Changes

Eumenes II (reigned 197-159 BC) continued Pergamon’s alliance with Rome. The Roman-Pergamon alliance led to a war against Sparta as well as Macedon and its king, Perseus (ruled 212-166 BC), during the Third Macedonian War (171-168 BC). <ref> King, p. 258</ref> The Third Macedonian War would prove to be the last one, as Macedon was thoroughly defeated and incorporated into Rome. Pergamon gained little physically from the Third Macedonian War, but it did expand its borders by siding with Rome against Antiochus III (ruled 222-187 BC), king of the Seleucid Empire. As Antiochus III attempted to expand Seleucid territory into Asia Minor, the Romans helped Eumenes II check that aggression, which led to a decisive battle near the Asia Minor city of Manisa in 190 BC. In that battle, the Romans and Pergamonians vanquished the Seleucids from Asia Minor, leaving the Attalids with control over much of the region. In the Peace of Apamea (188 BC), Pergamon’s borders were extended south to Cappadocia <ref> Kästner, p. 35</ref> and with its close relationship with Rome became as powerful as Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Empire. By the early second century BC, Pergamon’s importance as a political center was undeniable, but its greatness as a cultural center had already been long established.

====The Art and Architecture of Pergamon====

====The Library of Pergamon====

Eumenes II is also credited with the construction of another one of Pergamon’s great cultural attractions – the Library of Pergamon. It is believed that Eumenes II received his inspiration to build a great library in Pergamon from the older and better-known Library of Alexandria, but the king of Pergamon actively sought to make his library better. <ref> Thorton, John L. <i>The Chronology of Librarianship.</i> (London: Grafton and Company, 1941), p. 12</ref> According to the first century BC Greek geographer, Strabo, the kings of Pergamon scoured the Hellenic world looking for volumes to add to their library.

“Aristotle bequeathed his own library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left his school; and he is the first man, so far as I know, to have collected books and to have taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library. Theophrastus bequeathed it to Neleus; and Neleus took it to Scepsis and bequeathed it to his heirs, ordinary people, who kept the books locked up and not even carefully stored. But when they heard how zealously the Attalic kings to whom the city was subject were searching for books to build up the library in Pergamum, they hid their books underground in a kind of trench.” <ref> Strabo. <i> Geography.</i> Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001), Book XIII, I, 54</ref>

====Conclusion====

====References====

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