cristoraul.org

THE SELEUCID EMPIRE. 358-251 BC. HOUSE OF SELEUCUS

CHAPTER 4

EVENTS IN THE EAST, 321-316 BC

Babylonia, possessing so many features in common with Egypt, differed in one respect, both to its advantage and its disadvantage—in its central position. By the Euphrates and Northern Syria it was in touch with the Mediterranean and the West, while a few days’ journey across the plain separated the Tigris on the east from the mountain-wall behind which rose the plateau of Iran—Iran, where the face of the world and the ways of men were far other than by the waters of Babylon. If one had it in one’s heart to rule the whole Empire of Alexander, Babylon was a better seat of government than Egypt; if, on the other hand, the ruler of Babylonia was not strong enough to aspire to more than independence, he was certain to be more entangled in the affairs of his neighbours than the ruler of Egypt. Seleucus would watch with anxiety the course of events both in the lands about the Mediterranean, where the star of Antigonus seemed in the ascendant, and in Iran, where Macedonian chiefs, Macedonian and Greek armies, were still a problematic element.

The eastern satraps included two chiefs of the first rank, Pithon and Peucestas. Both had belonged to that inner circle of eight, the somatophylakes, who stood closest to the late King. These two men were the cardinal personalities at this moment in Iran.

Pithon the son of Crateuas, of Alcomenae in Eordaea, had obtained the satrapy of Media at the partition made in Babylon after Alexander’s death. None of those who went to their several provinces seems to have carried with him a heart more full of magnificent projects; none realized more quickly the openings to individual ambition in the new state of things. His province was the most important in Iran. In Ecbatana the first Iranian kingdom had had its seat. Under the Achaemenians it still continued to be one of the great capitals of the Empire, the summer residence of the Persian kings. Media was reckoned the richest of all the Iranian provinces, as is shown by the figure at which Darius assessed it. Its upland plains were excellent pasture; they nourished innumerable herds of horses, the best in the world. Its hills were tenanted by hardy tribes, the ancestors of the modern Kurds, from whom the ruler of Media could draw immense material of fighting men. To an ambitious man the possession of Media opened wide possibilities.

The governor who sat in the golden palace of Ecbatana already held a sort of primacy among the satraps of Iran. To change that to an absolute lordship of Iran, and from that again step—to what? to the throne of Alexander? Thoughts such as these seem to have danced before the mind of Pithon. His first opportunity had come soon after the death of Alexander in the insurrection of the Greeks planted in the Far East. Not only had Pithon been charged by the Regent Perdiccas with the quelling of the revolt, but large accessions had been sent to his troops, and he had been empowered to call upon the other satraps of Iran for contingents. It was then that Pithon had formed the design of winning the revolted Greeks to his own standard—a design which was only frustrated by the astuteness of the Regent in giving up the mutineers as a prey to the Macedonians.

Thenceforward the Regent seems to have thought it prudent to keep Pithon in his own entourage—a change in Pithon’s position which accounts for his deserting to Ptolemy in 321. After the murder of Perdiccas, Pithon becomes joint-regent of the Empire with Arrhidaeus. Then after the Partition of Triparadisus, while Seleucus goes to take possession of Babylonia, Pithon returns with increased prestige to Media.

The other great satrap in the East was Peucestas of Mieza in Macedonia. Before he had been added as eighth to the seven somatophylakes he had carried before Alexander the sacred shield taken from the temple of Athena at Troy, and had warded Alexander’s body with his own in the taking of the Mallian city (mod. Multan). It was from Alexander himself that he had received his satrapy, Persis, the country of the ruling tribe among the Iranians, with Pasargadae, the cradle of the Achaemenian house, and Persepolis, the royal city. Peucestas had thrown himself heartily into that scheme so dear to Alexander’s heart of fusing the Macedonian and Persian aristocracies. He had, in dress, in language, in deportment, done all he could to show himself to the people of his province as one of themselves. The death of Alexander found him with a well-rooted power.

The ambition of Pithon was of the kind that cannot wait for the fruit to ripen. The news suddenly flew through Iran that he had seized the adjoining province of Parthia. Philip, the satrap appointed at Triparadisus, he had made away with and replaced by his own brother Eudamus. The other satraps all felt their own seats threatened, and came quickly to an understanding among themselves, with a view to resisting Pithon’s aggression. This movement against Pithon gave Peucestas his opportunity to rise to a pre-eminent position in Iran by a less invidious method than his rival. He had but to join the confederate satraps to secure the leadership, for amongst them there was no one of equal standing. He did so, and was voluntarily recognized as chief. The armies of Iran invaded Parthia under his command, and drove Pithon out of the province.

Pithon retired at first upon Media, but he soon felt himself insecure even there. It was now that he appeared with some following in Babylon, and called upon Seleucus to make common cause with him and share gains. Here was an entanglement in prospect. What the interests of Seleucus required was that he should hold aloof from the turmoil till he had consolidated his power. But this was hard to do in Babylon. He might refuse Pithon’s suggestion, but fresh complications already loomed in sight. The disturbances in the West were about to become intermingled with those of Iran.

The death of Perdiccas had left his party, the royalist party, who were for holding the Empire together under the central authority of the royal house, apparently doomed. Eumenes, its one remaining champion of any account, was left isolated in Asia Minor. And in the year following the settlement of Triparadisus, Antigonus had conducted the war against Eumenes with great success, and shut him up in the Cappadocian fortress of Nora (320). Then unexpectedly the prospects of the royalist party improved. In 319 Antipater, the Regent, died. He bequeathed his great office to a chief called Polyperchon. It was this transference of the supreme authority which brought about a revival of the royalist cause; for, in the first place, Antigonus now began to take so masterful and independent a line in Asia Minor that many who had supported him from fear of Perdiccas came to fear Antigonus no less. Arrhidaeus, for instance, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, and Clitus, the satrap of Lydia, were soon his enemies, and thereby allies of Eumenes and the royalists. In the second place, the son of Antipater, Cassander, had expected to succeed to his father’s office, and threw himself into violent opposition to the new Regent. Antigonus and he made common cause. As a consequence, Polyperchon was driven to ally himself with the queen-mother Olympias, whose authority the royalists maintained. The royalists, instead of being hunted outlaws, now had the Regent of the Empire himself on their side.

The effect of these changes was rapidly seen in Asia Minor. The siege of Nora was raised; Eumenes was again recognized by the supreme authority in Macedonia as commander-in-chief of Asia, and the picked corps of Macedonian veterans, the Silver Shields, commanded by Antigenes and Teutamus, put themselves under his orders. He also seized by royal warrant the treasures which had been transferred from Susa to Cyinda in Cilicia. In 318 he was in Phoenicia preparing a fleet to drive the party of Antigonus from the sea.

But the new hopes of the royalists were dashed by an untoward event—the annihilation by Antigonus of the fleet of Clitus in the Bosphorus. This entirely upset the plans of Eumenes, and even made his position in Phoenicia, between Antigonus and Ptolemy, insecure. That wonderful man, however, whom no reverse found at the end of his resources, turned his eyes to another field, in which he could strike a telling blow. He saw that the situation in Iran, which had been created by the confederation against Pithon, might be turned to account. The confederate satraps had in effect identified their interests with those of the royalist party. The smaller chiefs knew that they would lose far less by being to some extent subject to a central authority than if they were severally swallowed up by Antigonus or Pithon. Accordingly, about the time of the battle in Parthia, Eumenes had moved eastwards, and crossed the Euphrates apparently without opposition. Amphimachus, the satrap of Mesopotamia, was an ally. His winter-quarters (318-317) Eumenes took up within the satrapy of Seleucus, in some villages which went by the name of the Villages of the Carians. So much for any hopes Seleucus may have nursed of keeping the broils from his door!

There were no forces in Babylon whom Seleucus dared to oppose to the Silver Shields, with Eumenes to command them. Eumenes wintered in the villages undisturbed, and summoned Seleucus and Pithon by messengers to come to the help of the Kings. These chiefs still felt a coalition with Eumenes, the detested Greek, to be impossible, and refused to see in him the Kings’ representative. But the dispatches he sent to the confederate satraps met with a favorable reception. His post found the united army which had defeated Pithon not yet disbanded. Eumenes appointed the neighbourhood of Susa as the place where it should meet his own forces in the spring.

The agents of Seleucus and Pithon vainly endeavored during the winter to detach the Silver Shields from their allegiance, and with the spring (317) the army of Eumenes was on the move. Seleucus soon learnt that he was encamped on the bank of the Tigris, only 34 miles from Babylon. Eumenes had, in fact, approached nearer to Babylon than was safe; for he had now exhausted the country between the rivers, and could find no more supplies except by crossing to the eastern side of the Tigris. And so near to the capital, Seleucus had it in his power to make the passage of the river next to impossible. But Seleucus, for his part, was by no means desirous to have a hostile army, and that including the Silver Shields, penned up at his doors. To block the march of the army was almost as perilous for him as to allow it to go on to Susiana. All would be well could he only induce the Silver Shields to desert, and in his extremity he desperately clung to this forlorn hope. He sent an embassy on the ships which Alexander had built in Babylon just before his death to make a last attempt; but the Silver Shields still held by Eumenes. The agents of Seleucus then tried a more forcible method of persuasion. They opened an ancient canal, which had silted up, and the camp of Eumenes was flooded. Eumenes was in an ugly position. The next day his force, which was greatly superior to the troops sent by Seleucus, seized the punts in which the latter had come, and the best part of the army succeeded in crossing. Next day a native showed him how the water could be drained off, and when the officers of Seleucus saw him set about doing it, they withdrew all opposition to his passage.

Seleucus had never (if the view just given is correct) been really anxious to detain him, but the alternative had been to allow Eumenes and the satraps to unite. The combined force could certainly crush him. To meet this peril Seleucus was obliged to call in Antigonus.

Antigonus was already in Mesopotamia on the track of Eumenes when the messengers of Seleucus found him. He had, in fact, wintered there, hoping that when spring allowed military operations to continue he would be able to come up with Eumenes before a junction with the satraps was effected. Being too late for this, he was reduced to remain a while stationary in Mesopotamia, raising new levies for the approach­ing campaign. In the summer of 317 he came at length to Babylon, and concerted a plan of operations with Seleucus and Pithon. Each furnished contingents. Then the whole force, with the three generals, crossed the Tigris, and the new phase in the great war of the Successors began.

It is no part of our purpose to follow its movements. The satrap of Babylonia ceased at an early stage to act with the main body. The first objective of Antigonus was Susa, and this he reached unopposed. A garrison, however, had been left by the confederate satraps to hold the fortress and guard the treasure. Antigonus, assuming already supreme powers, authorized Seleucus to join the Susian satrapy to his own, and left him with a detachment to reduce the fortress whilst he himself moved to Media. Xenophilus, the commander of the garrison, was perhaps only half-hearted in his resistance. At any rate we find him a year later still occupying his post as guardian of the treasure, but now as the lieutenant of Seleucus.

Within a year from the day that Antigonus crossed the Tigris, the mutual jealousies of the satraps and the treachery of the Silver Shields had delivered Eumenes into the hand of his enemies. Antigonus put him to death. The royalist cause in Asia was thereby extinguished. Antigonus was now the dominant person in all the country from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. Then the Macedonian grandees, who had followed Eumenes so grudgingly, found that with his disappearance the main prop of their defence was gone.

Eudamus, not the brother of Pithon, but the murderer of King Porus, the man whose 120 elephants had given him weight among the confederate satraps, was among the first to perish by the word of Antigonus. Antigenes, one of the commanders of the Silver Shields, who had been made satrap of Susiana at Triparadisus, was burnt alive. But it was not his late adversaries only whom the new lord of Asia could not tolerate. With them, if they were unlikely to give trouble in the future, there might be reconcilement. It was not the having fought in the royalist cause winch was the damning thing. It was the possession of any power or prestige which might menace the new monarchy.

There was not, for instance, room in the world for both Antigonus and Pithon. Antigonus quartered his troops for the winter (317-316) in Media, and Pithon quickly set to work in secret upon them. Antigonus did not dare to risk an open attack upon his supposed ally. He therefore enticed him to a friendly conference, and then ordered him to instant execution. Lest the possession of Media should lead anyone else to harbor the same designs as Pithon, Antigonus established a double authority there (according to Alexander's system), making a native satrap and appointing a Macedonian to command the troops.

After seizing the bullion in the treasuries of Ecbatana and stripping the silver tiles from the palace, Antigonus moved to Persis. Here in the home of the Achaemenian kings he purposed to make a fresh settlement of the Eastern satrapies. He did not, while a son of Alexander Lived, assume the title of King, but in fact he was King of Asia, and the natives received him with royal honors. It would indeed have been dangerous to strain his authority in the farther provinces, which his arms had never approached, and whose satraps, Macedonian and native, were strong in the affection of their subjects. The satrap of Aria was replaced by a nominee of Antigonus. Amphimachus, the satrap of Mesopotamia, who had joined Eumenes, was replaced by a certain Blitor. Those more remote were allowed to retain their government.

Peucestas, who, now that Pithon was gone, was the most formidable rival of Antigonus in the East, remained to be dealt with. A residence in Persis seems to have brought home to Antigonus how great the popularity of Peucestas with his native subjects was, and how alarming his power. He declared him deposed. This at once raised a storm. A Persian notable had the boldness to tell Antigonus to his face that the Persians would obey no one else. Antigonus put the man to death, but he thought it prudent to use no violence against Peucestas. He rather designed to allure him out of the country by splendid promises. Perhaps Peucestas believed him; perhaps he only thought that his best chance lay in falling in with whatever Antigonus proposed. At any rate, from this time he disappears without a trace from history. A nominee of Antigonus ruled Persis with a strong hand in his stead.

The time was now come for Antigonus to turn his face again to the West. He set out by way of Susiana. On crossing the Pasitigris he was met by Xenophilus, the warden of the city of Susa. Xenophilus explained that Seleucus, the governor of the country, had ordered him to place the royal treasures at Antigonus’ disposal. And now Antigonus laid his hands upon the fabulous riches of ‘Shushan the palace’. The climbing vine of gold, which had been in the imagination of the Greeks what the Peacock Throne of the Moguls was to our fathers, became his. When he left Susa the 5000 talents he brought from Ecbatana had swelled to 25,000.

Seleucus was the last man left east of the Euphrates whom Antigonus could regard as a rival. The lessons of the fate of Pithon and Peucestas had not been lost upon the satrap of Babylonia. He must have felt bitterly the difference between his position and that of Ptolemy in Egypt. He had done all in his power to keep his province unembroiled, and now he must ask himself whether he was to keep it at all. To hold it by force against Antigonus was out of the question. His one chance lay in conciliating the conqueror; and if he failed—well, there was nothing for it but to throw up the game and save his life at least for more fortunate times.

The army of Antigonus, with its immense train of wagons and camels bearing the spoils of the East, moved from Susa to Babylon. But an ominous indication of the mood of Antigonus preceded his departure. The province of Susiana, which in the stress of the war he had assigned to Seleucus, he now took away again and put under a native. At Babylon, Seleucus received him and his forces with every form of observance and sumptuous entertainment which might allay his suspicions. But he was on the alert for the least sign of hostility on the part of Antigonus in order to escape the fate of Pithon. He had not long to wait. Antigonus, alleging that some act of his was a breach of order, called for an account of his administration. Seleucus could not, without surrendering all claim to independence, comply. He allowed a discussion to run on for several days, and then, whilst Antigonus was no doubt expecting something which might be a colorable pretext for arrest, he was suddenly gone. He was riding for his life with fifty horsemen to Egypt—the one secure place; Ptolemy had a reputation for generosity. Perhaps he reflected that the very man he was now flying from had himself fled in like manner from Perdiccas.