed the scythed chariots and a unit of dromedary, camel-borne Arab archers. His left wing was completed with a corps of Tarentines, 2,500 Gallograecian cavalry, 1,000 newly enlisted Cretans, 1,500 Carians and Cilicians similarly armed, and the same number of Tralles. Then came 4,000 peltasts, Pisidians, Pamphylians and Lydians, next to these Cyrtian and Elymaean troops equal in number to those on the right wing, and finally sixteen elephants a short distance away. Antiochus retained command of the horse on the right wing in person; his son Seleucus and his nephew Antipater commanded the left. Philip, the master of the elephants, commanded the phalanx, and Mendis and Zeuxis the skirmishers.

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