Eumenes Ii

EUMENES II [ISBE]

EUMENES II - u'-me-nez (Eumenes, "well-disposed"): King of Pergamus, son and successor of Attalus I (197 BC). He is mentioned in the Apocrypha (1 Macc 8:8) in connection with the league which Judas Maccabeus made with the Romans. As their ally in the war against Antiochus the Great and in recognition of his signal service at the decisive battle of Magnesia (190 BC), Eumenes II was rewarded with such extensive tracts of country as raised him at once from comparative insignificance to be the sovereign of a great state. The statement in the Apocrypha describing his extension of territory differs from those of Livy, Polybius and Appian, and cannot be correct. The Romans are said to have taken "India, and Media and Lydia" from Antiochus and to have given them to Eumenes II. Antiochus never had any possessions in India nor had any earlier king of Syria. He was obliged to give up only the countries on the side of Taurus toward Rome. No suggestion for the reading "India" in the narrative has met with acceptance (it may possibly have been a copyist's error for "Ionia"; see Livy xxxvii.44). Eumenes II cultivated the Roman alliance carefully but became suspected in connection with the affairs of Perseus, the last king of Macedonia. He never came to an open rupture with the Romans, and died in 159 BC, after a reign of 39 years.

J. Hutchison