Philip persuades the cities of Hierapytna and…

The late Ptolemy’s advisors murder Queen Arsinoe about a year after his death, leaving the young successor, five-year old Ptolemy V at their mercy.

Sosibius becomes his guardian.

Events surrounding the death of Philopator and the succession of the youthful Epiphanes (205-180 BCE) are obscured by court intrigue.

According to the second-century BCE Greek historian Polybius, all prominent officials are banished from Egypt while Sosibius' clique announces the young king's accession and the death of his parents.

The Hellenistic rulers of Macedon and of the Syrian-based Seleucid kingdom, seeing an opportunity in Egypt's weakness, conspire to partition the kingdom's Asiatic and Aegean possessions.

The ancient Consentia, capital of the Italic tribe of the Bruttii, has long been a bulwark of the Italic people against the Hellenic influences of the Ionian colonies.

It was in this province that the Battle of Pandosia was fought, in which a small Italic army composed of Bruttii and Lucanians defeated Alexander the Great's uncle, Alexander of Epirus.

Located at the confluence of the Busento and Crati rivers, Cosenza has maintained a distinctive character, which marks it out among the cities of the region.

It falls to the Romans in 204.

Roman dramatist Gnaeus Naevius, probably a Roman citizen by birth, had served either in the Roman army or among the socii in the First Punic War, and thus must have reached manhood before 241.

An outspoken critic of those in power, his career as a dramatic author had begun with the exhibition of a drama in or about the year 235, and had continued for thirty years.

Towards the close, he had incurred the hostility of some of the nobility, especially, it is said, of the Metelli, by the attacks which he made upon them on the stage, and at their insistence he is convicted of slander for poking fun at public officials and imprisoned.

This is the first recorded) case of suppression of a theatrical performance After writing two plays during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have apologized for his former rudeness, he was liberated through the interference of the tribunes of the commons; but he had shortly afterwards to retire from Rome (in or about 204) to Utica.

It may have been during his exile, when withdrawn from his active career as a dramatist, that he composed or completed his poem on the First Punic War.

Probably his latest composition was his own epitaph.

Cato, who had been appointed Quaestor in 205 BCE, in the next year enters upon the duties of his place of work, following Scipio to Sicily.

When Scipio, acting on the consent which, after much opposition, he had obtained from the senate, transports the armed forces from Sicily into Africa, Cato and Gaius Laelius ware appointed to escort the baggage ships.

There is not the friendliness of cooperation between Cato and Scipio which ought to exist between a quaestor and his proconsul.

Fabius had opposed the permission given to Scipio to carry out the attack into the enemy's home, and Cato, whose appointment is intended to monitor Scipio's behavior, adopts the views of his friend.

Scipio sails at the commissioners' bidding from Sicily in 204 BCE at the head of his army of volunteers and lands near Utica.

Carthage, meanwhile, has secured the friendship of Syphax, whose advance compels Scipio to abandon the siege of Utica and dig in on the shore between there and Carthage.

The arrival of four thousand Celtiberian mercenaries from Southern Iberia makes the Carthaginians determined to make one more effort to stop the armies of Scipio from advancing across North Africa.

New levies are raised in Carthage and in Numidia, and soon Hasdrubal and Syphax find themselves at the head of an army of thirty thousand men.

Nanhai Lieutenant Ren Xiao becomes gravely ill soon after the first insurrections and summons the military commander Zhao Tuo to hear his dying instructions.

Ren describes the natural advantages of the southern region and describes how a kingdom could be founded to combat the warring groups in the Chinese north.

He drafts a decree instating Zhao Tuo as the new Lieutenant of Nanhai, and passes away soon afterward.

After Ren's death, Zhao Tuo sends orders to his troops in Hengpu Pass (north of modern Nanxiong, Guangdong Province), Yangshan Pass (northern Yangshan County), Huang Stream Pass (modern Yingde region, where the Lian River enters the Bei River), and other garrisons to fortify themselves against any northern troops.

He also executes Qin officials still stationed in Nanhai and replaces them with his own trusted friends.

Tradition states that Shu prince Shu Pan founded a kingdom called Au Lak, building his capital and citadel at Co Loa, thirty-five kilometers north of present-day Hanoi.

An Duong's kingdom was short-lived, however, being conquered in 208 BCE by the army of the Zhao Tuo.

The invaders assimilate his territory with that of Nanhai, Guilin, and Xiang.

In 206 BCE, the Qin Dynasty ceases to exist, and the Yue peoples of Guilin and Xiang are largely independent once more.

In 204 BCE, Zhao Tuo founds the Kingdom of Nanyue, with Panyu as capital, and declares himself the Martial King of Nanyue.

Scipio feigns negotiations, then mounts a treacherous surprise attack on Syphax, approaching by stealth and setting fire to the enemy camp, where the combined armies of the Carthaginians and Numidians become panicked and flee, and are mostly killed by Scipio's army.

Though not a "battle," both Polybius and Livy estimate that the death toll in this single attack exceeded forty thousand Carthaginian and Numidian dead, and more captured.

Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax, both men having succeeded in escaping from their camps, which Scipio and his Numidian ally Masinissa had destroyed with the aid of and Laelius, fall back with a few followers who had also escaped the massacre.

Scipio, his command extended until the end of the war, marches to meet Hasdrubal and Syphax at a place called the Great Plains.

The charge of the Roman cavalry causes the Carthaginian infantry and cavalry flee from the field; only the Spanish infantry remain standing, defending themselves fiercely.

The number of Spanish mercenaries is about equal to the first line of the Romans, the hastati.

Then Scipio orders his principes and triarii to march from behind the hastati and attack the flanks of the Spanish mercenaries, who are routed, with only a handful managing to escape.

Syphax, fleeing back to his kingdom in Numidia, is pursued by Masinissa and Laelius, who defeat him at the Battle of Cirta, as a result of which he is captured and brought back to the Roman camp as a prisoner.

Masinissa is given command of Syphax's kingdom, the land from which he had originally been exiled.

The Carthaginians have little choice following the Battle of the Great Plains but to sue for peace with Rome.

Scipio proposes modest terms for the Carthaginians in a peace treaty.

The Carthaginians, no longer believing a treaty advantageous, rebuff it under much Roman protest, and the Carthaginain Senate suddenly decides to finally recall Hannibal, who has an army of elite veterans loyal to his command, from a battle-scarred Italy, for one more stand against Rome.

Meanwhile, the Carthaginians breach the armistice agreement by capturing a stranded Roman fleet in the Gulf of Tunis and stripping it of supplies.