DIVINE HISTORY |
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THE SELEUCID EMPIRE. 358-251 BC. HOUSE OF SELEUCUS
CHAPTER 17.
THE RECONQUEST OF
THE EAST
With the end of
Achaeus a great cloud falls upon Seleucid history. Antiochus has regained Asia
Minor, or at any rate that strip through the middle of it which the Seleucid
court considered it of first importance to control. But the Pergamene king
remains to be dealt with. He was the original enemy whom Seleucus III and
Achaeus set out to subdue. Circumstances had made him since then, it is true,
the ally of Antiochus III, and his services in that capacity were entitled to
recognition. Some arrangement must, of course, have been come to between the
two kings after the fall of Achaeus, but what frontier was agreed upon between
the Pergamene and Seleucid realms we cannot say. Whatever the arrangement was,
it could not be more than a temporary one. Inevitably with the removal of
Achaeus the old antagonism between Pergamos and the Seleucid house revived. It
was impossible for the latter to forget that Attalus had once supplanted it in
all its territory beyond the Taurus, or, remembering it, to regard him as
inoffensive. The situation in Asia Minor remained one of uneasy balance.
The destruction of
Achaeus marks a period in the restoration of the Seleucid Empire by Antiochus
III. Its extent at the present moment was roughly what it had been in the
latter years of Antiochus II. Since the fearful shock given by Ptolemy
Euergetes to the Empire, the Seleucid strip of Asia Minor, the provinces of the
Euphrates and Tigris, and Nearer Iran had never till now been firmly reunited
with Syria under a single hand. And this extent of territory is just that which
the house of Seleucus was resolved to govern directly, to treat as the
essential body of the Empire. The countries beyond this limit, which the
Macedonians had never really conquered, or which had fallen away from the
Seleucids before the death of Antiochus II, were put (for the present at all
events) in a different category. It was recognized that to attempt to hold them
in the same way as Lydia or Media would overtax the strength of the central
government. In these countries the Seleucids were content to see subordinate
dynasties, Greek or Asiatic, bearing rule. Their policy took the line of
binding these other houses to themselves by alliances and royal marriages, and,
where they had at any moment sufficient power, compelling an acknowledgment of
their overlordship. In a sense, then, these countries form an outside sphere of
the Seleucid Empire, although from the nature of the case the relations
fluctuate with the momentary distribution of actual strength. In the treatment
allotted to the vanquished we see this distinction of the outer and inner
sphere marked. Molon and Achaeus are treated with the extreme rigor shown by
the Oriental tradition towards rebels. In the outer sphere we see the
vanquished admitted to terms, and peace, if possible, sealed by a royal
marriage.
Antiochus, having
achieved the restoration of the inner sphere, went on to restore the outer.
Unfortunately the cloud covers the whole of this process, except for a few
rifts. And yet it was his exploits in this direction which were his chief glory
in contemporary eyes, and won him the title of “Great King”.
In Asia Minor the
situation as regards the subordinate dynasties did not call for any immediate
readjustment. A modus vivendi had been found with Attalus, the two
Persian houses of Pontic and Southern Cappadocia were friendly and allied; the
Bithynian king would be drawn to the house of Seleucus by the fear of Attalus.
It was in Armenia, where Xerxes of Arsamosata had ceased to pay tribute, it was
in Further Iran, that the Seleucid authority most needed reassertion.
It seems to be in
the year 212 that we get the first rift in the cloud. Antiochus has penetrated
into the mountain region of Armenia. Xerxes has shut himself up in his capital
Arsamosata, and Antiochus, sitting down before it, makes preparations for a
siege. At an early stage of the operations Xerxes escapes to some corner of the
hills; then, as the siege goes on, he begins to fear that the fall of
Arsamosata will entail the loss of his whole kingdom. He therefore sends
messengers to Antiochus begging for a personal interview. Some of the royal
council urge Antiochus to seize the occasion in order to make Xerxes a
prisoner, and advise that as soon as the town has fallen, Mithridates, the son
of Antiochus’ sister, should be put in Xerxes’ place. Antiochus, however,
prefers to follow the policy of attaching Xerxes to his house by friendly
alliance. He grants the interview, and remits a large proportion of the arrears
of tribute due from Xerxes and his father. The demand which Xerxes is obliged
to meet is for 300 talents, 1000 horses and 1000 mules. The affairs of the
kingdom are regulated in the Seleucid interest, and Xerxes, who is still young,
is given Antiochis, the sister of Antiochus, to wife. The generosity of this treatment
wins Antiochus the hearts of the Armenians. So far Polybius; the sequel to the
story puts the Seleucid policy in a somewhat different light. Xerxes gave fresh
dissatisfaction to his overlord, and his wife Antiochis was employed to make
away with him.
The expedition into
Armenia seems to have immediately followed the reduction of the trans-Tauric
provinces. How long an interval separated it from the great expedition into
Further Iran it is impossible to say. The appearance of fresh cuneiform tablets
might decide the question. Antiochus III seems at the time of his leaving Syria
to have associated his son Antiochus, a child of about ten years, with himself
on the throne. This was obviously, as in the case of Antiochus IV and Antiochus
Eupator under similar circumstances, a measure to prevent a dangerous vacancy,
should the reigning king meet with any fatal mischance at a distance from the
seat of government. We may therefore conclude that so long as Antiochus III is
given as sole king in legal documents the expedition is still future.
Unfortunately, no documents have been found of the years between 100 aer.
Sel. (October 212-October 211 BC) and 104 aer. Sel. (208-207 BC); in the
former Antiochus III is sole king, in the latter his son is already associated
with him.
The two chief
independent powers which had sprung up in the East were, of course, the Arsacid
dynasty in Parthia and the Greek kingdom in Bactria. It is convenient that the
openings in the cloud are so arranged that we have a glimpse of each of the
struggles thus entailed upon Antiochus in asserting the Seleucid supremacy. In
210 the army of Antiochus descends the Euphrates by boat. By the summer of 209
Antiochus has pushed as far as Media. That province, still governed apparently
by the Diogenes who had replaced Melon, was the outpost of Seleucid power
towards the East. Beyond it was the waterless plateau of central Iran and
Parthia.
The visit of
Antiochus III to the Median capital was marked by the first known instance of a
practice to which the house of Seleucus was afterwards repeatedly pushed by its
financial necessities with disastrous consequences—the spoliation of temples.
That Antiochus resorted to it now is an indication how severe a strain the maintenance
of its outlying dominion put upon the Seleucid court, or rather, considering
what vast resources it had, in Babylonia for instance, how ill-regulated, in
view of the demands put upon it, the financial administration of the Empire had
already become. Ecbatana, though still offering a majestic spectacle, had lost
much of its ancient splendor. The immense palace, with its colonnades of cedar
and cypress wood, was still to be seen, a memorial of vanished empire, but the
gold and silver plates which had once covered them had been stripped off and
turned into coin during the stormy times which passed over Asia after
Alexander’s death. Its treasuries had, of course, long been empty. Only on the
temple of the goddess Aine (Anaitis?) had the Macedonian chiefs feared to lay
sacrilegious hands; they had spared the gold plating of its columns, its silver
bricks and tiles. Antiochus III now appropriated all this precious metal, and
realized in coin the sum of nearly 4000 talents. The action was calculated to
embitter native opinion against the house of Seleucus as nothing else could
have done, and it may be questioned whether this consequence in a province
bordering on the Parthian sphere, did not more than outweigh the momentary
advantage which the sacrilege procured.
By this time the
third Arsaces had succeeded to the throne. He was naturally watching the
eastward advance of Antiochus with anxiety. He did not, however, believe that
the expedition would proceed farther than Media. The waterless tract would
oppose an effectual obstacle to so large a force. To his dismay, however, he
learned that Antiochus was really about to cross it, relying on the numerous
wells which were supplied artificially from the Median hills by underground
conduits. Arsaces knew that against the gathered strength of the house of
Seleucus his own kingdom could not yet make head. He sent some horsemen in
haste to block the wells in the enemy’s line of march, and himself evacuated
his capital, Hecatompylus, and fell back upon Hyrcania. Antiochus detached a
body of horse under Nicomedes of Cos, who dispersed the Parthians at the wells
and secured the road. The Seleucid army advanced without hindrance across the
wilderness and quietly took possession of Hecatompylus.
After halting to
rest the army in the Parthian capital, Antiochus determined to follow up the
retreating foe into Hyrcania itself. He first moved to Tagae. There he learnt
from the natives the enormous difficulties of a march through the mountains.
But his resolution held. In the force he had at his disposal were Cretans and
Aetolians, accustomed from childhood to mountain warfare. He knew that among
the narrow gorges and defiles the valuable arm would be, not the heavy phalanx,
but the light troops, archers, javelineers, slingers, who could scale
precipices inaccessible to the heavily armed soldier, and by irregular attacks
dislodge the enemy from the posts which commanded the passage. These troops he
formed into an advanced guard under Diogenes, the satrap of Media. They were to
be supported by 2000 Cretans, whose armament was something between that of the
light skirmishers and the phalanx (they carried small shields), under the
command of a Rhodian exile, Polyxenidas, of whom more is heard by and by. Last
of all were to come the heavy troops under Nicomedes of Cos and an Aetolian
Nicolaus.
The difficulties of
the road proved even greater than the King had expected. It wound for the most
part through deep gorges, into which many boulders and trees had fallen, making
the passage painful.
Up on the rocks
above, too, were perched the barbarians, with piles of stones and trunks at all
convenient places to roll down upon the labouring train below. Their
calculations were, however, disconcerted by the tactics of the light
skirmishers. The troops of Diogenes could scale the “white face of the cliff”
itself, and the barbarians in their ambush suddenly found themselves exposed
from unexpected quarters to a hail of stones and darts. As soon as a post had
been occupied by the light troops it was a short matter for the engineers to make
the road for the heavy troops below. In this way the ascent was successfully,
though slowly, accomplished. Post after post of the barbarians was driven back.
At the pass of Labus, which marked the summit of the mountain barrier, they
determined to make a stand. In eight days from beginning the ascent the army
reached the pass, and here the phalanx came for the first time into action. In
a pitched battle, however, the barbarian mountaineers could do it little harm,
and the light troops had secretly before dawn crept round and occupied strong
posts in the enemy's rear. At the discovery of this the barbarians broke and
fled. The King was concerned to prevent an incautious pursuit, and soon sounded
a halt. With closed ranks and imposing order the Seleucid army descended into
Hyrcania.
Tambraca was first
occupied, a city considerable enough to contain one of the residences of the
Parthian king. It was unfortified, and the inhabitants, after Antiochus’
victory on the pass, had mostly taken refuge in the neighboring Syrinca, “the
royal city as it were” of Hyrcania. Unlike Tambraca, Syrinca was a place of
exceptional strength and included a Greek population. Antiochus proceeded to
invest it, and against the highly developed siege tactics of the western race
the defenders could not maintain themselves. As soon as a breach was made,
there was a massacre of the resident Greeks and a stampede. They were, however,
driven back again by the mercenaries under Hyperbasas, and, giving up all hope,
surrendered.
And now the cloud
falls again. Of the subsequent course of the war we know nothing. The end was
probably a victory of the Seleucid arms, after which Antiochus, following the
same policy as in Atropatene (Lesser Media) and Armenia, demanded only a
recognition of his supremacy and a payment of tribute, and received Arsaces
into favor. So much at least may be gathered from the loose statement of Justin
that Arsaces fought with extraordinary valor against the overwhelming numbers
of Antiochus, and was finally admitted to an alliance.
In the year
following the invasion of Hyrcania (209-208) Antiochus moved upon Bactria.
Diodotus, the son of the original rebel, no longer reigned there. His house had
been overthrown by another upstart, Euthydemus, a man from one of the Magnesias.
It was he who now bore the name of king. The high-road to Bactria crossed the
river Arius (mod. Hare-Rud), and Euthydemus encamped at some place on
his own side of the river and detached a large body of his excellent Bactrian
cavalry, 10,000 strong, to defend the fords. The intelligence of his position
was carried to Antiochus whilst he was still three days' march from the river.
He at once pressed forward, and with a select body of cavalry, light-armed
troops and peltasts, reached the river before the third day dawned. The main
part of the enemy’s cavalry had retired from the bank during the night, as
their habit was, leaving only a few patrols. Antiochus was thus able to throw
the majority of his detachment across before he was discovered. Of course, daybreak
brought the enemy’s cavalry to the attack, and an engagement ensued. This
battle on the Arius did more than anything else to make the reputation of
Antiochus III for personal courage. The King himself headed the troop of horse
which received the brunt of the leading Bactrian squadron, and fought in the
thick of it till relieved by Panaetolus. After a hot action the Bactrian
cavalry was beaten off with severe loss, and only a remnant of the force made
its way back to the camp of Euthydemus. A large number remained as prisoners in
the hands of the victor. The King himself had had his horse killed under him,
and received a blow in the face which knocked out several teeth. His detachment
bivouacked the following night on the field, awaiting the arrival of the main
body. Euthydemus, without risking a second encounter, withdrew upon his capital
Zariaspa.
Of the further
course of the war we know only that the siege laid to Zariaspa or Bactra
(Balkh) by Antiochus was a famous episode which popular historians loved to
embroider. Before the summer of 206 was out, both belligerents were anxious for
peace. To the Bactrian Greeks indeed the war must have seemed something like a
civil war in the face of the alien foe. Surrounded as they were by barbarians,
the outposts of Hellenic civilization against the hordes of the great
wilderness, they realized intensely their solidarity with the Hellenism of the
West. The man who was king in Central Asia still felt himself a Magnesian,
still thought of some city 2000 miles away as his home. A fellow-countryman of
his, the Magnesian Teleas, was among the persons of influence about Antiochus.
Euthydemus besought his good offices to effect a reconciliation. What indeed,
he urged, was his offence? It could not be rebellion. The Seleucid power had
already ceased to be effective in Further Iran when he made himself a kingdom.
It was the rebellious house of Diodotus, not the ministers of the Great King,
whom he had replaced. Or was it his crime to have assumed the royal name? For
justification he had but to point eastwards, to the innumerable shifting
peoples of the wilderness, who loomed like an ominous cloud over Iranian
Hellenism. There could be no vacancy in Hellenic sovereignty here without hazarding
such an irruption from that quarter as would without question submerge the
country in barbarism. The Bactrian kingdom was a dam, which the interests of
Antiochus should impel him, not to weaken, but to make as strong as possible.
These representations, conveyed by Teleas to the ears of Antiochus, were not
without weight. He had long desired to be rid of the Bactrian entanglement,
protracting as it did his absence from the West to a dangerous duration. Teleas
was now entrusted with the conduct of the negotiations, and a satisfactory settlement
was reached. Euthydemus, no doubt, recognized the Seleucid suzerainty; he ceded
at any rate to Antiochus his elephants of war and furnished supplies for the
army. Antiochus, on the other hand, authorized Euthydemus to bear the title of
king. The other points at issue were determined in detail by a written treaty,
and a formal alliance was concluded. This happy result was greatly facilitated
by the favorable impression made upon Antiochus by the person and bearing of
Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus. Antiochus promised him the hand of one of his
own daughters. This was the Demetrius who was to be known one day as the
conqueror of western India.
From Bactria the
imperial army moved south. Antiochus crossed the Hindu-Kush and descended the
Kabul valley. Once more a Macedonian king at the head of his army stood at the
door of India. The great Asoka was no longer alive, and his death had been
followed by the break-up of the realm. No certain knowledge of the period of
confusion can be got from Indian sources, nor do we know with which of the
kings they mention, if with any, the Sophagasenus spoken of by Polybius is to
be identified, or whether he belonged to the house of Asoka. With this Indian
ruler, whoever he was, Antiochus III had to do. Sophagasenus recognized the
superior power of the Seleucid. He gave Antiochus more elephants and provisions
for his army. He also promised a large quantity of treasure. Antiochus now
turned homewards. Androsthenes of Cyzicus was left to convey the treasure when
Sophagasenus had collected the required amount. The King went by way of
Arachosia, across the Erymanthus (mod. Hilmend), and thence through
Drangiana (mod. Seistan) to Carmania, where he encamped for the winter
(206-205). He thus passed south of the great Iranian desert, not by the
ordinary trade-route, which went north of it, and by which he had come.
In the following
year he was once more in the eastern capital on the Tigris.
Like Alexander when
he had completed the circuit of his Empire, Antiochus III, as soon as he had
returned to Babylonia, turned his thoughts to the still unattempted Arab
country to the south. The principal commercial centre of the nearer part of
Arabia was the town of Gerrha, a point in the great caravan route from the
spice regions beyond, from which tracks branched off to Mecca, Medinah and
Petra, and which was in close connection with the harbors of the Persian Gulf.
The Gerrhaeans were the great merchantmen of that part of the world. By caravan
through the desert or boats along the coast, they went to and fro between
Babylonia and the Arabian interior, and were to be met in the market-places of
the cities on the Euphrates and Tigris, carrying frankincense and myrrh.
Antiochus went with a fleet from the Tigris along the Arabian coast, and made as
if he would bring this place of merchandise under his hand. But a view of the
country made him abandon the idea of a permanent occupation. When therefore a
letter from the Gerrhaean chiefs was brought him, which, being interpreted,
ran, “Destroy not, King, those two things which have been given us of the
gods—perpetual peace and freedom”, he contented himself with receiving a large
present, part in silver and part in precious gums, and sailed away, first
toward the island of Tylos, and then back again to Seleucia-on-the-Tigris
(206-204).
The eastern
expedition of Antiochus III, blurred as it now is by the mists of time, took a
large place in the field of his contemporaries’ vision. After all the years of
ruin and humiliation, the house of Seleucus had renewed its youth. Antiochus
had resumed the glorious tradition of Alexander and Seleucus Nicator. He had
vindicated his right to bear the same titles as they; it was as the Great
King that he was henceforth known in the west, as Antiochus Nicator in the
East. If already in the western Mediterranean a power was growing up which
vexed Greek statesmen with a new problem and peril, there seemed at any rate to
be still a counterpoise in the Macedonian Great King. It was not only the
kingdom, the office, the resources of Antiochus which had been magnified, but
his personal character—his military ability, his courage, resolution and
energy, his magnanimity to the vanquished.
Men recollected how
the Seleucid Empire at his accession had touched the nadir of its decline,
whilst now by nearly twenty years of incessant fighting Antiochus had won back
well-nigh all that his grandfather and father had lost. The figure of the young
King, in the glamour of his success, imposed itself upon the imagination of the
Greek world; he became a hero of the market-place. And in this way events in
one half of the Empire reacted, as they always did, upon the other. Just as the
blows received by Antiochus II and Seleucus III in the West destroyed their
authority in the East, just as the defeat of Antiochus III himself later on at
Magnesia undid the work of his great eastern expedition, so now the success of
that expedition made the position of Antiochus for the time stronger than ever
in the West. The accession of resources, and still more of prestige, put a new
complexion upon Seleucid rule in Asia Minor. The vassal princes became
unusually submissive and well-disposed. The somewhat indefinite sovereignty of
the Seleucid house over the Greek cities of the coast became more stringent.
And beyond the limits of the Empire altogether, that influence in Greece itself
upon which the Macedonian houses set such store was secured in a new degree. It
was whispered in some circles that the ideal of Alexander, the whole Greek
world united under a single sceptre, might yet be realized.
Regarded from the
sober standpoint of history, what had Antiochus achieved? He had not, of
course, established Seleucid rule on any permanent basis in the outer sphere of
the Empire, in the principalities, that is, of Pergamos, the two Cappadocias,
Armenia, Atropatene, Parthia and Bactria. It is obvious that wherever the
subordinate dynasties had been left in possession, at the first opportunity,
the first shortening of the suzerain's arm or the ability to do without him, those
dynasties would forget their allegiance. The Seleucid rule only existed so long
as the Great King was prepared to enforce it by a fresh military expedition
from the seat of government And yet Antiochus was wise in stopping short where
he did; it was no generous folly. For the time no better plan was possible. He
might, of course, have fought till he had dethroned the princes in possession
and substituted for each of them a satrap appointed by himself. But he would not
have gained much by so doing. The new satrap would be just as likely as the old
dynast to improve the occasion to revolt. By using his victory magnanimously,
by uniting the dynasts by ties of marriage with his own house, Antiochus really
did secure their loyalty—for a time. He might have quartered troops in the
outlying provinces. But even supposing such garrisons remained loyal, they
would be locked up in distant places when he wanted them badly elsewhere, and
the difficulty of relieving them, should they be exposed to attack in detail, might
be enormous.
The fundamental
obstacles to a permanent settlement—the dependence of the central government
upon mercenaries, the difficulty of communication between different parts of
the Empire, the financial embarrassment—all these could be overcome only by
time, by the development of the richer provinces, a sound administration, a
thorough reorganization of the government machinery, and a wise expenditure on
public works. For all these things were prerequisites of the only efficient
contrivance for holding together such an Empire, in its essence artificial,
without basis in nationality—a system of extensive and centralized military
occupation. A statesman, regarding the problem from the Seleucid point of view,
would necessarily have put such a system before himself as the ultimate end,
but some temporary expedient would be required to maintain the authority of the
Great King till that was possible. And as such an expedient the dispositions
made by Antiochus were unexceptionable.
Looked at in this light,
the achievements of Antiochus, which won him so much glory, did not amount to a
conquest of Iran, but were only a step in the process of conquest, the
necessary first step. Whether they remained a splendid but idle tour de
force, or whether the process was carried on to a practical conclusion,
depended largely on the character and political talent of Antiochus. Antiochus
came to be something of a puzzle even to his contemporaries; there seemed such
discrepancy between his character as it appeared in his early struggles and his
character as it appeared in the latter part of his reign, when he strove with
Rome. A difficulty of this kind, felt by those who knew far more of the
circumstances than we do, it would be vain to try to smooth away.
But we may legitimately
examine closely the record of either period and let the earlier Antiochus and
the later each throw what light he can upon the other. The qualities displayed
by the Antiochus of the earlier period are described by Polybius as “daring and
indefatigableness”. Now as to physical courage, the courage of the soldier,
that was inherent in the stock from which Antiochus sprang, and there is no
reason to suppose that he was ever unwilling to adventure his person on the field.
It was rather his political nerve which seemed to fail; it was the contrast
between the energy with which his earlier political plans and campaigns were
carried through and the hesitation, rashness, and puerile trifling of his war
with Rome. We are thus brought to look more closely into the sort of energy
displayed by Antiochus in his earlier period, and see whether there are no
signs of those failings which were afterwards set in so damning a light. That
Antiochus did on occasion show pertinacity and vigor is undeniable, in his
repeated forcing of the gates of Coele-Syria, for instance, or in his passage
of the Hyrcanian hills : a considerable degree of indefatigableness is implied
in the mere fact that from the time of his accession in 223 he was almost
continuously engaged in the personal conduct of war. But there appears at times
a singular lack of thoroughness in his operations—his allowing the Ptolemaic
army to reoccupy the passes into Coele-Syria when he had already once forced
them and established posts on the farther side, his remissness in preparing for
the encounter with Ptolemy, which lost him the battle of Raphia and undid the
work of two campaigns. We observe that his is that energy which shows itself
rather in bursts, when confronted by an obstacle, than in the deliberate and
resolute provision of the means toward the end in view, which marks the true
practical genius. It is displayed (to judge by the war with Ptolemy Philopator)
rather in the beginnings of an enterprise, when the difficulties and dangers
appear most formidable, and languishes with success. It is the energy of
impulse, not of reason. It is evoked by the prospect of a showy triumph rather
than by the more prosaic but more solid labour of organization. We are well
able to understand that energy of this kind might show increasingly conspicuous
cessations, as the man passed into middle age, in an environment of ease and
flattery, his vanity and self-confidence fostered by all the artifices of a
court. And if this is a right view of the character of Antiochus, we may
question whether his eastern expedition formed part of any large and
statesmanlike design for the reconstruction of the Empire on a firm basis,
whether, in fact, the puerility which appeared in his conflict with Rome was
not already patent in the gratification he found in romantic but elusive
triumphs.
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DIVINE HISTORY |
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