Chapter XVIII: Golden Age of the Seleucids
Above all, there are two reasons why the Seleucids boomed during the 2nd and 1st Centuries AD, more so than pretty much anyone else. The first is a series of decent/strong kings from Antiochus III right through to the middle of the 1st Century. Their personal and political strength, talent in military or administrative matters and oftentimes quick thinking helped fuse the Seleucid Empire together, preventing civil war and rebellion and maintaining a powerful empire. The second was money. Before, I mentioned that the Seleucids prospered primarily from trade with the East. Already by the 130s, spices were flowing in by sea from India to dock wither in Southern Egypt, the Sinai Desert or Mesopotamia, then working their way up from there to Antioch or Alexandria. Silks had also been traded but on a much smaller scale. Until the official 'formation' of the Silk Road in 119 BCE (when the Han Dynasty seized control of the Gansu corridor allowing Chinese merchants to travel further West towards Baktria along the Northern routes), silk was traded on a generally small scale and available only to the king himself. From 119 BCE that changed. The formation of the Silk Road brought a much increased trade in silk and other goods from China to Baktria and from there West through Persia to Antioch. As such, these two trade routes in the Indian Ocean and along Persia, formed the backbone of the Seleucid economy and wherever the trade routes passed, the economy boomed. By the middle of the 1st Century BCE, major towns had cropped up around Myos Hormos in Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula and cities such as Babylon, Seleukeia and Susa were booming from the spices passing up the Euphrates and Tigris and directly through their cities. In particular, Mesopotamia boomed as not only a fertile region suited for the growing of a significant agricultural surplus but also as the crossroads between the Silk Road and much of the spice trade from the East. This period, after 119 BCE, was the Golden Age of the Seleucid Empire, but it was preceded by decades of warfare and diplomacy that would set the stage for its success at the end of the 2nd Century.
This begins, in turn, with Antiochus 'the Great'. A talented military commander, Antiochus is in many ways the Seleucid counterpart to Philip V in Macedonia, a man set on expanding his rule and a man compared by many to Alexander himself. Following his defeat in 217 BCE at the Battle of Raphia, Antiochus had campaigned non-stop for the next 12 years in Anatolia, Armenia, Parthia, Baktria and eventually India. Afterwards, he turned his attention back to the Egyptians, signing a treaty with Philip V in 205 BCE to split the Egyptian territories between them, which had in inspired Philip's expansion into the Aegean Sea. Antiochus would campaign for a while in Syria but in 203 BCE, took advantage of the Anatolian Treaty between him and Philip to secure his position in the North, invading Asia Minor and ravaging the Egyptian lands before advancing on Pergamon in the North. There he confronted and defeated Attalus I at the Battle of Pergamon before joining with the Bithynians and signing an alliance under which Pergamon would be divided between the two kings. In the North, the Bithynians were granted a stretch of land along the Northern coast of Anatolia whilst Antiochus forced Attalus to accept a status of vassal for the rest of his kingdom, terms under which Attalus would be expected to pay tribute to Antiochus and provide military support but would otherwise be given a degree of autonomy. At sea, his navy fought extensively against the Rhodians, attempting to gain enough of a control of the sea to allow Antiochus' army passage over to the island. Supported by the Macedonians and Carthaginian naval support, they were finally able to defeat the Rhodians at sea and in 200 BCE, Antiochus' army landed near Rhodes. After the hard-fought Battle of Rhodes, the Rhodians retreated into the city in which they were besieged, the joint naval forces blockading the city by sea. The siege would continue for another 2 years before Rhodes surrendered and agreed to dismantle its walls and the remainder of its fleet and accept a tributary position to Antiochus, providing both money and military support and accepting Antiochus as King of Rhodes. One of the most important things to remember about Antiochus is that most of his rule was spent campaigning. After Rhodes, he swept South and finished the conquest of Syria and Judaea, only returning North for a second campaign in Anatolia to put down a Ptolemaic revolt in Anatolia. From 217 right through until the defeat of the Anatolian rebels in 193 BCE, Antiochus was almost permanently on campaign. But his campaigns had had the desired effect. Baktria and Parthia had accepted vassalage once again (although they would continue to prove problems for future kings), Pergamon had been defeated and so had Rhodes, thus securing his position in Anatolia and the Mediterranean trade routes from Antioch and the Ptolemies had been driven out of both Anatolia and their territories in Syria and Judaea. By the end of the 190s, Antiochus' son (Antiochus) had pushed the Egyptians as far as the Sinai, stopping when a truce was signed between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.
The effect, in the 180s, was suitably massive. Antioch prospered from the trade routes passing through it. No longer threatened at sea by the Rhodians, Seleucid trade networks boomed in the Mediterranean, taking agricultural produce, spices and a number of other goods out from the empire to Pella, Athens, Italy and beyond. Tribute missions served a similar purpose, not only did they bring wealth to Antiochus, but they often supported trade missions, merchants travelling with the tribute sent to Antioch for easy protection and selling their wares on in the markets of the city. Antiochus had commissioned already expansions to the city but, in the vein of most Hellenistic rulers, he took advantage of the growing wealth of the Seleucid Empire to beautify it ever further. Bear in mind that, as I said, reputation and foreign policy went hand in hand. As Philip had tried to appear as a pious ruler looking after the autonomy of Greece, Antiochus wanted to appear himself as a new Alexander, setting off to reunify the Macedonian Empire and restore it to glory. Hence why, on his campaign in Pergamon in the 200s, Antiochus had followed in Alexander's footsteps and visited what was believed to be the site of Troy. In the same vein, Seleucus IV in the 130s would visit the Temple of Amun in Siwa, just as Alexander had once done after the conquest of Egypt. When Antiochus held a grand festival to celebrate his successes on his return to Antioch in 191 BCE, he paraded captives and elephants, horses and camels and all sorts of booty and tribute collected from his many enemies. Within his parade were Parthians and Baktrians, Pergamese and Rhodians and a number of Egyptians. Only a year later, Antiochus commissioned a whole series of new coins presenting his own head on one side (as was typical) and that of Alexander on the other. Upon his second invasion of Egypt in the 170s, Antiochus would take the title 'King of the Egyptians' which he would be marked as (amongst a number of other epithets) for the rest of his life. Whilst later known as 'the Great' he also tended to prefer the time 'Soter' meaning saviour, presenting himself as a champion of Hellenism and peoples across the world. Hence why, after his parade in Antioch in 191 BCE, he would resettle the Greek captives across his empire whilst feeling free to enslave the Egyptians and Parthians.
In 186 BCE, Antiochus raised a fresh army and set off for the East once again. It is likely this was more of a political than a military mission. Antiochus held a massive empire and he had no desire to see any of it break off in revolt and so a military campaign to remind people of his might seemed a generally good idea. His 'campaign' of 186-183 BCE was aimed mostly at those areas we might think were most needed to keep in line, advancing through Parthia he stayed as the guest of the Parthian king, leaving with gifts and tribute aplenty before moving on to Baktria where he commissioned a grand new temple to Zeus before leading some incursions into India against the Mauryans. These campaigns met with probably little success nor failure, ending with a gift of 40 elephants by the Mauryan kings and some plunder brought home. En route home, Antiochus moved by the Indian Ocean route, meeting with a number of Arabian kings and extorting tribute from them and declarations of fealty. In short, this was a political campaign. It served to bind his empire a bit more closely together, whilst amassing more tribute and plunder. He barely fought and saw no major battles save what amounted to a small skirmish on the Indian frontier. Finally, in 183 BCE, he returned to Antioch. Antiochus was getting old, he was in his 50s and had reigned for a long time, securing his empire and having almost defeated the Egyptians once and for all. Determined to finish what he had started, Antiochus invaded Egypt again four years later beginning in 179 BCE and continuing until 177 BCE when he was defeated by the Egyptians at the Battle of the Sinai with the help of the Barcids. In the North, Antiochus had had troubled relations with the Macedonians for about a decade now. In 187 he had provided 30 ships to support the Delphic League, probably looking at a general invasion of Caria and Ionia and only a year later his son, Antiochus invaded the Macedonian regions of Caria. Representing his father, Antiochus took much of his father's propaganda with him. As he advanced through Caria, he presented himself as a saviour of the Ionians and the independent Greeks against Macedonian domination. Over the course of 186-185 he was able to advance through most of Caria (securing the regions held by the Macedonians) and incited a number of revolts in Ionia (the most prominent being Samos), but his success in the latter proved mixed. He gained a few islands but a Macedonian counterattack defeated the Samian revolt and inflicted a series of minor defeats on Antiochus' army in the islands before driving him back to mainland Anatolia. After a second, failed campaign against the islands, a treaty was finally reached. Under the terms of the Treaty of Chios, Philip agreed to abandon the Anatolian mainland, accepting Caria as Seleucid territory on the condition that Antiochus drop any claims to the Ionian islands. Nominally, the two went a step further to agree on terms of non-aggression and general recognition. A similar treaty, two years later, confirmed Seleucid recognition of Macedonian preeminence in Greece in return for a recognition that Antiochus III was the rightful 'King of Persia,f Rhodes and Pergamon, of Parthia and Baktria, King of the Indus and Saviour of the Greeks' (Antiochus would take a number of other titles before the end of his reign).
By the time Antiochus III died in 174 BCE, he had ruled for 48 years (222-174 BCE) and was succeeded in turn by the 47 year old Antiochus IV, an experienced general and elderly king but one with a suitable succession given that he already had a 7 year old son Seleucus. Antiochus would only reign for 11 years, dying in 163 BCE at the age of 58 and succeeded in turn by his son Seleucus at the age of 18. Like his father before him, Antiochus would spend most of that time on campaign. His father's death and his own accession had seen revolts in regions of the empire with Pergamon under Eumenes II and Parthia under Phriapatius declaring themselves independent kingdoms and espousing Seleucid rule. Antiochus moved quickly, invading Pergamon in early 173 BCE and defeating Eumenes in battle (bearing in mind that the Seleucids had much more in the way of resources than Pergamon did) before turning around and invading Parthia in an imitation of his father. Given the distances and the rough terrain of the Iranian Plateau, the Parthian campaign proved more difficult and would last from 173 to 168 BCE before Antiochus defeated Phraates I (Phriapatius' son) and executed both him and his brother Mithridates who Antiochus recognised as both ambitious and a talented general who would pose a threat to Seleucid stability. In turn, he handed over Parthia to Phraates' weaker son Arsaces. Determined to maintain the Parthians as a weaker subject, Antiochus also in turn handed over a stretch of their land to a nearby people known as the Armadians who inhabited a region bordering on that of Parthia and extorted treaties of fealty from them. A subsequent Baktrian revolt prompted another campaign with mixed success but culminating in the Baktrian king accepting a treaty of fealty with the Seleucids again in 165 BCE. On his way back to Antioch, however, Antiochus grew ill in early 164 BCE and died somewhere in the Iranian Plateau. News of his death reverberated quickly. Taking his son, Seleucus, to be weak, the Baktrians rose up in revolt for a third time. Seleucus was a better commander than his father and determined to prove himself another strong king and the Baktrian revolt of 164 BCE prompted a brutally quick response. Leaving Antioch with only 2000 soldiers, Seleucus met with his father's army at Seleukeia, taking command and marching East once again with them. But Seleucus was fighting an uphill battle. Away from the capital, his uncle (another Seleucus) was promptly declared (or declared himself) king by a cabal of Greek ministers and seized the capital, raising an army and sending out messengers to Pergamon, Bithynia and Rhodes for military support. Back in Iran, meanwhile, Seleucus found himself distrusted by his army. He was unproven, young and maybe not fit to lead the army. Compared to Antiochus who was already a veteran general. As news reached Seleucus of the coup back home, he realised he had no choice but to turn around and march on Antioch or risk losing his kingdom forever. Fearing that his army might turn on him, Seleucus left his men at Seleukeia under the command of a trusted general before rushing back with his original 2000 soldiers towards Antioch. Further west, Pergamon and Rhodes had risen in revolt against the Seleucid Empire, taking the civil war as an opportunity to exert their own independence and the elder Seleucus and his ministers had begun to march against them just as Seleucus moved on Antioch. Informed, as he approached, that the rebel king was gone, Seleucus set up camp a few miles outside the walls and sent messengers to sneak into the city and mobilise loyalists within its walls.
Primarily, they found the support of a number of ministers and aristocrats who hadn't joined the coup and, promising them rewards if they helped Seleucus, mobilised their support to retake the city. That night, the gates were opened from the inside and Seleucus' men flooded in, killing the guards and easily fighting their way back up to the citadel. Over 20 rebel ministers were captured and executed, their heads left on pikes to rot outside the city walls. But Seleucus wasn't done, sending messengers to his army in Seleukeia, he called them back to fight at his side against the rebels. Elsewhere, as news arrived of the fall of Antioch, the elder Seleucus promptly turned face, offering Pergamon and Rhodes independence and tribute should they help him retake the empire. Supported, in turn, by an army of maybe 10,000 Seleucid soldiers and about 5000 Rhodians and 2000 Pergamese, Seleucus advanced on the city of Antioch. But their army was limited, they hadn't had the time to mobilise a major force before Seleucus retook the city and as his army returned from Seleukeia, they found themselves badly outnumbered. The Battle of Antioch proved more of a slaughter than anything as Seleucus' 40,000 soldiers massacred the meagre 17,000 rebels, capturing Seleucus and sentencing him and the other rebel ministers to death for treason. Thus, by the end of 164 BCE, Seleucus IV had established himself as king at the age of only 18. But the fight wasn't over, between Pergamon and Rhodes in the West and Baktria in the East, Seleucus was faced with more and more of his empire falling into insurrection. In early 163 BCE, a revolt broke out in Persia and another in Judaea later that year. But Seleucus was on the march. Having shown himself a capable commander and secured his position as king, he swept West into Anatolia, advancing on Pergamon and defeating the rebels there before storming the city and razing it to the ground. From there, he marched South in early 162 BCE, crossing over into Rhodes (after a Seleucid naval victory at the Battle of Side) and crushing their army on the field of Rhodes, taking the city and once again razing it to the ground. In the East, his generals had by no means been idle. That trusted lieutenant from the civil war, a man named Demetrius, led an army of 10,000 soldiers East, defeating the Persian rebels at Susa and extorting military help and tribute from Parthia before leading an incursion into Baktria where he would remain until 158 BCE. Seleucus, meanwhile, returned to the mainland, crushing the Judaean rebels in battle and making preparations to move against Egypt.
Enter Ptolemy VI. If you remember, Ptolemy VI was the last real hope for the Egyptians. Like his rival, Seleucus, Ptolemy was a brilliant general and a skilled politician to boot. In many ways, the two contrast. Both would see internal dissent and rebellion, both would attempt expansions of their empire and both would or had dealt with rivals to the throne. But while Seleucus survived and thrived, having been out the capital when the civil war began, Ptolemy was murdered, whilst the Seleucids would thrive, the Ptolemies continued their descent. The difference was that Ptolemy was fighting with a much harder position at his back, a kingdom descending into foreign dominance and internal wars, plagued by rebels and nearly bankrupt whilst Seleucus was keeping an empire together, he was wealthy, he had a large army and his enemies were generally weaker than he was. Yet Ptolemy would buck the trend of Seleucus' string of victories. Sensing that Seleucus was planning another invasion, Ptolemy raised 50,000 soldiers with Barcid help and in 161 BCE went on the offensive. Sweeping quickly through the Sinai, he ravaged his way as he marched onward through Judaea. After a series of small battles, Seleucus fell back to Tyre where he planned to finally meet Ptolemy once and for all. Many of the details of the Battle of Tyre are unfortunately lost. Seleucus had maybe 32,000 men (many of them having been killed over three years of campaigning) but his forces were relatively experienced, having fought a number of rebellions. Ptolemy, however, was fighting with 50,000 soldiers, less experienced save for the 20,000 Barcid mercenary core. Primarily made up of mercenaries, these were experienced soldiers, having fought in Iberia and Sicily on behalf of the Barcids and now lent out to the Ptolemies. In makeup, they were African, with one source placing them as 17,000 Libyan infantry and 3000 Numidian cavalry. Going back to the times of Hannibal, it had been these two groups that had played a crucial role in his crushing victories at Cannae, Trasimeme, Trebia and so on and they were still brutally effective. As Seleucus' pikemen confronted those of Ptolemy, he began to take the advantage, driving them back slowly with weight of numbers (in pikemen Ptolemy was outnumbered in this case). But as he did so, his Persian and Cappadocian cavalry engaged in brutal fighting with the Numidians before being driven off the field opening the way for the Libyan infantry. These were more flexible infantry and, now, Ptolemy made good use of them. He had been mostly keeping them in reserve, sending pockets of men to support the front lines where they seemed about to break but with the Seleucid cavalry off the field, the way was open for an intervention. Bringing his Libyans around on the flanks, he had them form up and begin to envelop Seleucus' lines. Desperately, Seleucus sent in his own reserves to counter the Libyans but they proved no match for the heavy, battle hardened veterans. More problematically, Ptolemy's cavalry now had free reign of the field and promptly began to flank Seleucus' reserves, routing huge swathes of the army and freeing up the Libyans to surround the phalanx. Realising that the annihilation of his army was imminent, Seleucus swallowed his pride and began negotiations with Ptolemy. It had been a crippling defeat and now Ptolemy took his opportunity.
The Treaty of Tyre could have marked the beginning of a Ptolemaic Renaissance. Instead, it would mark a bump in the road of their defeat. Under it, Seleucus returned Judaea and paid a massive war indemnity in return for the freeing of his army and a peace treaty with Ptolemy. In truth, Ptolemy was probably looking more for a political victory than a significant territorial one. Judaea could be properly secured later but the victory at Tyre promised a route to taking full and total control of the country in his own right, sidelining the ministers seeking to control him and proving himself a league apart from his predecessors. It wouldn't prove to be so. Only a year later he would be poisoned at a banquet and died, his death marking the passing of the Ptolemies' hopes for survival. For Seleucus, Tyre had been a disaster. His grandfather's gains in Judaea had been undone and his political position weakened at a time when he needed to appear as a strong, powerful king, not a 20 year old boy being crushed by an Egyptian upstart. Returning to Antioch, he began rebuilding his army, planning to set off for the East to crush the Baktrians and restore his image in the minds of the rest of the empire. Messengers were sent out to his satraps across the empire, Pergamon and Rhodes particularly demanding soldiers and tribute and a massive building project in Antioch was begun, expanding the palace as a show of strength after a military disaster. Seleucus would stay in Antioch for two years, building his army and rebuilding his treasury, even as Demetrius campaigned in Baktria. Seleucus was still reeling, these two years were spent securing his power across the empire, removing governors and officials whose loyalty seemed suspect and enforcing his decisions in political matters. At the same time, the captives from Pergamon and Rhodes were resettled across the empire, especially in cities in Persia and the Eastern reaches of the empire, with Seleucus seeking to build a Greek power base across the region, encourage Hellenisation and ensure a source of soldiers to put down rebels in the area. In 159 BCE, Seleucus finally left Antioch at the head of 35,000 soldiers and advanced East towards Baktria, joining Demetrius and finishing the campaign against them over the course of the next year. In 158 BCE, the Baktrians finally surrendered the Baktrian 'king's' dynasty was imprisoned before being brought back to Antioch where the Baktrian king was executed for treason. In turn, however, Seleucus was content to let the rest live, settling them in Antioch in luxurious accommodation near the palace where he could keep a close eye on them. In the meantime, he broke up the Baktrian kingdom, establishing a new series of strategoi across the area to which he appointed loyal magistrates and officials, one of whom was none other than Demetrius.
Over the next 6 years, Seleucus was concerned mostly with administration. His reforms effectively followed on from those of Antiochus III who had modernised the system of Persian governance adopted by Alexander to remove a system in which power was wielded by both the military and political arms of the state which led to rivalries and could paralyse the administration. As in Baktria, Seleucus brought Pergamona and Rhodes under the governance of Seleucid strategoi appointed directly by the king. Deliberately keeping his touch light to prevent revolt, Seleucus slowed down the policy of Hellenisation, having realised that he was risking revolts (especially in Judaea) should he try to push Hellenic culture too openly. Rather, he began pushing the empire the other way, seeking to spread Hellenic culture but also adopt other cultural and ethnic groups more closely into the empire itself. By doing so, Seleucus would open the administration up to a wider base of peoples from Persia to India, thus being able to draw on a larger base of manpower in both military and political matters. This was pragmatic more than anything. Seleucus was aware that by opening up the administration and military more to others, he might have a chance of more directly binding the empire together. In the meantime, he continued to encourage immigration from Greece as well as colonisation. Hellenisation hadn't halted but by pushing it he was only too aware that he risked revolt and opposition. Thus from the 150s onward, we begin to see the rise of Persian bureaucrats in the Seleucid administration (amongst others), mostly in lower administrative levels. In truth, the aristocracy and high bureaucracy remained Greek and the core of the army would remain Greek as well. Colonisation and the slow spread of Greek culture, language and ideals never halted either, in fact Seleucus would himself found a number of cities in Mesopotamia and along the Iranian Plateau, but in the lower areas of the administration, there began a slow spread of Persian influence and bureaucrats. By opening up the administration, Seleucus diverted revolts into politics, ambitious Persians or Parthians, Indians or Arabs now had a new route to power and influence rather than revolt, involvement in the bureaucracy. Seleucus was probably taking hints from the Ptolemies, he had noticed that by keeping the government in mostly Greek hands right up until Raphia, they had turned the native Egyptian populace against them, leading to brutal revolts time and again and he no intention of following the Ptolemies into a slow decline.
In 152, Seleucus saw an opportunity as Egypt continued its decline and invaded Judaea. Meeting an Egyptian and Barcid army at Meggido, he smashed them and pushed further South, conquering as far as the Sinai before accepting a treaty with the Egyptians, restoring to him Judaea and Gaza and accepting a significant war indemnity. The truce would only last another 7 years, during which time Seleucus would continue to strengthen his administration, incorporating 5000 Persian pikemen into his phalanx for the first time and leading a small campaign to the borders of India for elephants before returning and invading Egypt again. This time, the invasion was designed to actually take him to Egypt itself and, after a series of victories, he occupied the Sinai and invaded the Delta, taking the title 'King of the Egyptians' as his grandfather had done 30 years earlier. Seleucus was already directly involved in Egyptian politics to some degree by now. Reaching as far as Memphis, he began meeting with native Egyptian allies in the region, having inspired and funded native revolts in Egypt to further weaken the Ptolemies and open up the route into Egypt, before he finally turned around and returned to Judaea, his supply lines having grown thin as the Barcid fleet began to threaten them with raids against the Sinai and Judaea.
Seleucus' reign was the height of the Seleucid Empire in many ways. In 139 BCE, he defeated the Ptolemies once and for all, annexing Alexandria and portions of the Delta as well as Cyrenaica. Ahmose' state was little more than a tributary and, in all practicality, Seleucus ruled from Cyrenaica in the South to Anatolia in the North all the way to India in the East. At the age of 42, Seleucus was king over one of the largest kingdoms in the world and he would continue to reign for another 10 years before his death in 129 BCE. His entrance into Alexandria was glorious in its presentation. Entering from the East, he made his way straight to the tomb of Alexander to pay his respects before, decked in purple silk and surrounded by soldiers, resplendent in brand new armour, he made his way up to the Palace of Alexandria to accept the surrender of Ptolemy VIII who, like the Baktrian king's family, would be relocated and settled in an Antiochan estate. After a trip to the Temple of Amun in Siwa (in direct imitation of Alexander), Seleucus returned once more to Alexandria from where he and his soldiers would escort Alexander's body back to Antioch where he would be reburied in a grand new tomb (the old tomb becoming a shrine to Alexander the god).
