*The eastern crisis: 202 B. C.* The Roman senate had been eager to conclude a satisfactory peace with Carthage as soon as possible in order to devote its undivided attention to a crisis which had arisen in the eastern Mediterranean. There Ptolemy IV of Egypt had died in 203 B. C., leaving the kingdom to an infant son who was in the hands of corrupt and dissolute advisors. Egypt had lost her command of the eastern Mediterranean at the time of Rome’s First Carthaginian War, and later (217 B. C.) had only saved herself in a war against Syria by calling to arms a portion of the native population. This step had led to internal racial difficulties which weakened the position of the dynasty. At this juncture Philip V of Macedon, who had emerged with credit from his recent struggle with Rome and his foes in Greece, and Antiochus III of Syria, who had just returned from a series of successful campaigns (212–204 B. C.) which had recovered for his kingdom its eastern provinces as far as the Indus and had won for him the surname of “the Great,” judged the moment favorable for the realization of long-cherished ambitions at the expense of their rival, Egypt. They formed an alliance for the conquest of the outlying possessions of the Ptolemies, whereby Philip was to occupy those in the Aegean, while Antiochus was to seize Phoenicia and Palestine. In 202 B. C. they opened hostilities. *The appeal for Roman intervention: 201 B. C.* But the operations of the forces of Philip in the Aegean brought him into war with Rhodes and with Attalus, King of Pergamon, while in Greece a quarrel, which developed between some of his allies and the Athenians, involved him in hostilities with the latter. From these three states and from Egypt, which, having been unable to prevent Antiochus from occupying her Syrian possessions, was now threatened with invasion, envoys were sent to Rome, to request Roman intervention on their behalf, on the ground that they were friends (_amici_) of Rome. *The status of amicitia.* The Romans had adopted the idea of international friendship (_amicitia_, _philia_) from the Greeks in the course of the third century. Previously, their only conception of friendly relations between states was that of alliance (_societas_) based upon a perpetual treaty (_foedus_), which bound each party to render military assistance to the other and which neither could terminate at discretion. However, under the influence of ideas current among the Hellenic states they began to form friendships, i. e. to open up diplomatic relations with states and rulers. These _amici_ (friends) could remain neutral in case Rome engaged in war, or they could render Rome support, which was, however, voluntary and not obligatory. And Rome enjoyed a similar freedom of action with regard to them.