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Attalus I (Soter "Savior") (269 BC–197 BC)¹ son of Attalus, and Antiochis² (perhaps the granddaughter of Seleucus I Nicator), and second cousin of Eumenes I³, whom he succeeded in 241 BC as ruler of Pergamon, was the first of the Attalid dynasty to assume the title of king.⁴

Defeat of the Gauls

According to Pausanias "the greatest of his achievements" was the defeat of the Galatian Gauls⁵. Since the time of Philetaerus, the uncle of Eumenes I and the first Attalid ruler, the Galatians had posed a problem for Pergamon, indeed for all of Asia Minor. Eumennes I, had (probably), along with other rulers, dealt with the Galations by paying them tribute. Attalus refused to pay tribute, being the first such ruler to do so.⁶ As a consequence, the Galations set out to attack Pergamon. Attalus met them near the sources of the river Caïcus,⁷ and won a decisive victory, after which, following the example of Antiochus I, Attalus took the name of Soter which means "savior" and claimed the title of king.⁸ The victory brought Attalus legendary fame. A story arose which Pasanias tells of an oracle who had fortold these events a generation earlier:

Then verily, having crossed the narrow strait of the Hellespont

The devastating host of the Gauls shall pipe; and lawlessly

They shall ravage Asia; and much worse shall God do

To those who dwell by the shores of the sea

Shall a short while. For right soon the son of Cronos

Shall raise a helper, the dear son of a bull reared Zeus

Who on all the Gauls shall bring a day of destruction.

Pausanius adds that by the "son of a bull" the oracle "meant Attalus, king of Pergamon, who was styled bull-horned".⁹ On the acropolis of Pergamon, was erected a triumphal monument, which included the famous sculpture The Dying Gaul commemorating this battle.

Conquests in Seleucid Asia Minor

Several years after the first victory over the Gauls, Pergamon was again attacked by the Gauls together with their ally Antiochus Hierax, the younger brother of Seleucus II Callinicus, and ruler of Seleucid Asia Minor from his capital at Sardis. Attalus defeated the Gauls and Antiochus at the battle of Aphrodisium and again at a second battle in the east. Susequent battles were fought and won against Antiochis alone, in Hellespontine Phrygia, (where Antiochis was perhaps seeking refuge with his father-in law, Ziaelas the king of Bithynia), near Sardis (in the spring of 228 BC), and, in the final battle of the campaign, further south in Caria on the banks of the Harpasus a tributary of the Maeander.¹⁰

As a result of these victories, Attalus gained control over all of Seleucid Asia Minor north of the Taurus Mountains¹¹. He was able to hold onto these gains in the face of repeated attempts by Seleucus III Ceraunus, eldest son and successor of Selecus II, to recover the lost territory,¹² culminating in Seleucus III himself crossing the Taurus with his army, only to be assassinated¹³ in 223 BC.

Achaeus who had accompanied Seleucus III, assumed control of the army. He was offered and refused the kingship in favor of Seleucus III's younger brother Antiochus III the Great, who then made Achaeus govenor of Selucid Asia Minor north of the Taurus. Within two years Achaeus had recovered all the lost Seleucid territories, "shut up Attalus within the walls of Pergamon", and assumed the title of King.¹⁴

After a period of peace, in 218 BC, while Achaeus was involved in an expedition to Selge south of the Taurus, Attalus, with some Thracian Gauls, recaptured his former territories.¹⁵ However Achaeus returned from victory in Selge in 217 BC and resumed hostilities with Attalus.

Antiochus, under a treaty of alliance with Attalus, crossed the Taurus in 216 BC, attacked Acheaus.¹⁶ and besiged Sardis, and in 214 BC, the second year of the siege, was able to take the city. However the citadel remained under Acheaus' control.¹⁷ Under the pretense of a rescue, Achaeus was finaly captured and put to death, and the citadel surrendered¹⁸ By 213 BC, Antiochis had regained control of all of his Asiatic provinces.

First Macedonian War

Attalus, now thwarted in the east, turned his attention westward. Perhaps because of concern for the ambitions of Philip V of Macedon, Attalus had sometime before 219 BC become allied with Philips' enemies the Aetolian League, funding the fortification of Elaeus in Calydonia at the mouth of the Caïcus.

Philips' alliance with Hannibal of Carthage in 215 BC also caused concern in Rome, then involved in the Second Punic War¹⁹. In 211 BC, a treaty was signed between Rome and the Aetolian League, a provision of which allowed for the inclusion of certain allies of the League, Attalus being one of these.²⁰ Attalus was elected stategos (general) of the Aetolian League, and in 210 BC his troops probably participated in capturing the island of Aegina,²¹ aquired by Attalus as his base of operations in Greece.

In the following spring (209 BC), Philip marched south into Greece. The allies lost two battles at Lamia. Attalus himself went to Greece in July and was joined on Aegina by the Roman commander P. Sulpicius Galba who wintered there. The following summer (208 BC) the combined Roman and Pergamene fleet of sixty ships tried and failed to take Lemnos but were able to plunder the fields of Peparethos, both Macedonian possesions. Attalus and Sulpicius then attended a meeting in Heraclea of the Council of Aetolians, at which the Roman argued against making peace with Philip. When hostilities resumed, they sacked both Oreus, on the northern coast of Euboea and Opus, the chief city of eastern Locris.

The spoils from Oreus had been reserved for Sulpicius, who returned there, while Attalus stayed to collect the spoils from Opus. With their forces divided, Philip attacked Opus. Attalus caught by surprise was barely able to escape to his ships.

Attalus was now, however, forced to return to Asia, for he had learned at Opus that, at the urging of Philip, Prusias of Bithynia, who was related by marriage to Philip, was moving against Pergamon. Soon after, the Romans also abandoned Greece to concentrate there forces against Hannibal, their objective of preventing Philip from aiding Hannibal having been achieved.

In 206 BC the Aetolians sued for peace on conditions imposed by Philip. A treaty was drawn up at Phoenice in 205 BC, formally ending the First Macedonian War. The "Peace of Phoenice" also ended the war with Prusias, and Attalus retained Aegina.

Battle of Chios

Prevented by the treaty of Phoenice from expansion in the east, Philip set out to extend his power in the Aegean. In the spring of 201 BC he took Samos and the Egyptian fleet stationed there. He then besieged Chios to the north. These events caused Attalus allied with Rhodes, Byzantium and Cyzicus to enter the war. A large naval battle occured in the strait between Chios and Argennum, southwest of Erythrae. According to Polybius, fifty three decked warships and over one hundred and fifty smaller warships, took part on the Macedonian side, with sixty-five decked warships and a number of smaller warships on the allied side.²² During the battle Attalus having become isolated from his fleet, and pursued by Philip, was forced to run his three ships ashore, narrowly escaping (again, see above) by spreading various royal treasures on the decks of the grounded ships, causing his pursuers to abandon the pursuit in favor of plunder.²³

Family

Attalus married Apollonis, from Cyzicus and they had four sons, Eumenes, Attalus, Philetaerus and Athenaeus (after Apollonis' father).³¹ Polybius describes Apollonis as:

a woman who for many reasons deserves to be remembered, and with honor. Her claims upon a favourable recollection are that, though born of a private family, she became a queen, and retained that exalted rank to the end of her life, not by the use of meretricious fascinations, but by the virtue and integrity of her conduct in private and public life alike. Above all, she was the mother of four sons with whom she kept on terms of the most perfect affection and motherly love to the last day of her life.³²

The filial "affection" of the brothers as well as their upbringing is remarked on by several ancient sources. A decree of Antiochus IV praises

king Attalus and queen Apollonis … because of their virtue and goodness, which they preserved for their sons, managing their education in this way wisely and well.³³

An inscription at Pergamon represents Apollonis as saying that

she always considered herself blessed and gave thanks to the gods, not for wealth or empire, but because she saw her three sons guarding the eldest and him reigning without fear among those who were armed.³⁴

Polybius, describing Attalus' life says:

… and what is more remarkable than all, though he left four grown-up sons, he so well settled the question of succession, that the crown was handed down to his children's children without a single dispute³⁵

Attalus died in 197 BC at the age of 72. He was succeded by his son Eumenes II.

Other

Attalus helped Rome introduce the worship of Magna Mater (livy, XXIX 10-11; 14, 5-14; Varro, L.L. VI 15)

References

• Hansen, Esther V. (1971). The Attalids of Pergamon. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press; London: Cornell University Press Ltd. ISBN 0801406153.
• Livy, History of Rome, Rev. Canon Roberts (translator), Ernest Rhys (Ed.); (1905) London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. :
• Pausanius, Description of Greece, Books I-II, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. (1918) ISBN 0674991044. :
• Polybius, Histories, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (translator); London, New York. Macmillan (1889); Reprint Bloomington (1962). :
• Strabo, Geography, Books 15-16, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (1924) ISBN 0674992660. :

Footnotes

• ¹ Livy, History of Rome, 33.21 [1] says that Attalus died in the consulship of Cornelius and Minucius (197 BC) at the age of 72, having reigned 44 years. Polybius, Histories 18.41 [2] also says that he lived 72 and reigned 44 years. Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2 [3] says that he reigned 43 years.
• ² Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2 [4]
• ³ Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2 [5] says that he was the cousin of Eumenes. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.8.1 [6] probably following Strabo, says the same. But modern writers have concluded that Strabo had skipped a generation, see Esther V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon, (1971), p. 26.
• ⁴ Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2 [7]; Polybius, Histories 18.41 [8]

5. Pausanius, Description of Greece, 1.8.1 [9]

6. Livy, History of Rome, 38.16 [10]

7. Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2 [11]; Polybius, Histories 18.41 [12]

8. An Inscription from the Gaul Monument located in the Athena Sanctuary on the acropolis at Pargamon reads: "King Attalos having conquered in battle the Tolistoagii Gauls around the springs of the river Kaikos [set up this] thank-offering to Athena." See: [13]

9. Pausanius, Description of Greece, 10.15.2 [14]

10. Esther V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon, (1971), p. 35.

11. Polybius, Histories 4.48 [15]

12. Esther V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon, (1971), p. 36.

13. Polybius, Histories 4.48 [16]

14. Polybius, Histories 4.48 [17]

15. Polybius, Histories 5.77 [18]

16. Polybius, Histories 5.107 [19]

17. Polybius, Histories 7.15–18 [20]

18. Polybius, Histories 8.17–23 [21]

19. Livy, History of Rome, 23.33–34, 38 [22]

20. Livy, History of Rome, 26.24 [23]

21. Livy, History of Rome, 27.29.10; Polybius, Histories 9.42 [24]

22. Polybius, Histories 16.2 [25]

23. Polybius, Histories 16.6 [26]

31. Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2 [27]

32. Polybius, Histories 22.20 [28]

33. Esther V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon, (1971), p. 45.

34. Esther V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon, (1971), p. 45.

35. Polybius, Histories 18.41 [29]