I am still listening to Harold Lamb’s biography of Hannibal and was surprised that he considered the Roman “liberation” of Greece by Titus Quinctius Flamininus and the resulting power vacuum that was created when the legions withdrew after defeating Philip V of Macedon at the battle of Cynoscephalae, an intentional ploy by the Romans to lure Antiochus III into a confrontation. He indicated Hannibal recognized it as a trap and tried to warn Antiochus but the great king did not listen to him.
In an earlier lecture (I think by Professor Garrett Fagan) on Roman History, I understood Dr. Fagan to point to the Roman withdrawal from Greece as an indication that Rome at that point in time still did not have imperial aspirations in the east.
This lecture by Professor Christopher Mackay at the University of Alberta provides quite a bit of background which makes it sound like the Romans definitely had plans for the eastern Mediterranean.
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