http://sheekh-3arb.org/library/books/christian/en/K7ZzIubk

2 Foundation for the Roman Involvement in Judaean Affairs Prologue: The Fateful Year 63 B.C.— Enter Pompaius Magnus Rome’s involvement with the lands northeast of the Mediterranean Sea’s eastern terminus was gradual but unavoidable. It’s unnecessary to recall the sobering encounter with the Carthaginian menace during the Punic Wars, personified by the diabolical (in Roman legend) Hannibal Barca. Notwithstanding these earlier flirtations, the turning point is the portentous moment when Pompey the Great conducted his sweep through Coele-Syria as part of his reordering of Rome’s “desert frontier.”

When Antiochus III, labeled “The Great,” stepped out of line in Greece at the end of the third century B.C., Rome moved in and set up a protectorate, more or less, over the Greek possessions in Asia Minor. By the Peace of Apamaea, in 188 B.C ., the Seleucid Empire lost its primacy as a great Mediterranean hegemon, though it remained a potent land power in Asia and a nuisance. At the same time, exploiting mercantile footholds, Rome established neighborly relations with the Greek cities of Coele-Syria, with some of whom she had formed friendly independent alliances. At that point in her development, Rome had acquired a false sense of security — there didn’t appear to be any imminent threat to her position. Accordingly, she lapsed into a kind of placid passivity over the next century. This indifference to ominous rumblings in Asia and at sea had nearly disastrous consequences.

Most alarmingly, her seaborne trade was harassed by a plague of pirates based on Cilicia in the eastern Mediterranean, who achieved virtual mastery of the sea-lanes in that region. By around 100 B.C., pressured by Italian traders, the Roman Senate realized the gravity of the problem — her food supplies, increasingly imported, were at risk. Together with this strangling of her mer23