Now to explain why I have dealt with this at such length.
As this period immediately precedes those times, the history of which I am about to write, I thought it would be of service, or rather that the original plan of this work made it necessary for me, to make clearly known to everyone the state of affairs in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a> and Greece at this time.
Just about the same time Ptolemy Euergetes fell sick and died, being succeeded by Ptolemy surnamed Philopator.
Seleucus, the son of the Seleucus surnamed Callinicus or Pogon, also died at this time, his brother Antiochus succeeding him in the kingdom of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Syria&groupId=995&placeId=502">Syria</a>.
The same thing in fact occurred in the case of these three kings, as in that of the first successors of Alexander in the three kingdoms, Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus,
who all, as I stated above, died in the 124th Olympiad, while these kings died in the 139th.
I have thus completed this Introduction or preliminary part of my History. In it I have shown in the first place when, how, and why the Romans, having mastered <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a>, first entered on enterprises outside that land and disputed the command of the sea with the Carthaginians,
and next I have dealt with the state of Greece and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a> and with that of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> as this existed then.
So having, as was my original purpose, reached the date at which the Greeks were on the eve of the Social War, the Romans on the eve of the Hannibalic War, and the kings of Asia about to enter on the war for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Coele-Syria&groupId=484&placeId=908">Coele-Syria</a>,
I must now bring this Book to its close, which coincides with the final events preceding these wars and the death of the three kings who had up to now directed affairs.
Walbank Commentary