But the sincerity of the Rhodian mediation efforts should not really be doubted. Rhodes had been willing to fight on the Seleukid side against Philadelphos in the Second Syrian War when she believed that the threat posed by Egypt was too great to tolerate. If Antiochos had suggested during the negotiations of 219/8 that Rhodes might be prejudiced in Egypt's favour, the Rhodians could have pointed to their conflict with the Ptolemies earlier in the century to prove that they were not blindly committed to Egypt's cause, right or wrong. They could also have argued that they had a formal friendship with both the Seleukid and the Ptolemaic kingdoms (Polybios 5.67, 11), and hence were appropriate mediators. In any case, there is no suggestion that
