ABSTRACT

When the Romans defeated Antiochus, they proudly banished him to what they described as “the furthest boundaries of the world,” 6 or “the furthest corner of the earth.” 7 What they meant was “beyond the Taurus mountains” 8 of Eastern Anatolia/Asia Minor, the area that now marked the sovereign political boundary of their empire in the east. The Romans attached political and mythological significance to this boundary. Both Livy and speakers in his Ab Urbe Condita consistently describe the mountains along the Taurus range as the limit of Roman dominion and the boundary between safety on one side and danger on the other. This was “on account of some verses in the Sybilline oracles threatening slaughter and destruction to those Roman armies which should pass that limit.” 9 The Taurus Mountains were thus the fatal boundaries: On one side, the Romans secured peace and life; on the other they prophesized disaster and death.