History of Rome

​In the same year, King Antiochus, having wintered at Ephesus, attempted to reduce all the cities of Asia to the ancient formula of empire.

​And indeed, he saw that the others would accept the yoke without difficulty, either because they were situated in flat places or because they had little confidence in their walls, weapons, and youth;

​Smyrna and Lampsacus, however, were claiming their freedom, and there was a danger lest, if what they intended were granted to them, the other cities in Aeolis and Ionia would follow Smyrna, and those on the Hellespont would follow Lampsacus.

​Therefore, he himself sent forces from Ephesus to besiege Smyrna, and ordered the troops that were at Abydos, leaving only a moderate garrison, to be led to attack Lampsacus.

​Nor was he only terrifying them by force, but through envoys, by addressing them gently and chastising their rashness and obstinacy, he was trying to give them hope that they would shortly have what they were seeking, ​but since it was sufficiently clear both to themselves and to all others that they held their freedom as obtained by request from the king, ​and not as seized on occasion, to this it was answered that Antiochus ought neither to wonder at anything nor to be angry if they did not bear with sufficiently calm minds the delay of their hope of liberty.

​He himself, at the beginning of spring, having set out by ship from Ephesus, sought the Hellespont, and ordered the land forces to be crossed from Abydos to the Chersonese.

​When he had joined the naval and land armies at Madytus, a city of the Chersonese, because they had closed their gates, he surrounded the walls with armed men; and as he was already bringing up siege works, a surrender was made. The same fear gave Sestus’ inhabitants and the other cities of the Chersonese into surrender.

​From there, he came to Lysimachia with all his naval and land forces at the same time. When he had found it deserted and almost entirely laid low in ruins —

​for the Thracians had captured, plundered, and burned it a few years before —, a desire seized him to rebuild the noble city, situated in an advantageous place.

​Therefore, he undertook all things at once: both to rebuild the houses and walls, and partly to ransom the enslaved Lysimachians, partly to search out and gather together those scattered in flight through the Hellespont and the Chersonese, ​partly to enroll new colonists by proposing the hope of advantages, and in every way to repopulate it;

​at the same time, in order that the fear of the Thracians might be removed, he himself, with half of the land forces, set out to devastate the nearest parts of Thrace, and left the other half and all the naval allies at the works of rebuilding the city.