Hittites years of the Old Hittite Kingdom, can be explained in part by the nature of the Hittite kingship at that time. During the Old Hittite Kingdom period prior to 1400 BC, the king of the Hittites was not viewed by the Hittite citizenry as a "living god", like the Pharaohs of Egypt, but rather as a first among equals. Only in the later period of the Hittite Empire, from 1400 BC until 1200 BC, did the kingship of the Hittites become more centralized and powerful. Also in earlier years the succession was not legally fixed, enabling the "war of the
Classical Anatolia external forces. His son Antiochus I Soter (281–261 BC) faced the first of many Syrian Wars with the Seleucids southern neighbours, the Ptolomies. He was unable to fulfill his father's ambitions of incorporating Thrace and Macedonia and nor was he able to subdue Cappadocia and Bithynia in Asia Minor. A new threat was incursions by the Gauls from the north west but they were repelled in 278 BC. Within Asia Minor, the power of Pergamon on the Aegean coast, a remnant of the Lysimachean Empire, was growing. Eumenes I, dynast of Pergamon, revolted against Seleucid rule and defeated Antiochus near