He imagined Antiochus III the Great as having been completely defeated by the Romans in the Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC), to the point of losing his throne and becoming an exile and a wanderer (something far from the actual truth).
[1] For the revised version, Massinger used Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World and Plutarch's Life or Titus Flaminius.
In the notes, two men have to stand ready to raise Joseph Taylor up through the stage's trap door when Antiochus is released from his dungeon in Act IV, scene 1.
In the last scene of Act IV, Antiochus enters with "his head shaved in the habit of a Slave" – which leads to the question of how the actor's transition from haired to hairless was done.
In one reconstruction, the play's 44 speaking roles were performed by 17 actors, seven "sharers" or permanent members of the company supported by ten hired men and boys.
After living concealed and in obscurity since the battle, Antiochus is now trying to regain his lost crown; he has come to Carthage, a traditional enemy of Rome, in search of support.
The middle portion of the opening scene is illegible in the damaged MS. (pages 3–4), but the action is comprehensible: Antiochus's three servants, Chrysalus, Geta, and Syrus, decide to betray their master.
(The character is based on a Roman politician and general of the relevant period; but the real Titus Quinctius Flaminius died in 174 BC.)
The scene is set in Carthage, and shows three merchants from Asia Minor complaining to Berecinthius, the "archflamen" or high priest of the goddess Cybele, about their mistreatment in a maritime dispute with Rome.
Flaminius offers the king another choice: he can subsist on bread and water, or he can enjoy good food and comfortable conditions – if he admits he's a fraud.
The last Act opens with Marcellus, the Roman proconsul of Sicily, and his wife Cornelia (in the Sebastian play, they were the Duke and Duchess of Medina Sedonia).
The Second and Third Merchants have provided evidence of Flaminius's corrupt practices at Carthage; Marcellus has the man arrested and sent back to Rome.
Marcellus can do nothing for the king, as Antiochus recognizes in his closing speech: A production of the play was mounted at Bristol University in 2001, the first known staging since the seventeenth century.
The text was prepared by Martin White, with pastiche period verse composed by Ian McHugh to fill the gaps in the manuscript.