by the Romans had remained unattended to, and had even been scoffed at,
by Prusias (598-600). But, when his ward Attalus III Philometor
ascended the throne (616-621), the peaceful and moderate rule of
the citizen kings was replaced by the tyranny of an Asiatic sultan;
under which for instance, the king, with a view to rid himself of
the inconvenient counsel of his father's friends, assembled them in
the palace, and ordered his mercenaries to put to death first them,
and then their wives and children. Along with such recreations he
wrote treatises on gardening, reared poisonous plants, and prepared
wax models, till a sudden death carried him off.

Province of Asia
War against Aristonicus

With him the house of the Attalids became extinct. In such an event,
according to the constitutional law which held good at least for
the client-states of Rome, the last ruler might dispose of the
succession by testament. Whether it was the insane rancour against
his subjects which had tormented the last Attalid during life that
now suggested to him the thought of bequeathing his kingdom by will
to the Romans, or whether his doing so was merely a further recognition
of the practical supremacy of Rome, cannot be determined. The testament
was made;(32) the Romans accepted the bequest, and the question as to
the land and the treasure of the Attalids threw a new apple of contention
among the conflicting political parties in Rome. In Asia also this
royal testament kindled a civil war. Relying on the aversion of
the Asiatics to the foreign rule which awaited them, Aristonicus,
a natural son of Eumenes II, made his appearance in Leucae, a small
seaport between Smyrna and Phocaea, as a pretender to the crown.
Phocaea and other towns joined him, but he was defeated at sea off
Cyme by the Ephesians--who saw that a steady adherence to Rome
was the only possible way of preserving their privileges--and was
obliged to flee into the interior. The movement was believed to
have died away when he suddenly reappeared at the head of the new
"citizens of the city of the sun,"(33) in other words, of the slaves
whom he had called to freedom en masse, mastered the Lydian towns of
Thyatira and Apollonis as well as a portion of the Attalic townships,
and summoned bands of Thracian free-lances to join his standard.
The struggle was serious. There were no Roman troops in Asia;
the Asiatic free cities and the contingents of the client-princes
of Bithyn