Seleucid Empire

“ In 316, when Antigonus had made himself master of the eastern provinces, Seleucus felt himself threatened and fled to Egypt. In the war which followed between Antigonus and the other Macedonian chiefs, Seleucus actively co-operated with Ptolemy and commanded Egyptian squadrons in the Aegean. The victory won by Ptolemy at Gaza in 312 opened the way for Seleucus to return to the east. His return to Babylon in that year was afterwards officially regarded as the beginning of the Seleucid empire. ”

“ Much of the old Persian empire, as far as the Indus eastward and almost to Lydia in the west, was held by one general Seleucus, who founded a dynasty, the Seleucid Dynasty; Macedonia fell to another Macedonian general, Antigonus; a third Macedonian, Ptolemy, secured Egypt, and making Alexandria his chief city, established a sufficient naval ascendancy to keep also Cyprus and most of the coast of Phœnicia and Asia Minor. The Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires lasted for a considerable time: the forms of government in Asia Minor and the Balkans were more unstable. ”

“ New invaders were also coming down out of central Asia to shatter and subdue the Seleucid empire and to cut off the western world again from India. These were the Parthians, hosts of mounted bowmen, who treated the Græco-Persian empire of Persepolis and Susa in the third century B.C. in much the same fashion that the Medes and Persians had treated it in the seventh and sixth. And there were now other nomadic peoples also coming out of the northeast, peoples who were not fair and Nordic and Aryan- speaking but yellow-skinned and black-haired and with a Mongolian speech. ”

“ The native population of these villages and rural districts, at first, had no civic rights, but were governed by the foreign settlers. Soon, however, the two elements began to coalesce; in the Seleucid Empire, the process seems generally to have been both rapid and complete. Thus the cities became the main factors in the diffusion of Hellenism, the Greek language and the Greek civilization over all Asia as far as the Indus. ”

“ A great many Greek authors were born here (e.g. the Stoic Diogenes of Babylonia, 2nd century) , though the inhabitants of Seleucia in Babylonia generally are simply called Babylonians by the Greeks. In the time of Pliny the town was said to have 600,000 inhabitants (vi. 122) . Seleucia suffered from the rebellion of the satrap Molon of Media, who was put down by Antiochus III. the Great in 220 (Polyb. v. 54) . Antiochus IV. Epiphanes once more restored the Seleucid supremacy in the east; but after his death (163) the decay of the empire began and was accelerated by the intrigues of the Romans. ”

“ It was indispensable to every state which hoped to play some part in the world and was not so utterly secluded as Persis and Atropatene; and the Arsacids entertained the less thought of opposition as Relation towards Hellenism. they were destitute of an independent national basis. All their external institutions were borrowed from the Seleucid Empire: their coinage with its Greek inscriptions and nomenclature; their Attic standard of currency; and, doubtless, a great part of their administration also. In the towns Greek merchants were everywhere settled. ”

“ My account of events in the Seleucid empire is drawn largely from Tarn in CAH, VII, chap, xxii, which agrees substantially with the earlier works of Bevan and Bouché-Leclerq. ↑ Justin xli. 4. 5. ↑ Probably about 250 b.c. There is the possibility that 247 b.c., the beginning of the Parthian era, represents the date of the revolt; so Percy Gardner, The Parthian Coinage ("International Numismata Orientalia," Part V [London, 1877] ) , p. 3. Tarn in CAH, IX, 576, feels that it marks the coronation of Tiridates I ”

“ As for the Seleucid kings themselves they leave on us, ill-known as their characters and actions are, a clear impression of approximation to the traditional type of the Greek of the Roman age and since. As a dynasty they seem to have been quickly spoilt by power, to have been ambitious but easily contented with the show and surface of success, to have been incapable and contemptuous of thorough organization, and to have had little in the way of policy, and less perseverance in the pursuit of it. ”

“ On this occasion Seleucus and Lysimachus met and fought in Phrygia; and Lysimachus being slain in the battel, lost his kingdom to Seleucus, An. Nabonass. 465. Thus the Empire of the Greeks, which at first brake into four kingdoms, became now reduced into two notable ones, henceforward called by Daniel the kings of the South and North. For Ptolemy now reigned over Egypt, Lybia, Ethiopia, Arabia, Phœnicia, Cœlosyria, and Cyprus; and Seleucus, having united three of the four kingdoms, had a dominion scarce inferior to that of the Persian Empire, conquered by Alexander the great. ”

“ The Egyptian monarch invaded Seleucid territory and marched victoriously at least as far as Syria and perhaps to the Tigris, [49] though later writers extended his conquests to Bactria and even as far eastward as India. But a revolt in the Delta forced Ptolemy to return home before he could consolidate his position. Sometime in the course of the struggle between Ptolemy and Seleucus, the latter was forced to conclude a peace with his brother which left Antiochus Hierax an autonomous sovereign in Asia Minor. The war with Egypt once ended, Seleucus soon attempted to recover the lost territory ”

“ The ministry of finance was an especially coveted office. In general, the Seleucids and Ptolemies were monogamous but kept mistresses. Members of both houses practised sister mar- riage, as the Pharaohs and Persian kings had done. Members of the royal family and of the official corps had a plethora of slaves. Hellenistic society everywhere was poor in machines, rich in slaves.
The Seleucid army, which in its early stages consisted of all the male Macedonians and Greeks in the realm, was influential in state affairs, with the cavalry ranking higher and receiving more pay than the infantry. ”

“ The end of the fourth century sees Seleucus of Babylonia lording it over the most part of West Asia which was best worth having, except the southern half of Syria and the coasts of Asia Minor and certain isles in sight of them, which, if not subject to Ptolemy of Egypt, were free of both kings or dominated by a third, resident in Europe and soon to disappear. In the event those two, Seleucus and Ptolemy, alone of all the Macedonian successors, would found dynasties destined to endure long enough in kingdoms great enough to affect the general history of civilization in the Ancient East. ”

“ In Asia Minor neither Seleucus nor the Seleucids ever held anything effectively except the main lines of communication from East to West and the district in which these come down to the Aegean Sea. The south coast, as has been said, remained in Egyptian hands almost all through the Seleucid period. The southwest obeyed the island republic of Rhodes. Most of the Greek maritime cities of the northwest and north kept their freedom more or less inviolate; while inland a purely Greek monarchy, that of Pergamum, gradually extended its sway up to the central desert. ”

“ Trajan occupied Seleucia in 116. In the war of Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus against the Parthians, Seleucia was taken by Avidius Cassius in 164, and then the. Romans did what the Parthians had not dared to do: they burnt down the great Greek town with 300,000 inhabitants (Dio Cass. lxxi. 2; Zonar, xii. 2; Capitol. Vit. Veri, 8; Eutrop. 8. 10; Ammian. Marc. xxiii. 6. 24; xxiv. 5. 3) . The great plague, which laid waste the Roman empire during the next years, is said to have sprung from the ruins of Seleucia. The destruction of Seleucia may be considered as the end of Hellenism in Babylonia. ”

“ Mesopotamia, where were Ctesiphon, the Parthian's chief capital, and Seleucia, their greatest city,—the richest and most populated part of their empire, stretches northward from the very top of the gulf, a long way from Fars; and the main routes eastward from Mesopotamia run well to the north of the latter avoiding its mountains and desert beyond. So this province is remote, and well calculated to maintain appreciable independence of any empire not born in itself. ”

“ Government at the same time, as an Oriental despotism understands it, often has little in view but the gathering in of the tribute and compulsion of the subjects to personal service in the army or in royal works, and if satisfied in these respects will leave much independence to the local authorities. In the loosely-knit Seleucid realm it is plain that a great deal more independence was left to the various communities,—cities or native tribes,—than in Egypt, where the conditions made a bureaucratic system so easy to carry through. ”

“ The Fatimite caliphs were confined to Egypt. The rule of the Abassids of Bagdad had been well-nigh demolished by the Seljukian Turks in 1058. They founded in the eleventh century an extensive empire. The sultan, Alp Arslan, took the emperor, Romanus IV. Diogenes, prisoner (1071) , and conquered Armenia. Malek Shah invaded Syria, Palestine, Jerusalem, and carried his arms as far as Egypt, while a member of the Turkish family of Seljuk wrested Asia Minor from the Greeks, and established the kingdom of Iconium, which was called Roum, extending from Mount Taurus to the Bosphorus. ”

“ Arrian tells us that Magians no less than Greek soothsayers took part in their festivals. [90] Nor were the Seleucids more desirous than Alexander to effect the destruction of the Iranian nationality; just as the Ptolemies never attempted to set aside the Egyptian religion and life. Even if they had cherished such views, they were far from being strong enough to carry them out, for the Greek empire over Iran lasted in its integrity only eighty years. The Arsacids also, who recovered Iran from the Seleucids, were not averse to the Greek nation. ”

“ The struggles of Alexander’s successors, who had inherited from him the empire, are matters of common history. The Seleucids reunited, though in futile manner, the formerly Hittite regions in the north of Syria and Cilicia, and for a time gained some ascendency in Asia Minor, until defeated in 191 B.C. and driven back beyond the Taurus, where for another century they retained a sphere of influence. But of greater interest to us is the survival of local power in Cappadocia, under the dynasty of Ariarthes, which had come to the fore in the last century of Persian domination. ”

“ Seleucus had Babylon, Media, Susiana, Persia, Assyria, Bactria, Hyrcania, and all other provinces, even to the Ganges. Thus this empire, founded on the ruin of that of the Persians, "had rule over all the earth."
IV. Legs of Iron, and Feet and Toes of Iron and Clay. I think this means, in the first place, the kingdom of the Lagidae, in Egypt; and the kingdom of the Seleucidae, in Syria. And, secondly, the Roman empire, which was properly composed of them.
1. Ptolemy Lagus, one of Alexander's generals, began the new kingdom of Egypt, A.M. 3692, b.c. ”

“ Here she in vain incited her nephew Seleucus II. to avenge the insult offered her by declaring war against the Macedonian king. According to another account, she was in hopes to induce Seleucus himself to marry her; but that monarch was wholly occupied with the recovery of Babylonia and the upper provinces of the empire. While he was thus engaged, Stratonice took advantage of his absence to raise a revolt against him at Antioch; but she was easily expelled from that city on the return of Seleucus, and took refuge in Seleucia, where she was besieged, taken prisoner, and put to death. ”

“ After Euergetes had, as he thought, established his authority in Asia, a party hostile to him came forward to oppose him. The Rhodians, with their wise policy, who had hitherto given no decided support to either empire, now stepped forward, setting to other maritime cities the example of joining that hostile party. The confederates formed a fleet, with the assistance of which, and supported by a general insurrection of the Asiatics, who were exasperated against the Egyptians on account of their rapacity, Seleucus Callinicus rallied again. ”

“ In the meantime Seleucia and the other cities of Mesopotamia had become dissatisfied with the rule of Himerus, the viceregent appointed by Phraates II in the year 129 b.c. Among other crimes he is charged with selling numerous Babylonians into Media as slaves. [40] Besides these internal troubles Himerus was soon face to face with a new power to the south, a new state arising in the territory once occupied by the old Seleucid province of the Erythrean Sea created by Antiochus III before Molon's revolt. ”

“ The standing army of the Seleucidae was wholly officered, just as was that of our own Sepoys, by Europeans; Europeans thronged the court, and filled every important post under the government. There cannot be a doubt that such a high-spirited and indeed arrogant people as the Persians must have fretted and chafed under this treatment, and have detested the nation and dynasty which had thrust them down from their pre-eminence and converted them from masters into slaves. ”

“ Apparently they took the Mohammedan religion as embodied in the Koran literally and fanatically, and, considering nothing beyond these, sought to propagate the doctrine through conquest by sword. They are frequently known as Seljuks. It is to the credit of the Arabs, whether in Mesopotamia, Africa, or Spain, that their minds reached beyond the Koran into the wider ranges of knowledge, a fact which tempered their fanatical zeal, but the Seljuk Turks swept forward with their armies until they conquered the Byzantine Empire of the East, the last branch of the great Roman Empire. ”