��197 BC.
When the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great tried to regain the Greek cities of Asia Minor, he came in conflict with Rome. After a series of battles, he was defeated by Scipio Asiaticus at theBattle of Magnesia in 190 BC. As a result, Ephesus came under the rule of the Attalid king ofPergamon Eumenes II (197–133 BC). When his grandson Attalus III died without male children of his own, he left his kingdom to the Roman Republic.
Roman period
Ephesus, a territory that was traditionally Greek to the core, became subject of the Roman Republic. The city felt at once the Roman influence. Taxes rose considerably, and the treasures of the city were systematically plundered. In 88 BC Ephesus welcomedArchelaus, a general of Mithridates the Great, king ofPontus, when he conquered Asia (the Roman name for western Asia Minor). This led to the Asiatic Vespers, the slaughter of 80,000 Roman citizens in Asia, or any person who spoke with a Latin accent. Many had lived in Ephesus. But when they saw how badly the people ofChios had been treated by Zenobius, a general of Mithridates, they refused entry to his army. Zenobius was invited into the city to visit Philopoemen (the father of Monime, the favorite wife of Mithridates) and the overseer of Ephesus. As the people expected nothing good of him, they threw him into prison and murdered him. Mithridates took revenge and inflicted terrible punishments. However, the Greek cities were given freedom and several substantial rights. Ephesus became, for a short time, self-governing. When Mithridates was defeated in the First Mithridatic War by the Roman consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Ephesus came back under the Roman rule in 86 BC. Sulla imposed a huge indemnity, along with five years of back taxes, which left Asian cities heavily in debt for a long time to come.
When Augustus became emperor in 27 BC, he made Ephesus instead of Pergamum the capital of proconsular Asia, which covered western
