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CHAPTER 11.
SYRIA
The reigns of the first Seleucids have hitherto been traced in regard to
Asia Minor; they have appeared but as a long struggle for the possession of
that country. But while it is in this light that the surviving records show
them, while this perhaps they principally were, the successors of Seleucus
wished also to preside over the life of that remoter world which the Greek had
come to know beyond the Taurus, to be the sovereign power over the ancient
Aramaean and Babylonian peoples, over the husbandmen and horsemen of Iran. But
of the work they did there, of the cities they built, of the Hellenic
communities they planted far and wide, of the way in which the native peoples
looked upon this new element thrust into their midst and upon their alien
overlords—of all that what memorial is left?
The Seleucid domain
towards the east consisted, as we have seen, of three main divisions, the lands
immediately to the south of the Taurus—that is Cilicia, Northern Syria, and
Mesopotamia—the lands of the lower Euphrates and Tigris— that is, the Assyrio-Babylonian
country—and lastly, Iran. We will take each of these separately and see what
can be made out of Seleucid rule there up to the accession of Antiochus III.
For all of them our evidence is two-fold, literary and archaeological, both
sorts scanty enough. In the remains of historians only a notice here and there
occurs relating to some part of these countries, as they were touched by the
interminable wars; from the geographers the names of cities can be gathered which
bear witness to the Hellenizing activity of the Seleucid kings, and sometimes
show on what main pivots geographically the life of those days turned. The
archaeological evidence may be multiplied in time by the traveler and
excavator; but at present practical difficulties have prevented the examination
of most of this field, and we have no series of Seleucid inscriptions, as in
Asia Minor. The coins, lastly, can tell us something, although the extreme
uncertainty which hangs about their places of minting makes this line of
evidence a seductive, rather than a safe, guide.
The land which we
call Syria is created by the line of mountain which goes from the Taurus on the
north as far as the Gulf of Akaba in the Red Sea. These mountains prevent the
Arabian desert, traversed by the Euphrates and Tigris, from extending quite to
the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. They interpose a belt of habitable
country between the expanse of sea and the expanse of sand. From its position
Syria has always been the bridge between Egypt and Asia. But it was not only
traversed by a world-route going north and south, it was crossed east and west
by the routes from Babylon and the Further East, which found on its coasts
their nearest outlet to the Mediterranean, and in the Cilician Gates their
natural door into Asia Minor. It belongs to the Mediterranean lands, and at
the same time is of those lands the most closely connected with the great seats
of Asiatic civilization.
The line of
mountain on which Syria is formed is a double one. From end to end a depression
divides two parallel ranges. Sometimes the floor of the depression rises with
the mountains to a considerable height above the sea, as in Al-Bika
(Coele-Syria in the narrow sense) between the Lebanon and Antilibanus; sometimes
it sinks even below sea-level, as in the Jordan valley. The mountains
themselves have different names in different parts of their line. Sometimes
they are too high and rugged to be habitable near the summit; in that case they
come as a barrier between the people who inhabit the depression and those of
the outside slopes; sometimes they are low enough to be habitable in all their
breadth; Judaea covers the high ground between the Mediterranean and the Dead
Sea. The depression makes the bed of different rivers, the Orontes, Al-Litani,
the Jordan; the two former burst through the western range to the
Mediterranean; the Jordan ceases before finding an exit.
The name of Syria,
however, extends somewhat farther than the two parallel ranges and the lands which
thence draw their water. It covers those adjoining lands on the north which
receive their water from the Taurus and its foot-hills, and which extend
eastwards as far as the Euphrates, where it most nearly approaches the
Mediterranean. They rise above the level of the desert, and of the plains in
which the depression just spoken of ends to northward. Between these plains
and the Euphrates they intervene as a sort of plateau pushed out from the
Taurus. The plains are the natural center of Northern Syria, receiving the
Orontes from the south as well as streams from the Taurus on the north,
communicating through the gorge of the Lower Orontes with the coast and by an
easy ascent with the plateau of inner Syria. The climate of the plateau is
other than that of the plains and coast. It is a more arid and barer world. The
soil yields under labor, but is apt to be stony. There are here longer winters
and more parching summers. But it is crossed by the roads to the Euphrates, and
it is in Aleppo that the life of modern Syria finds its center.
The administrative
system according to which Northern Syria was divided under Seleucus and his
first successors cannot be traced with any clearness. We know that the
Seleucis consisted of the four satrapies of Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea and
Laodicea, and outside of this there lay to the north Cyrrhestice and Commagene.
To the south the frontier between Seleucid and Ptolemaic Syria was probably, on
the coast, the river Eleutherus, and in the interior some point in the valley called
Marsyas or Massyas.
In this country the
invasive Greek element soon made itself thoroughly at home. Syria became a “new
Macedonia.” Its districts and rivers were renamed after those of the motherland.
The mountain region north of the mouth of the Orontes, perhaps from some resemblance
to the mountains north of Tempe, became Pieria, the Orontes itself Axius, and
so on. Local attachments had to be found for the old Greek legends. At Daphne,
four miles from Antioch, the place was shown where the nymph Daphne, pursued by
Apollo, was changed into a bay-tree. It was in this region that Typhon was
blasted by Zeus; the river-bed, in fact, had been formed by his writhings. The
wandering heroes of Greek mythology were especially useful in making these
connections. On the Amanus mountains Orestes had been delivered from his
madness, as the name proved—Amanus, “a-mania.” lo naturally had left traces of
herself, and Triptolemus, as we shall presently see.
The establishment
of Hellenic communities in barbarian Asia was not, of course, the outcome of
spontaneous immigration only; we see in it rather the fixed policy of the
kings. A Greek population could not exist except as grouped in Greek cities,
and these cities the kings were zealous to build. Their citizens, no doubt,
were to a considerable extent Greeks driven from their old homes by political
or economic causes, or drawn by hopes of advantage, but they consisted also of
soldiers, Greek and Macedonian, settled by royal order, and also, one must
believe, of natives and half-breeds, who had put on the externals of Hellenism.
The lower classes were perhaps frankly barbarian; but whatever the real
parentage of the citizen-body, it was in theory and guise Macedonian or Greek.
It was in the Orontes valley that the life of Seleucid Syria pulsed most
strongly. Of the four great cities established by Seleucus Nicator, three were
here, Seleucia, Antioch, and Apamea.
Seleucia-in-Pieria
guarded the mouth of the river. The coast of Northern Syria, ramparted by hills
which jut out to sea in rocky promontories, offers little friendliness to
ships. But where the Orontes breaks through this wall, a bay, some ten miles
across, reaches from Mount Coryphaeus (mod. Jabal Musa) on the north to the
great landmark of the coast, the towering Mount Casius (mod. Al-Akra) on the
south. Along the inner recess of the bay lies a crescent-shaped plain,
presenting to the sea a fringe of sand-dunes and salt pools, but a little
inland covered with corn-fields, with figs and pomegranates, and enfolded by
the rich background of wooded hills. At the southern extremity of this plain,
close under Mount Casius, the Orontes flows into the sea; at the northern
extremity, about five miles off, was built the city of Seleucia, above what was
in those days the principal harbor of the coast. The mountain here rises from
the sea in a series of ledges or terraces. From the quay one ascended to a
level which stood some 20 or 30 feet above the waves, beyond which a much
higher shelf rose in rocky walls of 400 or 500 feet. It was on this shelf that
the upper city of Seleucia lay. Behind it were the wild contours of the Pierian
range. At its feet along the level was the lower city, containing the harbor,
the warehouses, and the “outer town”. Set upon precipices, Seleucia was
remarkable for its strength. Mighty walls, the work of kings,
supplemented the cliffs. Climbing streets and rocky stairways connected its
upper and lower parts. Its temples and buildings were displayed in their full
magnificence by the rising ground. It was worthy to be the gateway of a great
kingdom.
The legend of the
founding of Seleucia by Seleucus Nicator after sacrifice on Mount Casius is
given by a late writer. That it was really the first Seleucus who founded it is
open to no doubt. Bearing his name, the city worshipped him as its god. It was
granted the possession of his body by Antiochus I, and a temple was built over
his sepulcher, with a sacred precinct attached, the Nicatoreum.
It was not
necessary for those voyaging to Antioch to disembark at Seleucia. Till as late
as the Crusades the Orontes was navigable as far as Antioch itself. From the
mouth of the river the traveler would ascend, having on his left the plain of
Seleucia and on his right the base of Mount Casius. This region was once full
of human life. Casius was vested in immemorial sanctity as the holy mountain of
some Semitic Baal whom the Greeks, of course, called Zeus. Its summit was too
sacred to be mounted. The festivals of the god periodically called forth gay
throngs of worshippers from the capital. Today it is a wilderness, given up to
the jackal, though the remains of ancient works and once well-trodden roads can
still be found among its growth of oleanders. Presently, as the traveler
continued to ascend the river, the mountains would close in on the left as
well; he would be in the gorge, some six miles long, by which the Orontes cuts
through the coast range to the sea, a place of extraordinary and romantic
beauty, not unlike the Thessalian Tempe. From the gorge he emerges upon the
plains of inner Syria. The spur of Casius, however, on his right, continues to
keep close to the bank, splendidly covered with timber and flowering shrubs,
and sending down a thousand torrents into the river. The chain ends in Mount
Silpius, round which the Orontes makes its westward bend, coming from the
south. Beyond Mount Silpius to the east is open country, the plain of Amyce,
with the great levels of the lake of Antioch beginning some ten miles farther
on.
Under the northern
slopes of Silpius rose the new Seleucid city. The beauty for which Antioch was
notable was derived in part from its setting, the near background of wild
mountain contrasting delightfully with the rich culture of its well-watered
plain. Its position was favorable to growth in greatness and riches. The climate,
except in the matter of some malignant winds from the north, was excellent; the
soil was very fertile; and, in addition to these advantages, it was admirably
placed with regard to the commerce of the world. The Orontes valley here opens
out into the plains which, as has been said, are the natural center of Northern
Syria. Along this way went the regular land-routes from Babylonia and Iran to
the Mediterranean. It suffered indeed from certain inconveniences. The most serious
was the frequency of earthquakes in Northern Syria. Besides this the numerous
torrents from Silpius, which added to the city’s charm and made it singularly
fortunate in its supply of good water, had the drawback of being sometimes
swollen and intractable, when they spread devastation on the slopes.
Before Seleucus,
Antigonus had chosen this region as the site of one of his principal cities.
But the two designs did not exactly correspond. Seleucus found the infant city
of Antigonia north of the Orontes on a stream (Arceuthus, mod. Kara-su)
which carried to the Orontes the overflow of the Lake of Antioch. He marked out
Antioch along the southern bank of the Orontes on the level strip, two miles
broad, between river and mountain. He avoided building on the slope for fear of
the torrents. The city was designed by the architect Xenarius, according to the
practice of the time, on a regular plan with straight-ruled thoroughfares. It
formed an extended oblong, the main street running through it parallel with the
river, and making a long vista from end to end.
The legend of the
foundation of Antioch, as given by Malalas, represents what the Antiochenes
liked to be believed as to the origin of their city. In naming the different
constituents of which the first population was formed it perhaps reflects some
historical facts. According to this legend Antioch had a claim to be held one
of the first-born Greek colonies, no parvenue of Macedonian creation. It
claimed affinity with Athens and Argos; Io, the daughter of Inachus, had died
there, and the party of Argives, led by the Attic Triptolemus, who had gone in
quest of her, had settled on Mount Silpius, and their descendants had made the
nucleus of Antioch. They appealed to the name which the native Aramaeans gave the
great city, Ione, as the Greeks pronounced it; it meant, of course, in
reality no more than “city of the Greeks (Javan).” That there was an Athenian
element in the population first settled by Antigonus at Antigonia and
transferred by Seleucus to Antioch is quite possible; both the coins and the
monuments of Antioch put forward the connection with Athens. It is allowed by
Malalas that a good part of the original colonists were Macedonians. Cretans
and Cypriots are also mentioned.
During the reigns
of the first successors of Seleucus Antioch grew. To the original city of
Seleucus a second city was added with its own separate wall—a foundation,
according to Strabo, “of the resident population,” whatever that may mean. A
third quarter was founded on an island in the Orontes opposite the existing
double city, when Seleucus II, driven from Asia Minor, made Antioch his
residence. It was perhaps in this island quarter that the palace of the later
Seleucids lay. A bridge, of course, connected it with the mainland, and Antioch
was thus become a tripolis. Seleucus II probably only began to build,
since the island city is represented by Libanius as the work of his son,
Antiochus III.
It would seem that
at the foundation of the new cities of that age a cult was instituted of the
Fortune of the city, that is, the spiritual personality of the city, and an
image of it was set up. According to stories told in later times a virgin was
actually sacrificed, and thereby identified in some way with this soul of the
city; but the stories possibly have no basis but the image itself. The image of
Antigonia, when Seleucus destroyed the foundation of his rival, was transferred
to Antioch and worshipped in the new city till it was again removed to Rhossus
on the coast. But Antioch had a Fortune of its own. The sculptor, Eutychides of
Sicyon, a pupil of the great Lysippus, was commissioned to make its image. Of
all the great works of art with which Antioch the Beautiful was adorned this is
the only one which retains a visible form for us today. A copy of it in marble
exists in the Vatican, just as it is shown on many of the coins of Antioch. The
personified Antioch sits with a certain noble freedom, holding an ear of corn
in her hand, her head crowned with flowers, and a small figure, representing
the river Orontes, rising out of the ground at her feet. The original must have
had all that dramatic effectiveness which stamps the products of Greek
sculpture in the third century B.C.
A chief glory of
Antioch was the paradise of Daphne, which lay between river and mountain some
four or five miles below the city. The place today is notable for its rich
greenery and rushing streams—the “House of the Waters” (Bait-al-Ma). In ancient
times these streams ran through the gloom of giant cypresses which encompassed
the temple of the Pythian Apollo. Under their shadow, or among the bay-trees
and oleanders, the population of Antioch spent their hours of pleasure. A
course for games, of which the god was patron—an imitation of the Pythia of
Greece—was made near the temple, and Daphne was continually filled with the
noise of festivals and the glitter of gay processions. The image of Apollo, put
up by Seleucus I, was the work of the Athenian Bryaxis. It represented Apollo
in his form as Musagetes with the lyre and the long garment down to the foot.
Other lesser temples rose among the trees. The place was a sanctuary, and as
such, one would think, did not tend to diminish the criminality of the great
city close by. Its whole circuit was eighty stadia.
The high-priesthood
of Apollo at Daphne was a position of ease and dignity. It seems not to have
been annual but permanent, since we find Antiochus III conferring it upon a
distinguished servant who, after the long campaigns in Asia Minor, was too
broken for further fatigues.
The third great
city of Seleucus, Apamea, dominated the middle Orontes. The course of the river
between the neighborhood of Apamea and the point where it issues from the
mountains to make its westward bend round Silpius is very ill known. About
Apamea the valley widens out into a swampy basin. Continual streams fall into
it from the hills on the east and produce a rank vegetation. Alongside of the
river stretch reedy lagoons. It is a district which seems hardly to belong to
dry Syria. Apamea stood on the lower slopes of the eastern hills. South of it
comes one of those depressions in the range which opened out easy
communications between the Orontes valley and the east. Seleucus seems to have
found here an earlier settlement of Macedonian soldiers, who called their city
Pella after the Macedonian capital. Whether the altar of the Bottiaean Zeus, at
which the city worshipped, was really put up by Alexander himself, as the
tradition asserted, may be questioned. Apamea became the military headquarters
of Syria, if not of the Empire. Here was the central office for the army and
the military schools. Here were the government studs, which embraced at one
time more than 30,000 maxes and 300 blood stallions. Here Seleucus placed the
500 elephants which he got from the Punjab.
The neighborhood of
Apamea seems to have been dotted with settlements of soldiers, which formed
petty townships dependent upon the great city. Strabo gives the names of
Casiani, Megara, Apollonia, and Larissa. The sites of none of these are known
except that of Larissa. This was the modern Shaizar, set upon a rock of
reddish-yellow limestone, which stands up precipitously above the Orontes on
its western bank. Just south of this the river issues out of a narrow gorge
that has been compared to the Wye at Chepstow, and Larissa is thus a position
which must have been always strategically important as guarding the entrance
into the Apamea basin. The settlers in Larissa were Thessalians, and it was
after the Thessalian Larissa that the township on the Orontes was called. They
furnished horsemen to the first agema of the royal cavalry, and their
descendants seem to have kept up for more than a hundred years at least after
the death of Seleucus the tradition of horsemanship and prowess.
The remaining one
of the four great cities was not in the Orontes valley, but at one of the few
safe harborages along the rocky coast—Laodicea, called after Laodice, the
mother of Seleucus. It stood on the coast about in a line with Apamea in the
Orontes valley, and communicated both with it and Antioch by roads across the
mountain. These roads, however, are said to be difficult in winter, and
Laodicea did not possess the advantages of Seleucia and Antioch in standing on
a great commercial route between the Mediterranean and the East. It offered,
however, a good harbour, nearer than Seleucia, to ships coming from the south
or from Cyprus, and it had its own produce to export. This consisted mainly in
wine. The hills behind the city were terraced almost to the top with vineyards,
and Laodicean wine found a large market in Egypt.
These four cities
show us the chief centers of life in the Seleucis. But they were only the first
of a growing number of communities, Greek in speech and structure, which overspread
the country during the rule of Macedonian kings and Roman emperors. The hills
and valleys are full of the remains of this departed life. But the very names
of the towns have mostly perished. A few gathered from ancient authors cannot
in most cases be certainly fixed to particular sites. On the coast in the Bay
of Issus was a foundation of Alexander’s, Alexandria, the modern Alexandretta.
Its relative importance, of course, was not so great as it is to-day, when it
is the main port of Northern Syria. We hear of a Heraclea and an Antioch in Pieria,
of Meleagru-charax in the plain of Antioch, of Platanus on the road through the
hills from the great Antioch to Laodicea of Lysias and Seleucobelus, which seem
to have been among the dependent townships of Apamea. The ancient Arethusa, a
colony of Seleucus I according to Appian, is represented by Arrastan. In the
region of the Upper Orontes and the Lake of Kadesh, round which are the remains
of a once numerous population, some of them classical, we have Laodicea-on-Lebanon.
South of it the Lebanon and Antilibanus close in and make the narrow valley,
called by the ancients Marsyas. In this there was a Chalcis, and near the
sources of the Orontes, Heliopolis (mod. Baalbek).
The great desert
east of the Orontes valley made a blank for civilization. Only in the
neighborhood of the hills which divide the desert from the valley is a strip of
country, treeless and bare-looking, but covered In the spring with grass and
flowers, and repaying the toil of irrigation. Along this also are abundant
remains of the people who dwelt here in the days of Greek and Roman
ascendancy—their sepulchers, their buried cities, and dry cisterns. Towards the
north the desert ceases as the land begins to rise. We reach the plateau of
inner Syria. Here the traces of a great population are thicker than ever. In
Al-Jabal al-Ala, the most northerly of the hills which bound the Orontes valley
to the east, merging on the side away from the valley by gradual declivities
with the plateau, there are “twenty times more Greek and Roman antiquities than
in all Palestine.” The road from Antioch to the modern Dana, to the north-east
of Al-Ala, is one series of ruins on both sides of the way. It is here that a
traveler asserts he was never out of sight of architectural remains, of which
he could sometimes see from ten to twelve heaps from a single point of view.
The plateau is
divided by the river Chalus (mod. Kuwaik), which flows from the hills of
Cyrrhestice and loses itself in a salt swamp on the confines of the desert.
From the hills which divide the plateau from the plain of Antioch as far as the
Chalus valley, the undulating country is capable of cultivation, and was once
populous. It is now neglected and to a large extent waste. The valley of the
Chalus is much more fertile. Where it opens out into a rich plain, stood, no
doubt, long before Seleucus, the Syrian city of Chalep. This became a new Greek
city with the name of Beroea. The route from Antioch to Hieropolis passed
through it, and it must have drawn its resources from the road as well as from
its fields. Aleppo, as we call it, is to-day the most important centre in
Northern Syria. Near Beroea, and apparently to the north of it, Strabo mentions
a Heraclea whose site has not been identified. Beside the route from Antioch to
the Euphrates, which crossed the Chalus valley at Beroea, there was one more to
the south, reaching the Euphrates at Barbelissus (mod. Balis). This
route crossed the Chalus only one mile above the salt marsh in which it ends,
and here on a lower terrace of the hills which overlook it was the city of
Chalcis. The modern Kinnasrin, the frontier town towards the desert, which
corresponds in position to Chalcis, holds a very inferior place with respect to
Aleppo. Under the Seleucids the relative importance of the two cities was
perhaps reversed. We know almost nothing of the life of inner Syria in those
days, but we may conclude something from the fact that the region of the lower
Chalus was called, not after Beroea, but Chalcidice.
Between the Chalus
and the Euphrates the country is today almost unoccupied, one “level
sheep-tract”. We hear of a Seleucid colony, Maronea or Maronias, which seems to
have been on the road from Chalcis to Barbelissus. But the great place of this
region was the ancient Syrian town Mabog, about twelve miles from the
Euphrates. It stands in the center of a rocky plain, some 600 feet above the
river, without running water or any advantage likely to create a place of
importance. Its greatness had a religious ground. Men had congregated here
about a famous temple of the Mother-goddess, whom under different names the
Semites adored, here as Atargatis. Under Greek rule its name was temporarily
Hieropolis, Seleucus himself according to one statement having made the
innovation. It strikes coins under Antiochus IV, and had therefore been
certainly Hellenized before that time. Its old name in the Greek form of
Bambyce was still in use, and survives as Mambij to this day.
The plateau of
Beroea stood to the east of the plain of Antioch; to the north of the plain
rose the lower spurs of the Taurus. The upland tracts among them were not an
unfavorable field for Hellenic colonization. Although the soil was generally
light and stony, the spring crops were productive, and the climate was
healthier than in the plain. At the beginning of the reign of Antiochus III the
troops drawn from this region, consisting no doubt of Macedonian and Greek
settlers, numbered 6000 men, and formed an element of account in the royal
army. The whole political situation in Syria might be affected by the
disposition of these colonies. These things would point to a liberal plantation
of Hellenic communities in the region in question. We cannot, however, get from
our authorities the names of the new foundations, except one or two. Cyrrhus,
the city after which the whole region was called Cyrrhestice, borrowed its name
from Cyrrhus in Macedonia. Later on, another city, Gindarus, in a valley
opening out into the plain of Antioch, seems to have taken the first place. Strabo
calls it the “acropolis of Cyrrhestice.” In the disordered times of the later
Seleucids it probably became what Strabo describes it, a robber-hold. One Greek
city of these hills goes back perhaps to Alexander himself, Nicopolis. It stood
on the eastern slopes of the Amanus, in the valley of the river now called
Kara-su, on the place where Darius had pitched before he crossed the Amanus to
meet Alexander at Issus. North of Cyrrhestice the hill country of Commagene lay
above the Euphrates. Here Hellenism was probably later in establishing itself.
How soon Samosata, the capital, became a Greek city we do not know. The Antioch
mentioned in Commagene may have been founded by one of the later Seleucids, or
even by the semi-Iranian dynasty which reigned here in the last century B.C.
and used Antiochus as a royal name to show its affinity with the house of
Seleucus. Whether Doliche and Chaonia were Greek cities is a question.
There is a line of
Greek foundations along the Euphrates at the places of passage, and in coming
to those on the eastern bank we enter upon the province of Mesopotamia. By this
name the Greeks understood the country between the Euphrates and Tigris above
Babylonia. Only that part of Mesopotamia which lay far enough north to receive
water from the Taurus was habitable land, and this region was divided from
Babylonia by the great desert. From Syria on the other hand it was separated
only by the Euphrates, and thus by geographical position, as well as by the
homogeneity of their population, Syria and Mesopotamia formed almost one
country.
The most northerly
place of passage on the Euphrates was at Samosata in Commagene, and here on the
Mesopotamian bank opposite Samosata stood a Seleucia. A much more
important passage was that where a bridge of boats crossed the river on the
direct route between Antioch and Edessa. Either head of the bridge was held by
a Greek town, a foundation of the first Seleucus. On the Syrian bank was
Zeugma, called after the bridge, on the Mesopotamian Apamea (mod. Birejik),
with a rocky fortress of exceptional strength. Where the road from Syria to the
East by way of Hieropolis struck the Euphrates was a Europus, called after the
native city of Seleucus I, and near it a Nicatoris. The ancient route between
Syria and Babylon crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus, and some twelve miles
lower down, on the opposite bank, was Nicephorium, founded, according to
Isidore and Pliny, by Alexander, and according to Appian by Seleucus I.
Whether the Kallinikon, said by the Chronicon Paschale to have been founded by
Seleucus II Kallinikos, was identical with Nicephorium is a matter of dispute.
There seem to have been other Greek cities in this neighborhood. The immense
importance of the ford at Thapsacus, as one of the cardinal points in the
traffic of the world, no doubt made the Greek rulers wish to secure it
strongly. Amphipolis, described as a foundation of Seleucus I, is identified by
Pliny with Thapsacus. It was perhaps adjacent to the old native town. A city
called Aenus is also mentioned as opposite or close by. Near Nicephorium, a
Zenodotium is mentioned. On the Euphrates below Thapsacus we can point to no
more Greek cities till we reach Babylonia except one, Europus, about half-way
between Nicephorium and Babylonia. It was the native town of Dura Hellenized,
and the old name continued in use with the people of the land.
We come now to the
Greek cities of the interior of Mesopotamia. Their appearance gave the country
a new character. Under the old Oriental empires the immemorial village life had
predominated, although there had been towns like Haran and Nisibis. Now new
centres of life sprang up everywhere in the Greek cities. It was along the
river valleys, as we saw in Syria, that these cities were for the most part
built. In Mesopotamia, the most westerly of the streams sent down from the
Taurus and its foot-hills combine in the Belichas (mod. Al Balikh) before they
fall into the Euphrates by Nicephorium. Moving up the Belichas from the
Euphrates, we come, at a point where another stream comes into the Belichas
from the west, to Ichnae, called after a city of Macedonia, and described as “a
Hellenic city, a foundation of the Macedonians.” At the time of the campaign of
Crassus it was apparently little more than a fortress. In the valley of the
western tributary we have Batnae, a gathering-place of merchants, since here
the great eastern road from Hieropolis crossed the valley, described as a
Macedonian colony, and near the source of the tributary Anthemusias, the first
station on the road from Apamea to Babylon. In the valley of the
Belichas itself, understood to include that of the Scirtus (mod. Daisan), we
have the two important cities of western Mesopotamia. They were both old native
towns transformed. The more northern, Urhai, or as the Greeks wrote it, Orrhoe,
was given the new Macedonian name of Edessa. The native element was allowed to
retain its place here to a larger degree than was usual in the new cities.
According to Malalas, Seleucus first made it an Antioch. In later times it was
one of the chief seats of Syriac letters, proud of its pure dialect. In the
modern Urfa the old name survives. The other city on the Belichas was Haran,
associated in our minds with the story of Abraham. Its transformation to the
Macedonian colony of Carrhae seems to be rightly attributed to Alexander
himself. Seleucus, as we saw, found a body of Macedonian soldiers settled here
in 312. It became one day tragically famous by the disaster of Crassus.
In the valley of
the Chaboras (Al-Kabur), and along those many streams which go to form it, we
cannot show Greek cities as we can to the west. That they existed is highly
probable, but if so, their names have perished. There is one exception,
Nisibis. It became an Antioch. Part of the new population is said to have
consisted of Spartans. An inscription speaks of it as the “holy city, which
Nicator built, upon the stream of Mygdon, in a land of olives” It was a great
junction of roads. The highway of communication between Syria and lands beyond
the Tigris ran through it. In this case also the old name prevailed in the long
run over the new. The district, in which Nisibis-Antioch was, got from the
Macedonians the name of Mygdonia after their home. Antioch-in-Mygdonia was the
city’s official name. We may perhaps infer that the district was more
completely appropriated by the new civilization than we could guess from the
one city, whose existence is established.
We have followed
what can still be traced of the network of Greco-Roman cities cast by the new
rulers of the East over the country of the Aramaeans (Syria and Mesopotamia).
We should like to know more than we do of the inner life of these communities.
The political forms of the Greek city-state were, of course, maintained. We
should have found in each the periodically elected magistrates, a boule and a demos passing decrees after the usual pattern and inscribing them
on tables of brass and stone. The social organization of the citizens also
probably followed the Greek type. At Antioch the people was divided into
tribes, and we may infer the same thing in the other cities. The gymnasium,
with the body of epheboi attached to it, was an essential feature. But
to what extent the old Hellenic spirit survived in these forms, to what extent
the new settlers preserved their type in the new environment, escapes our
discovery. According to a speech which Livy puts into the mouth of Manlius (189
B.C.) there had been rapid degeneracy. “Just as in the case of plants and
live-stock, breed alone will not maintain the quality against the influences of
soil and climate, so the Macedonians of Alexandria in Egypt, of Seleucia and
Babylonia, and all the other scattered colonies throughout the world, have
degenerated into Syrians, into Parthians, into Egyptians.” Titus Flamininus
said of the armies of Antiochus
III
that they were “all Syrians.” Whether this testimony is biassed, or again
whether there was the same degeneration in the smaller cities as in great
cosmopolitan centres like Antioch, we have not the means of making out. The
Syrian Greeks were regarded as inferior by the Greeks of the motherland.
It must be admitted
that we do not get a favourable picture of them from their fellow-countryman,
Posidonius of Apamea (circ. 135-51 B.C.); and even if his description be true
only of the later days of the Seleucid dynasty, the decline must have begun
long before. “The people of these cities are relieved by the fertility of their
soil from a laborious struggle for existence. Life is a continuous series of social
festivities. Their gymnasiums they use as baths, where they anoint themselves
with costly oils and myrrhs. In the grammateia (such is the name they
give the public eating- halls) they practically live, filling themselves there
for the better part of the day with rich foods and wine; much that they cannot
eat they carry away home. They feast to the prevailing music of strings. The
cities are filled from end to end with the noise of harp-playing. Consonant
with this picture is the account Posidonius gives of the war between Apamea and
Larissa—some petty war of two neighbor cities which is not otherwise known. He
narrates the setting out of the Apamean force. “They had caught up poignards
and javelins which were indistinguishable in rust and dirt. They wore hats with
broad brims, exquisitely adjusted so as to shade the neck without keeping off
the cool breeze. Behind them trailed a string of asses, laden with wine and all
sorts of viands, alongside of which might be seen pipes and flutes, the
instruments of revelry, not of war.”
It is possible, of
course, that Posidonius caricatured his countrymen. The fact that he himself
was of Apamea shows that the stock could still produce men capable of taking
the highest place in the literary and scientific world. But the traces of
intellectual activity among the Syrian Greeks are, it must be admitted, scanty.
The only way in which we can estimate it is by noting which of the memorable
names are coupled with a Syrian origin. And this is an unsure method. For the
literary world was cosmopolitan, and a man’s activity might not lie in the
place where he was born. There is, however, this to be said, that some degree
of culture must be supposed in the early environment of men who left their
native place to seek learning or literary fame, something to have stimulated
them to such a quest.
Looking, then, at
the list of remembered names in. all departments of culture, we find that
Antioch, the greatest of the cities, contributes during the Seleucid epoch only
a Stoic philosopher, Apollophanes, and a writer on dreams, Phoebus. Cicero
describes Antioch as a “city once much resorted to, and abounding in men of the
highest education and in the pursuit of liberal learning.” Seleucia-in-Pieria
produced Apollophanes, who was body-physician to Antiochus III, and made some
valuable contributions to ancient medicine. The only Syrian city to whose name
any literary luster attaches is one which did not pass under Seleucid supremacy
till the time of Antiochus III, Gadara. This is leaving out of count the
Phoenician cities, to which we shall come presently.
One question which
naturally suggests itself about this Syrian Hellenism is whether the newcomers
were influenced to any extent by the people of the land, whether they adopted
their traditions and modes of thought. We have very few data to go upon. The
matter of language, which is a capital point, must be largely conjectural. The
educated classes in the cities of course spoke Greek. But was it usual for them
to have any real knowledge of the native language, without which a
communication of ideas must have been very scanty? That they picked up common
words and phrases, as an Anglo- Indian does of Hindostani, is to be taken for
granted, but does not prove much. It is somewhat more significant that the
nicknames of some of the later Seleucids (Balas, Siripides, Zabinas) are
Aramaic. The Antiochene populace with whom they started was, no doubt,
bilingual.
The only distinct
borrowing of native tradition which we can point to is in the cults. The ancients
thought it prudent to honor the gods of a land into which they came, even when
they came as conquerors. Most, if not all, of the new cities stood where native
towns or villages had stood before them, each with its local Baal or Astarte.
These cults were, no doubt, in most cases retained, the Greeks, of course,
giving to the native deities the names of their own gods.
At Antioch there
was a temple of Artemis Persike, that is, one form of the great Mother-goddess
worshipped by the Semites and peoples of Asia Minor.
At Seleucia-in-Pieria
there appears from the coins to have been a temple whose deity was represented
by a conical stone, and that it was an old local god is shown by the name of
Zeus Casius, which is often attached to the symbol. Zeus Casius was the god of
the neighboring mountain, worshipped from time immemorial by the Phoenician
coasters. Sometimes the epithet on the coins is not Casius but Keraunios, and
this suggests that the thunderbolt, the sacred emblem of the city, may be
connected with the old worship, and the Greek story of the foundation of the
city have been invented later to explain it.
At
Laodicea-on-the-Sea the coins show an armed goddess, identified by numismatists
as Artemis Brauronia, whose image had been carried away from Attica by the
Persians in 480, was found by Seleucus at Susa, and presented to his new
colony. This does not exclude the possibility that in the native township,
Kamitha, or Mazabda, which had preceded Laodicea, a goddess of this type had
been worshipped, and that this was the motive which led Seleucus to choose
Laodicea as the recipient of the venerable idol; or the whole story of the
image may even have been invented in later times by the Laodiceans to give an
Oriental cult a respectable Attic parentage.
The great example
of an ancient cult continuing to flourish under Greek rule was in
Bambyce-Hieropolis. The deity here was Atargatis, i.e. Astarte (the
wife) of Ateh. The temple and ritual are described at length by Lucian in a
special work, De Syria Dea. According to the story told him by the
priests, the actual building was the work of Stratonice, the queen of Seleucus
I and Antiochus I. The story told about her is certainly fabulous, and it is
therefore possible that an old legend may have become accidentally attached to
her name from its resemblance in sound to that of Astarte. A prominent feature
of the religion of Atargatis was the sanctity of fish. There was a pond with
the sacred fish beside the temple, some of them with pieces of gold attached to
their fins. On certain holy days the images of the gods were carried down to
the pond. The priests were, of course, native Syrians, and there was a great
body of consecrated eunuchs.
A goddess of the
same type as the Ephesian Artemis, certainly a form of the Mother-goddess, is
seen on coins of one of the late Seleucids; she was, no doubt, worshipped in
the place where these coins were minted. On other coins of the same epoch is a
bearded deity in a conical cap, holding an ear of corn in his hand. The Baal of
Doliche in Cyrrhestice did not only continue to be worshipped by the Greeks,
but his cult, as that of Zeus Dolichenus, was spread into foreign lands, and
became one of that farrago of Oriental superstitions, cults of Sarapis, of Isis
and Mithra which were so much in vogue throughout the Eoman Empire in the
latter time of paganism. The same thing happened in the case of another Syrian
god, Baal Markod, the “lord of dancing.” At the village of Baetocaece there was
a miraculous shrine of the local god (Zeus Baetocaeceus), which obtained from a
King Antiochus a grant of land and a sanction of its inviolability, as his
letter (of which a copy made in Roman times was found on the spot) declares at
large.
It is difficult to
trace the action of their new environment upon the Greeks and Macedonians of
Syria; it is no easier to follow the workings of the old Aramaean civilization
and life under the strange forces which now came to bear upon them. The
country-side retained its old speech, this much we know. In the cities the
populace was largely, and perhaps mainly, Aramaean. Even as an official
language Aramaic did not quite die out, as is shown by its use later on in
Palmyra and among the Nabataeans. There were still circles, in such places presumably
as Edessa, in which Aramaic literature continued to be cultivated. The oldest
works in Syriac which have come down to us (Christian) show the language in a
fixed and developed form. They were not first essays in a new medium.
But although
Aramaic speech and literature survived, they were discredited among the upper
classes. They shrank with a sense of inferiority from contact with the Muses of
Greece. Greek throughout Seleucid Syria was the proper language of official
documents, of literature and of monuments. The Syrian youth, who aspired to be
counted wise, found the wisdom of his fathers no longer of any savour, when he
might put on the Hellenic dress and talk Zeno or Epicurus in the porticoes of
the new cities. Meleager of Gadara seems to have been of native Syrian origin.
Even where the old language of the land was used, the thought was, no doubt,
largely Greek, as is the case with the dialogue On Fate—one of the oldest
Syriac works we possess, written early in the third century A.D. by a disciple
of the heretic Bardesanes, and continuing possibly a pre-Christian tradition.
It is not really surprising that that literature should have perished. Driven
into the background by Greek literature as barbarian during the pagan period,
it was annihilated in the Christian period as pagan.
We have hitherto
left aside that Semitic people of whom we know more than the Aramaeans, the
Phoenicians of the coast. Greeks and Phoenicians had known each other since the
prehistoric centuries. The Phoenicians, like the coast-peoples of Asia Minor,
had already undergone some degree of Hellenic influence before Alexander. They
had also before Alexander had a long experience of foreign rule.
But under their
various foreign masters, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, the Phoenicians had
maintained from time immemorial their nationality and local independence. The
cities had their own constitutions or kings. In opposition to Alexander, to the
advent of a power far more penetrating and transforming than that of the
earlier monarchies, history sees the national spirit of the Phoenicians blaze
up for the last time in its original seat. In Africa, indeed, it was still to
meet Rome for life or death. But the siege of Tyre, which delayed Alexander for
some eight months in 332, was the last of those sieges of Phoenician cities of
which history remembered so many, the last in which the defenders were the
natives themselves, animated by a national or civic spirit against a foreign
king. Sidon had been crippled twenty years before by the fearful vengeance taken
by Artaxerxes Ochus for its revolt; Tyre was crushed finally by Alexander. With
some few exceptions, all its inhabitants who could not escape were killed or
sold for slaves. Some of the old population may have drifted back, strangers
came in to fill the gaps, Tyre became again a great commercial town, but the
old spirit never returned, the ancient tradition was broken for ever.
In the new
population the Hellenic element was probably considerable. At any rate the old
Phoenician cities now undergo the same sort of transformation into Hellenic
cities as we have seen in the case of the Aramaean cities. The Phoenician
tradition would seem, however, to have been less completely suppressed by the
new culture. Not only are Phoenician inscriptions put up by private citizens
under the Macedonian rule, but the coins of Tyre, Sidon, Aradus,
Laodicea-Berytus and Marathus bear Phoenician legends alongside of Greek
legends and the heads of the Macedonian rulers. As late as the Christian era
there were many people in Tyre who did not even understand Greek. At the same
time, the Hellenism which took root here became in time more vigorous and
productive than that in the Aramaean domain. Several of the prominent
philosophers of the last centuries B.C. are described as being of Tyre or of
Sidon. In the closing century before Christ, the development of the Greek
epigram, “when it had come to a standstill in Alexandria, reached its
completeness on the Phoenician coast, on a soil, that is, properly Semitic but
saturated with Greek culture and civilization.”
There is another
region which we have to consider in connection with Syria.
We have seen that
Cilicia went, according to ancient geography, rather with Syria than Asia
Minor. The Seleucid kings who wished to reign in both naturally looked upon
Cilicia as theirs. As a matter of fact the Cilician plains were cut off both
from Syria and from the rest of Asia Minor by tremendous mountain barriers,
communicating with Asia Minor only by the narrow doorway of the “Cilician
Gates,” with Syria by a pass equally narrow between mountain and sea, the “Syrian
Gates,” or by the difficult roads over the Amanus. Cilicia, whose native
population was probably akin to the Aramaeans of Syria, had a history which
went back like that of Syria into the days of Assyrian supremacy, and had, like
Syria, its cities of old fame, Soli, Mallus and Tarsus, the seat under the
Achaemenians of those semi-independent native princes who bore the name of
Syennesis. But the Hellenic influence had come to work earlier in this region;
the old cities had already become more than half Hellenized by the time that
Alexander arrived, and thought it decent to appear as Greek colonies. Actual
Greek colonists may indeed have come to settle in them. Soli claimed Argos and
Rhodes as its mother-cities. Tarsus called sometimes the Greek hero
Triptolemus, sometimes the Assyrian king Sardanapallus its founder. Mallus had
been founded in the dim days of Greek legend by Mopsus and Amphilochus. Mopsus,
indeed, as a wandering hero figured largely in the myths of the Greek colonies
along the south coast of Asia Minor, and the most important town of the
interior of Cilicia after Tarsus bore in Greek the name of Mopsuestia, the
Hearth of Mopsus.
The Hellenism of
the cities of Cilicia vindicated itself in the third century by its fruits.
Just as at the very beginning of Greek philosophy, in the case of Thales, there
had been matter supplied to Hellenic thought by the Phoenician tradition, so
now it was on this ground, where Hellenic cities had grown up among a Semitic people,
that the great philosophic school of later Hellenism, the Stoic, took its rise.
The founder, Zeno, was a native of Citium in Cyprus, the Phoenician Chittim;
but his follower, Chrysippus, who developed and systematized the doctrine, the
“second father” of the school, was a Cilician Greek, of Soli, born just about
the time that Seleucus Nicator wrested Asia Minor from Lysimachus. Tarsus
became a principal seat of the Stoic school. Zeno, the successor of Chrysippus,
was of Tarsus, so was Antipater, head of the school somewhat later; the
fellow-pupil of Antipater, Archedemus; the disciple of Antipater, Heraclides,
and Nestor. Among the Stoics of a still later generation we hear of the
Cilicians, Crates of Mallus, and his disciple, Zenodotus of Mallus, and several
of those philosophers who were associated as friends and teachers with the
leading men of Rome in the last age of the Republic were natives of this
region. Some of the Cilician philosophers inclined to other schools than the
Stoic. One of the greatest names among the leaders of the Academy in Athens was
that of Crantor of Soli, and we hear of a Diogenes of Tarsus as an Epicurean.
Tarsus by the last century B.C. had become one of the great “universities” of
the Greco-Roman world. “Such an enthusiasm for philosophy and all the other
parts of a liberal education has been developed in the people of this city,”
says Strabo, “that they have surpassed Athens and Alexandria and all other
places one might mention as seats of learning and philosophical study. Here all
the students are natives, and strangers do not readily come to reside. They
have schools for all branches of literary culture.” It is not only in
philosophy that Cilicia produced great names. Soli, whose Hellenic character
was of an older standing than Tarsus, produced men of letters in the first
century of Macedonian rule who attained world-wide fame, Castorion of Soli was
even commissioned at Athens (309-308) to compose hymns for public festivals. A
still greater name is that of Aratus, the author of the astronomical poem which
we still possess, the model for numerous imitations by later writers, Greek
and Roman. The tragic poet Dionysiades of Mallus or Tarsus is by some reckoned
among the “Pleiad” of Seven which shone at the court of the second Ptolemy.
Apollodorus of Tarsus was known as a commentator on Euripides and
Aristophanes.
As to the working
of native Cilician influence upon Cilician Hellenism, we have the same
indications as in Syria of the continuance of the old cults. On coins of Mallus,
struck under the Seleucids and Romans, appears the goddess of the neighboring
Megarsus, the usual Semitic Mother-goddess, whom the Greeks here called Athene.
So, too, on the coins of Tarsus a common type is a curious pyramidal monument
or shrine with a barbarian male-deity depicted upon it, whom Babelon
conjectures to be Zeus Dolichenus.
Of the events which
took place in Syria and the adjoining provinces under Seleucus and his earlier
successors we know almost nothing. These regions had, of course, formed part of
the realm of Antigonus till the battle of Ipsus. After that Syria passed to
Seleucus, but Cilicia was at first handed over to Plistarchus, the brother of
Cassander, and the garrison set by Antigonus In Tyre and Sidon held firm for
Demetrius when the news of Ipsus reached them. As we saw, Demetrius expelled
Plistarchus from Cilicia and occupied the country in 299, at the time when
Seleucus and Demetrius were friends.
But it was exactly
because Seleucus wished himself to be master both in Cilicia and on the
Phoenician coast that the rupture between them occurred. Demetrius refused on
any terms to part either with Cilicia or the Phoenician cities. Then in the
following years, whilst Demetrius was busy in Greece and Macedonia, Seleucus
succeeded in making Cilicia his. At the same time Demetrius lost Tyre and
Sidon. Into whose hands did they fall? They lay close both to Northern Syria,
which belonged to Seleucus, and to Palestine, which had been occupied by
Ptolemy. We have not yet any conclusive evidence to show which of the rival
houses at this juncture obtained possession of them.
The score of years,
however, during which Seleucus Nicator ruled Syria, if they have furnished no
matter to the historians, were far from unimportant. A great work of organization,
of Hellenization, as to which the historians are silent, must have been carried
through. The four great cities of Seleucid Syria, Antioch, Seleucia-in-Pieria,
Apamea, and Laodicea, as well as a large number of the lesser Greek
communities, were founded and started in life. The division of the country into
districts, such as Seleucis, Cyrrhestice, and Commagene, and of Seleucis again
into the four satrapies corresponding to the four great cities, presumably goes
back to the reign of Seleucus. Thenceforth these Greek communities were the
active and determining element in the population.
As soon as the
death of Seleucus became known, a faction hostile to his house raised its head
in the Syrian cities. Antiochus I found the Syrian Macedonians and Greeks
largely in arms against him. “In the beginning of the reign of King Antiochus,”
says the Sigean Inscription, “at the instant of his accession he adopted an
honorable and glorious policy, and whereas the cities in Seleucis were troubled
in those days by those who had made insurrection, he sought to restore them to
peace and their original well-being, to do vengeance on the rebellious, as
justice would, and to recover his father’s kingdom. So, cherishing an honorable
and just purpose, and not only finding the army and the court zealous to carry
his cause to victory, but having the favor and assistance of heaven, he brought
back the cities to a state of peace and the kingdom to its original well-being”
Through these high-sounding official phrases we must see all that can be seen
of the truth.
From this moment
till Seleucus II is driven out of Asia Minor by the battle of Ancyra, the
history of Syria is a blank, except in so far as it is involved in the long
wars between Seleucid and Ptolemy. War indeed seems to have been opened by a
battle, in which the Seleucid army was commanded by King Antiochus I in person,
somewhere in Syria—although, if Antiochus was the aggressor, most probably in
the Ptolemaic province south of the Lebanon. At least, a Babylonian inscription
says that in the year 274-273 B.C. King Antiochus, who had come east of the
Euphrates, returned to the “land beyond the River” against the army of Egypt.
Ptolemy’s strength lay on the sea, and perhaps the interior of Syria was less
involved in the war, even on the frontier, than the coasts. The only recorded
incident of which inland Syria is the scene is the capture of Damascus.
Damascus was held by a Ptolemaic garrison under Dion; King Antiochus (the
First, no doubt) was with an army at some days’ distance. Antiochus knew that
Dion was receiving intelligence of his movements, and accordingly caused his
army to celebrate a Persian festival and in appearance give themselves up to
jollity. This deceived Dion and threw him off his guard. Antiochus crept round
upon Damascus by mountain and desert solitudes, fell upon it unawares, and took
the city. In 242 Damascus is in Seleucid possession. Whether the Seleucid kings
kept their hold on this important place all the time from its capture by
Antiochus till that date, or whether it changed hands with the varying fortunes
of the war we do not know.
It is in the
provinces open to the sea that the struggle was probably fiercest. The
possession of Cilicia and the Phoenician coast, with their wealth in timber, was
especially important to a power like the Egyptian.
Cilicia seems to
have changed hands at least three times. If the poem of Theocritus is any
evidence, the second Ptolemy before 271 had ousted the Seleucid. He gives the signal
to the warriors of Cilicia. Then Antiochus II seems to have recovered it, since
it is not among the countries inherited by Ptolemy III in the Inscription of
Adule. Then again it is conquered by Ptolemy III in the campaign for which we
have the Ptolemaic officer’s dispatch. And in Ptolemaic possession it still was
on the accession of Antiochus III.
From the Gurob
papyrus we get a fragmentary view of the organization of Cilicia as a Seleucid
province in 246. It is, as we saw, under the strategos Aribazus, divided
into smaller districts with hyparchs of their own, whom the Ptolemaic captain
describes likewise as strategoi; that is, the same general form of
government appears as we find in the rest of the Empire. The town of Seleucia
is, for the moment at any rate, the headquarters of the administration. Soli is
seen to take a line of its own, shifting its allegiance to the house of Ptolemy
at discretion.
From the outbreak
of the war, during the time of the two first Antiochi, Tyre and Sidon are under
Ptolemaic influence. Tyre strikes coins of Ptolemy with an era dating from
275-274, that is, from about the time when hostilities were opened in Syria.
Sidon also strikes coins of Ptolemy II with dates which run from 261 to 247. A
certain Philocles, son of Apollodorus, who commands Ptolemaic forces in the
Aegean, is described as “king of the Sidonians.” Phoenicia is mentioned on the
monument of Adule as one of the countries inherited by Ptolemy III from his
father. The more northern Phoenician cities, on the other hand, were probably
Seleucid from the battle of Ipsus. Some of the coins of Antiochus I bear the
monogram of Aradus. The year 259-258 is the starting-point of a new era for
Aradus, and this is generally thought to show the concession of complete autonomy
to the city by Antiochus II. In the “Laodicean War” an attempt was made by
Ptolemy to capture these northern Phoenician cities, but unsuccessfully.
Orthosia, which was beleaguered by his forces, was relieved by Seleucus
Kallinikos in 242-241. Later on Aradus secured fresh privileges by declaring
for Seleucus against Antiochus Hierax. In recompense for this, the obligation
to deliver up fugitives from the Seleucid realm was remitted, and such right of
sanctuary, in times when political fugitives of wealth and influence were
numerous, proved extremely profitable to the city.
We have already in
a former chapter dealt with the occurrences on the coast of Cilicia and Syria
in the opening stage of the Laodicean War.
The expulsion of
Seleucus Kallinikos from the country north of the Taurus shifted the center of
gravity in the Empire. The disreputable court of Antiochus Hierax at Sardis
could not claim equality with the court of the elder brother, which was now
fixed in the Syrian Antioch. By this change Antioch rose at once in dignity.
And the change made itself apparent in the outward aspect of the city. Seleucus
Kallinikos added a new quarter.
Of the events which
took place in Syria in these days we know only the incident of Stratonice and
her rebellion, Stratonice was that aunt of Seleucus who had been married to
Demetrius, son of the King of Macedonia. In 239 Demetrius succeeded to the
throne and was moved to contract a new marriage with an Epirot princess. To
Stratonice the idea of remaining at the Macedonian court under the new régime
was not unnaturally repugnant. She departed, studying revenge, for the court of
her nephew. Her scheme was that he should marry her and declare war on her late
husband. When, however, she proposed it to Seleucus he displayed a mortifying
unwillingness to marry his aunt. For this attitude on his part Stratonice had
been wholly unprepared. But her spirit was not broken. She waited her time. The
Antiochenes came to know the figure of an unfortunate princess who moved
amongst them as an injured and angry woman. Her opportunity came about 235,
when the King was absent on an expedition into Iran. She then summoned the city
to revolt, and so well had she played her game that the city responded and took
up arms on her behalf against Seleucus. When the King returned from the East he
was reduced to the necessity of recapturing his capital. Stratonice was unable
to offer a prolonged defense. When she saw that the city must fall she fled to
Seleucia. Thence she might have escaped, but was induced by an adverse dream to
put off sailing. As a result of this delay she was caught by the people of
Seleucus and put to death. The story certainly proves that the restiveness
which the Syrian Greeks had shown at the accession of Antiochus I was not extinct
under Seleucus Kallinikos.
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