Moreover, as the Aetolians have occupied Thermopylae,…

Ptolemy brings the war with the Seleucid Empire to an end in 253 by marrying his daughter, Berenice—who he provide with a huge dowry—to his foe Antiochus II.

Under the agreement, Berenice supplants Antiochus' first wife, Laodice, whose children she persuades him to bar from the succession to the throne in favor of her own prospective offspring.

Gonatus' position in Greece is now shaken by a number of reversals.

His nephew and viceroy Alexander revolts in Corinth with Ptolemy's help in 253 and declares himself an independent monarch.

Gonatus loses Corinth and …

…Chalcis, the two bases from which he dominates southern Greece.

Rome’s efforts against Carthage end in failure.

The Romans retreat from Lilybaeum, and the African force is caught in another storm and destroyed.

The Romans make great progress in the north, however.

The city of Thermae is captured in 252 BCE, enabling another advance on the port city of Panormus.

Aratus, a brilliant twenty-year-old guerrilla fighter with a hearty loathing for tyrants and Macedon alike, frees Sicyon from a tyranny in 251 and, after establishing a democracy, brings it into the Achaean League for defense against Macedonia.

The Romans attack Panormus after taking Kephalodon in 251 BCE.

After fierce fighting, the Carthaginians are defeated and the city falls.

With Panormus captured, much of western inland Sicily falls with it.

The cities of Ietas, Solous, Petra, and Tyndaris agree to peace with the Romans this same year.

Diodotus, a local Greco-Bactrian governor, declares the independence of the Afghan plain of the Amu River, in about 250 BCE.

Ptolemy reasserts his influence in the Aegean while the Macedonian forces are bogged down in Greece, making good the setback suffered during the Chremonidean War.

The Romans, shifting their attention to the southwest in 250, send a naval expedition toward Lilybaeum.

En route, the Romans seize and burn the Carthaginian holdout cities of Selinus and …