The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3: Chapter V. Antiochus IV and Eucratides
The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3
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Chapter V. Antiochus IV and Eucratides
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THE invasion of India had been the work of three men, whose far-reaching plan had come within a very little of complete success; that success was prevented, at the last moment, by two other men, who were also working on a far-reaching plan of their own. Dimly as we discern the outlines of their several schemes and actions, the magnitude of them gives us the feeling that the age of giants had come again and that we are back among the men who fought for the heritage of Alexander. For though Greeks could change their sky they could not change their souls. The gods had given them every gift save one, the gift of combination; and they tore each other to pieces beneath the shadow of the Hindu Kush with the same enthusiasm which Greek city-states and Macedonian generals had always put into the business round the Aegean home-sea. This chapter is concerned with the story of how and why Demetrius failed to secure the Mauryan empire, the story of the Seleucid Antiochus IV, called Epiphanes, and his cousin Eucratides.
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Antiochus IV has often had hard measure from his historians. Some have repeated the Hellenistic gossip which made of him half a fool—vain, silly, theatrical; it is worth precisely what any Hellenistic gossip is worth, and the less that serious history has to do with it the better. To others, he is little but the king who persecuted the Jews; that story can be read in many books, and I need only say here that, whatever he did to the Jews, they have had an ample revenge. The latest and ablest account of him,¹ while recognising his ability, has drawn a brilliant picture of his later life as that of a man broken by the ‘day of Eleusis’ when Rome ordered him out of Egypt, half hysterical and perhaps verging on madness, the result of whose career was to end the days of his empire as an international force. But one feature is common to every account: certain well-attested details of his reign are either omitted altogether or, if noticed, are explained away somehow—anyhow—because they will not fit the writer’s picture, whatever it may be. Why, in the spring of 166, did he hold that great review of his army at Daphne, the Hellenistic equivalent of the Roman triumph, two years after a Roman envoy with a walking-stick had turned him out of Egypt? Why, three months later, did he celebrate a Festival of Deliverance at Babylon, and why was he hailed Saviour of Asia? Why did Diodorus (reproducing Polybius) say that in 165 he was stronger than any other king? Why did Jason of Cyrene, who loathed his memory, say that his power seemed irresistible? And why, above all, did Mithridates I of Parthia, the able and ambitious monarch who created the Parthian empire, make no move till the broken nervy Seleucid was safely dead? One could easily add to the list; and it has to be considered whether we may not here possess the débris of a lost chapter in the life of this king which has never been written. We shall, I hope, find reason to believe that this is true.
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¹ Otto, *Zeit d. 6. Ptolemäers*.
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Fortunately a starting point was provided years ago, though in a place where historians concerned with the West would hardly look for it. In 1922 Sir George Macdonald threw out, as ‘pure speculation’, a suggestion that Antiochus IV might have been behind Eucratides.¹ He did not follow it up, and still regarded Eucratides as a rebel against Demetrius; but the association of the two names was the first ray of light in the darkness, for, once the idea was mooted, it was easy to see that there was ample evidence to support it and that several facts whose meaning was heretofore obscure would now automatically fall into place. If, however, I were to start by examining that evidence it would mean writing this chapter twice over, and it will be more comfortable for the reader to travel in the reverse direction from that in which I travelled myself: that is, the story will be told in the form into which analysis ultimately brought it, and the evidence given as we go along. Meanwhile I am not concerned to maintain that Antiochus either was or was not a statesman, or anything else about him; it has always been known that he had ideas. All I want to do is to get the outline of certain facts which ought to show the plan on which he was working and which may of themselves modify our conception of his character. It is worth trying; for, right or wrong, he was no small man. I must begin by briefly sketching his story as I see it.
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¹ *CHI* p. 454: ‘Possibly it was in his interest and with his encouragement that Eucratides first raised the standard of revolt. That of course is pure speculation.’
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Antiochus IV, third son of Antiochus III, had spent part of his early life in Rome and had acquired rather an excessive admiration for Rome’s power and methods. His brother Seleucus IV died in 175, leaving two young sons; one of them, apparently also named Antiochus,¹ was made king, and Antiochus (IV) was installed in Antioch by Rome's friend Eumenes II of Pergamum as regent for the boy and (as is now fairly certain) married the boy's mother, his brother's widow Laodice.² Laodice, a daughter of Antiochus III, had successively married her eldest brother (another Antiochus who died in 193), and then her second brother Seleucus IV; when she married her third brother Antiochus (IV) she cannot have been very young. After a short interval during which coins were struck in the boy-king's name,³ Antiochus the regent took the crown as Antiochus IV, just as Antigonus Doson in Macedonia was for a little while regent for Philip (V) and then himself took the crown;⁴ and Antiochus IV married the boy-king's mother to secure the boy's succession, just as Antigonus Doson married ‘Chryseis’, the mother of Philip V, and as Attalus II of Pergamum married his brother's elderly widow Stratonice to secure the succession of his brother's son (her son by adoption) Attalus III.⁵ In fact, Antiochus IV went further in the path of correctness than either of the other two kings; while Philip V and Attalus III did not become kings till after the deaths of their respective kinsmen, the boy-king Antiochus was and remained joint-king with Antiochus IV, Babylonian documents being dated by their joint names. But in the winter of 170–69 the boy-king was murdered by one Andronicus, and Antiochus IV, having executed the murderer, remained sole king.
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¹ W. Otto, *Heliodoros* in PW; E. R. Bevan in *CAH* VIII pp. 497 sqq., 713. If this be well founded, Epiphanes was Antiochus V, not IV; but it is too late to alter the numeration.
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² An old conjecture, now seemingly borne out by inscriptions from Susa, *SEG* VII nos. 17, 24, on which see Fr. Cumont, *CR Ac. Inscr.* 1931 pp. 284 sq., 1932 p. 285. For a coin-portrait of Laodice see Allotte de la Fuye, *MDP* XXV, 1934, p. 21 no. 9.
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³ This explains why the coins of the boy-king all seem to belong to one year, *CAH* VIII p. 714.
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⁴ *CAH* VII p. 751; S. Dow and C. F. Edson, Jr., *Harvard Stud. in Class. Philology* XLVIII, 1937, p. 127.
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⁵ Tarn, *Hell. Civ.* p. 37.
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Seleucus IV had seen that, if the empire was to recover from the disaster of Magnesia, a period of peace was absolutely necessary; there were no wars during his reign, and Antiochus IV followed his policy down to 169. By that time 20 years had passed since the great defeat; a new generation of boys had grown to manhood and the treasury was again full. Much could be done in twenty years, as Philip V had shown, especially if infanticide were stopped; it is possible that among the Greeks of Asia at this time there was little or none to stop (p. 70). To the beginning of Antiochus’ uneventful five years must belong his imitations of Rome, a passing phase which culminated in the building of a temple at Antioch to Juppiter Capitolinus;¹ more important was the use made of this period of quietude to strengthen the Greek element in the empire, a process perhaps begun by Seleucus IV.² It has often been supposed that Antiochus’ alleged hellenisation of a number of Oriental towns was no real hellenisation, in the sense of a reorganisation by the introduction of Greek settlers, but was only a change of names meant to minister to his vanity;³ but though, apart from Babylon, details are not to be obtained, there is one general consideration which is strong to prove a real hellenisation.⁴ The best index to the number of Graeco-Macedonian settlers in the Seleucid empire is the phalanx, which was exclusively recruited from them.⁵ The phalanx of Antiochus III at Raphia in 217 had numbered 20,000, that at Magnesia in 189, 16,000, the hypaspists in either case being Asiatics. But the phalanx of Antiochus IV at Daphne in 166 again numbered 20,000, together with 5000 Graeco-Macedonian hypaspists,⁶ and this is far more significant than the mere figures indicate, not merely because the phalanx at Magnesia had been cut to pieces and one of the two great centres of Graeco-Macedonian settlement in Asia, Asia Minor, had been lost, but also because the troops at Daphne must have been drawn from the west of the mutilated empire alone; they cannot, as we shall see, have included settlers from the sphere of the general of the upper satrapies—Media, Babylonia, Susiana.
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¹ Livy XLI, 20, 11.
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² Seleuceia on the Pyramos (Mopsuestia) might be his (see W. Ruge, *Mopsu(h)estia* in PW), though the name first appears under Antiochus IV; see p. 188 n. 1.
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³ Most recently by Ruge, *Tarsos* in PW. An exception is Ed. Meyer, *Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums* II, 1921, p. 140, who took these names to signify a deep change in the nature of the community.
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⁴ Griffith pp. 152–3.
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⁵ *Ib.* pp. 161 sqq.
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⁶ Tables in Griffith pp. 143–6.
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This seems conclusive for a considerable new influx of Greek settlers; and as the population of many districts of old Greece was now stationary or falling, the increase must primarily have come from Asia Minor and the cities of Thrace. By the treaty of Apamea in 188 Rome had forbidden the Seleucids to recruit mercenaries in Asia Minor west of the new boundary or to receive deserters;⁷ but she had no direct control and it does not appear how she could prevent voluntary leakage, apart from the fact that introducing settlers was not recruiting mercenaries. The Seleucids had always been popular with the Greek element, while Eumenes II of Pergamum, whom Rome had put in control of Asia Minor, was not; the leakage into Seleucid territory, especially among young men, may have been considerable, and would explain the intensive settlement in Seleucid Cilicia. As Antiochus could call up his new settlers, they must have been cleruchs; he therefore dealt with the Oriental towns which he hellenised as Susa had been dealt with (p. 23), by planting military colonies in them.¹ But as his new foundations appear as cities, he must have run together the two processes which at Susa may have taken some time: as soon as his cleruchs were planted in some place he made it a polis, the liability to military service remaining. This disposes of the belief that his was no real hellenisation. He was in a hurry, of course; he may conceivably have known years before his death that he could expect no long life (p. 215).
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⁷ Polyb. XXI, 43, 15, μηδ’ ὑποδέχεσθαι τοὺς φεύγοντας; so App. *Syr.* 39. Livy XXXVIII, 38, 10 substitutes ‘voluntarios’ for φεύγοντας, but one must follow Polybius.
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¹ Griffith p. 152.
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But if Antiochus made no move during his first five years that does not mean that he made no plans. Fortunately his coins² afford a means of dating certain indications, for to this period belong the coins on which the legend is only ‘Of King Antiochus’ and the type the common Seleucid type of Apollo seated on the omphalos.³ The first indication is his refounding of Babylon as a Greek city.⁴ It is not known what happened to Babylon under the earlier Seleucids,⁵ but though Strabo’s description of it as a desert⁶ belongs to his own day, the same passage shows that it was anything but flourishing; nothing is known of any Greek colony there, but there must have been a considerable native Babylonian population grouped round E-sagila, the rebuilt temple of Bel. Antiochus made of Babylon a regular Greek city, with a theatre⁷ and at least one gymnasium.⁸ But one thing about it was unique in Seleucid history: it kept its native name, as literary allusions show. Any large Oriental city refounded by a Seleucid invariably received a dynastic name, and Antiochus himself followed the rule elsewhere, as he showed at Ecbatana;¹ but at Babylon he did not. And this was no accident; for there are coins of his of this period, *i.e.* with the legend ‘Of King Antiochus’ only, which show his head with the radiate crown of Helios (*below*) and on the reverse the Fortune of Babylon—that is, the personification of Babylon itself—*enthroned* like Zeus, and like Zeus holding Victory on her hand.² No other city had ever been enthroned on any king’s coinage;³ there may be a reference to this in the Greek story of the nymph Babylon Thronia, Babylon ‘of the throne’ or ‘enthroned’ (p. 253). Taken together, these facts can only mean that Antiochus intended Babylon ultimately to be his capital; and he kept the old name because, under that name, it had been the destined capital of Alexander. Antiochus was then going to play Alexander; and if he were going to sit in Alexander’s seat it is a fair inference that he thought of restoring Alexander’s empire. What that means will be considered presently; two other indications must first be noticed. One is that on some of these early coins he wears the crown of rays which was the crown of Helios the Sun-god.⁴ No Seleucid had worn it before him, though it had been adopted by Ptolemy III of Egypt. Doubtless its primary meaning was that the king’s reign would bring prosperity;⁵ but it is difficult to dissociate the crown of Helios from some connection with world-rule, and that in turn, in men’s minds, from some connection with Alexander. The other is furnished by a seal from Babylonia published by Professor Rostovtzeff, on which some Seleucid king wears the elephant-scalp.¹ He himself did not identify the portrait, which is clearly idealised; but he mentions a suggestion made to him² that it is the Seleucid Demetrius II, as he does wear the elephant-scalp on one of his coins. But this suggestion seems impossible, for the features of the king on the seal do not bear the least resemblance to the strongly individualised features of the Seleucid Demetrius II;³ on the other hand, they do bear a resemblance to some portraits of Antiochus IV⁴ and would do very well for an idealised portrait of him. It has been noticed already (p. 131) that the elephant-scalp was the symbol of Alexander’s power, and (with all necessary reserves) that must be what Antiochus had in mind; his adoption later of Alexander’s coin-type ‘Zeus enthroned’ bears this out.
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² See generally BMC Sel.; E. Babelon, Rois de Syrie 1890; E. T. Newell, The Seleucid Mint of Antioch 1918.
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³ Newell op. cit. p. 17 (down to 170–69).
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⁴ OGIS 253; he is κτίστης τῆς πόλεως.
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⁵ McDowell, Stamped objects pp. 202–6, has given what can be given.
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⁶ Strabo XVI, 738, νῦν.
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⁷ R. Koldewey, Das wieder erstehende Babylon, 1925, pp. 293 sqq., with the Greek inscription found there.
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⁸ B. Haussoullier, Klio IX, 1909, p. 352, no. 1, inscription giving a list of victors, both ephebes and νέοι. But whether the building which has been excavated be the gymnasium has recently been doubted: G. E. Kirk, Iraq 11, 1935, p. 223.
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¹ In fact, omitting the two called Hierapolis (Castabala and Bambyce) and Seleuceia-Mopsuestia, which may not be his (p. 186), all Antiochus’ cities, great or small—6 Antiochs and 5 Epiphaneias—were named from himself. List in Tscherikower p. 176.
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² *BMC Sel.* p. 36 nos. 23–30, Pl. XII, 1–4; *Brit. Mus. Quarterly* VI, 1931, p. 14 no. 3; see Rostovtzeff, *Seleucid Babylonia* p. 39. That this coin-type refers to Babylon is not in doubt.
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³ There is a much obliterated Saca coin of a later time of which Cunningham gave the type as female figure with turreted headdress seated on throne, *NC* 1890 p. 154 no. 6, Pl. VIII, 6. But one cannot on the plate make out either turrets or throne, merely a female figure seated on *something*.
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⁴ On his radiate crown see Rostovtzeff *op. cit.* pp. 26, 28. A. Alföldi, *Röm. Mitt.* L, 1935, pp. 139–42, thinks that, as regards Hellenistic kings, if the crown of rays be combined with the diadem it was not the Sun’s crown but a working of the Hvareno idea. One can think of cases where this might be true, *e.g.* the radiate king in a *biga* on a coin of the Iranian Maues; but I cannot believe it in the case of kings like Ptolemy III (whom he cites) or Antiochus IV, who did not adopt Iranian ideas.
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⁵ Tarn, *JRS* XXII, 1932, pp. 146 *sqq.* and literature there cited.
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¹ *Op. cit.* Pl. VI nos. 1, 2; see pp. 45, 53.
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² By E. T. Newell, *ib.* p. 45.
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³ His portraits: *BMC Sel.* Pls. XVII, XVIII, XXI. They have a peculiar look in the eye, largely due to a highly arched, almost semicircular, eyebrow, which no artist could miss.
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⁴ The head in *BMC Sel.* Pl. XIII, 7 (p. 42 no. 86, a coin from Nisibis), and still more the head on a coin figured by Newell *op. cit.* p. 24 (allowing for idealisation). The features are not unlike those of the radiate head of Antiochus IV on a seal, Rostovtzeff *op. cit.* Pl. V, 2.
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I must explain in passing what I mean by restoring Alexander’s empire. Antiochus III had meant to restore the empire of Seleucus I,⁵ but no more; he had neither attempted to make conquests in India nor to take possession of defeated Egypt, but he had risked and finally suffered war with Rome for the sake of a few cities in Thrace, because they had belonged to Seleucus. The crash at Magnesia had greatly curtailed his realm; and the position which faced Antiochus IV was that most of Asia Minor was lost, the once vassal state of Parthia had recovered her independence and had succeeded in reaching out to the Caspian Gates, if not to the Nesaean fields,⁶ and Demetrius of Bactria had annexed all the Seleucid provinces east of the Persian desert and like his father, cannot be said; for whatever his plan was, it was deranged by the regents in Egypt, Eulaeus and Lenaeus, who in the spring of 169 declared war upon him with the object not only of recovering Coele-Syria but of destroying himself.¹ Antiochus’ war with Egypt was a thing he could not avoid. He mastered Egypt in 169 and was crowned at Memphis; but circumstances compelled him to return in 168, and that summer Rome warned him off. Now, granted that he was forced to fight, it would have been a possible course to defeat Egypt, exact an indemnity, and leave it at that; he decided instead to incorporate Egypt in his empire, for that is what his actions meant, however that meaning might be disguised as a protectorate over Ptolemy Philometor. As I have said, I am not seeking to prove that Antiochus was a statesman, and this was not the act of a statesman; it was merely the kind of ‘forward’ policy, common enough, in which one thing is allowed to lead to another with insufficient consideration of the ultimate consequences. He knew that Rome could hardly stand aside, and he was determined to have no breach with Rome; why did he do it? One possibility is that he miscalculated the strength of Perseus and thought that the Macedonian king might hold Rome off till, in weariness, she might accept his protectorate over Egypt as an accomplished fact; another is that, in vulgar parlance, he was just ‘trying it on’ to see how far he could go. In either case, as soon as he heard of Perseus’ defeat at Pydna he must have known that Rome would act; it is possible that when on the ‘day of Eleusis’ Popillius Laenas handed him the Senate’s ultimatum ordering him to quit Egypt he was the one man there who was not astonished. But Popillius, a ‘new man’ anxious to prove himself, presented the ultimatum in a way which outraged every decency of international intercourse; and Antiochus, the king whom even a bitter enemy called ‘fiery, born of the lightning’,² at the head of a strong and victorious army, swallowed the insult, accepted the ultimatum, and went. That was not the act of a man hysterical or half insane; to overlook the insult so as not to risk his plans meant great self-control and long views. For of what he had meant to do he had lost nothing; he had acted foolishly in Egypt, and by his self-control on the ‘day of Eleusis’ he had put it right.
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⁵ See Holleaux, *CAH* VIII p. 184.
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⁶ See generally Tarn, *CAH* IX p. 577. At one moment, which must be earlier than the conquest of Media by Mithridates I, Parthia was bounded on the west by an otherwise unknown Median people called by Pliny (VI, 113) Pratitae, *i.e.* the people of the *pratum* or ‘meadow’, the Nesaean fields; no doubt a translation of some Iranian name. The Nesaean fields were still Seleucid under Antiochus IV, Polyb. XXX, 25, 6 (his Nesaean horses, 166 B.C.).
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¹ Otto, Zeit d. 6. Ptolemäers pp. 24-36, and especially p. 30 n. 4.
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² Oracula Sibyllina III, 389.
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Egypt occupied the years 169 and 168; 167 was taken up with the troubles in Judaea. By the end of the year, however, that country seemed secure: the governing party were his friends, Jerusalem was safe, and the worship of Olympian Zeus was established;¹ if next year Judas Maccabaeus and his guerillas began to give trouble, guerillas were not unknown in great empires and were a thing one left to one's provincial governor. For world-history his dealings with the Jews were of great importance owing to their reaction upon Jewish religious conceptions; but for Antiochus, which is all that I am concerned with here, their only importance was lest they might furnish Rome with a pretext for interference. He himself possibly regarded his marriage with Atargatis,² the great goddess of northern Syria, as a much weightier matter. It was not a device to secure a temple treasure; it was a perfectly serious political measure. A god must have a divine consort;³ but his marriage to Atargatis was a guarantee to the native religions of the empire,⁴ always provided that people were willing to accept the over-riding unification of the worship of Olympian Zeus, which was no difficulty to men of any religion but the Jewish. His insistence on his divinity and his marriage to Atargatis may or may not witness to a flaw in his mind;⁵ but I want to stress the fact that the whole thing was political and that he was in earnest.
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¹ Cf. E. R. Bevan in *CAH* VIII pp. 507-8 and especially 513.
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² Granius Licinianus, p. 5, Flemisch: se simulabat Hierapoli Dianam ducere uxorem. The marriage is given as later than the 'day of Eleusis'.
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³ It must be remembered that if Antiochus were Zeus he would also be Atargatis' consort Hadad.
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⁴ If Otto's deduction be right (*op. cit.* p. 55; it could be supported by Diod. xxx, 14) that Antiochus during his rule in Egypt sought to win over the native Egyptians, this would be a very important confirmation of his attitude; he would have been anything but the blind helleniser which he is represented to be in Jewish history. Rostovtzeff's view (*Seleucid Babylonia* pp. 6, 7) that Antiochus stood behind the hellenised Babylonian Kephalon when he built the great Anu-Antum temple at Uruk would have been in point here, but it was due to a misreading of the date, see p. 26 n. 1; it appears now that the king was Antiochus III.
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⁵ It is possible that the reason why some people called Antiochus mad was, not because he called himself a god, but because he identified himself with a particular god, Zeus. On the distinction see M. P. Charlesworth, *Harvard Theolog. Rev.* XXVIII, 1935, pp. 15 sqq.
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It has been necessary to go through Antiochus' career in some detail in order to understand his actions in the crucial year 166. In the spring of that year he held his great festival at Daphne,⁶ a parallel to the festival of Ptolemy II in Alexandria described by Callixenus.¹ The conventional explanation is that he was fond of ostentation and that he desired to surpass the show given by Aemilius Paullus,² the conqueror of Macedonia, at Amphipolis in 167, which had greatly impressed the Greek world. Likely enough both explanations are true, though the precisely similar ostentation of Ptolemy II had not prevented that monarch from being in fact as much a realist as any modern captain of industry; but even if true they are minor matters. The main feature of the show at Daphne was the review of Antiochus’ strong army; it recalls the similar review of his army by Ptolemy II, but while at Alexandria the march past of the army came last, at Daphne it came first of everything.³ Such a review was the Hellenistic form of triumph, and marked the end of a victorious and successful war;⁴ that point needs no elaboration. Antiochus had not himself been waging any successful war. But neither had Ptolemy II: whichever war he was actually celebrating,⁵ it had been won by his generals. We must look then for a war won by some general of Antiochus, precisely as at a later time an Antony or an Octavian might take the title *Imperator* for successes won by his legates. That this interpretation of the show at Daphne is correct is amply borne out by Antiochus’ coins, for in the same year, 166, he began to issue his third series and added to his coin-legend the title νικηφόρου, ‘The Victorious’;⁶ and the head of Zeus now begins to exhibit his own features.⁷
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⁶ Polyb. xxx, 25, 1 sqq.; Büttner-Wobst in his edition prints with it the Athenaeus and Diodorus passages. The date, 166, is certain: Niese III p. 215; W. Kolbe, *Hermes* LXII, 1927, p. 238; Otto *op. cit.* p. 83.
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¹ Athen. v, 197 c *sqq.*
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² Athen. v, 194 c says this.
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³ On the significance of this see F. Caspari, *Hermes* LXVIII, 1933, p. 407.
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⁴ Otto, *Beiträge zur Seleukidengeschichte* 1928 pp. 6 *sqq.*; *Zeit d. 6. Ptolemäers* p. 83 and note 6; Tarn, *Hermes* LXV, 1930, p. 447 n. 2; *JHS* LIII, 1933, pp. 59–60; Caspari *op. cit.* p. 407; E. Kornemann, *Die Alexandergeschichte des Königs Ptolemaios I* 1935 p. 225 n. 22.
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⁵ It is immaterial for the principle here stated whether the war was the first Syrian (Otto, preceding note and *Philol.* XXXVI, 1931, p. 414 n. 27) or that of 280–79 (Tarn, preceding note).
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⁶ Newell’s third series, *op. cit.* p. 28, which he connects with Daphne. He dates Daphne wrongly in 167, and therefore the series; the date 166 for the series follows automatically on the true date for Daphne.
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⁷ BMC *Sel.* p. 36 no. 22, Pl. XI, 9; see *CAH*, Vol. of Plates III p. 12 *i*. For other references see Rostovtzeff *op. cit.* p. 26 no. 2, and add J. de Foville, *Les monnaies gr. et rom. de la collection Prosper-Valton: Catalogue* p. 100 no. 493.
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After Daphne Antiochus went to Babylon, and a most important dated inscription,⁸ so far unexplained, gives the needed key. It records a gift made to Antiochus by one Philippus, who may or may not be the Philippus who was Antiochus’ minister ‘for affairs’;¹ he calls Antiochus ‘Saviour of Asia’, and the inscription shows that in August-September 166 Antiochus celebrated Charisteria at Babylon. The political connotations of the word Asia have already been discussed (p. 153); at this time it meant the Seleucid empire. The term Charisteria signified a sacrifice of thanksgiving for something which the celebrant considered a deliverance;² usually it seems to have consisted of a single celebration, but two annual Charisteria are known at Athens, a thanksgiving for Marathon³ and another for the deliverance from the Thirty Tyrants through the return of Thrasybulus and the exiles from Phyle in 403 B.C.⁴ The Charisteria of Antiochus, it may be supposed, were a single celebration, and he must have attached great importance to holding them at his destined capital, or he would never have gone to Babylon in the hot weather; they were obviously a thanksgiving for the ‘saving’ of Asia. But, once again, Antiochus personally had done nothing to ‘save’ Asia; the reference is to the victorious war waged by a general which had been celebrated at Daphne shortly before. To ‘save’ a place was well-known Hellenistic terminology for expelling your opponent and bringing the place over to your own side or under your own power. From what opponent then had Asia, that is, the Seleucid empire, been ‘saved’? Not from Parthia; Parthia had not as yet been touched, and the little state hardly seemed a threat to anybody. Not from barbarians; there had been no barbarian invasion. Only one meaning is possible; the reference is to Demetrius, who had annexed the Seleucid East and built up an empire hardly if at all inferior in extent to the Seleucid. Antiochus then had ‘saved’ Asia—the Seleucid empire—from Demetrius; that was his successful war. But the actual overthrow of Demetrius was the work of Eucratides—that is matter of history; Eucratides therefore was Antiochus’ general, the general who had waged the war celebrated at Daphne. The proof seems as complete as may be, though we shall meet another not less cogent. I must now turn to Eucratides, whose career will fill out the details.
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⁸ OGIS 253.
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¹ II Macc. xiii, 23.
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² Ditt.³ 398 l. 17; Arr. vi, 28, 3; Polyb. xxi, 1, 2; Diod. xx, 76, 6. Antiochus’ Charisteria are called an ἀγών, which would include sacrifice.
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³ E. Pfuhl, De Atheniensium pompis sacris 1900 pp. 34-6; L. Deubner, Attische Feste 1932 p. 209.
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⁴ Plut. Mor. 349 F; Deubner op. cit. p. 39.
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It had more than once been suggested that Eucratides had some connection with the Seleucids,¹ but the first definite proof (though it is far from being the whole proof) that he himself was a Seleucid was given in 1922 by Sir George Macdonald in the work already quoted,² who relied on two things: that Eucratides on his coinage used the Seleucid bead and reel moulding introduced by Antiochus III, and that on the coin which figures his parents, Heliocles and Laodice,³ Laodice wears the diadem while Heliocles does not and was therefore a princess of a reigning house, which from her name should be the Seleucid. Let me add that when Eucratides represented himself on his coins as helmeted he put on his helmet the badge of the founder of the dynasty, the bull’s horn and ear which had appeared on the helmet of the first Seleucus.⁴ This must suffice for the moment; the most decisive proof must be left to its right place (p. 202). I may notice here that no one now doubts that the Heliocles and Laodice coin represents his parents, and as he was a Seleucid he can only have been such through his mother,⁵ who was therefore certainly a Seleucid princess; and her diadem shows that she was the daughter of a king, not of some collateral. This gives, in passing, two interesting facts about Seleucid princesses: one is that the conjecture that the unmarried princesses, like those of the Ptolemies, were officially called βασίλισσα, ‘queen’, is certainly correct, as Laodice wears her diadem in her own right;⁶ the other is that it was evidently Seleucid practice to marry superfluous daughters, for whom no royal bridegroom was at hand, to great commoners, as Seleucus II (we have already seen) gave a sister to Diodotus, strategos of Bactria (p. 73).
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¹ I suggested this in *JHS* 1902 p. 271, but did not then know enough to work it out. R. B. Whitehead in 1922 (*NNM* p. 17) said he ‘appears to be some connection of the royal house of Seleucus’, but gave no reasons.
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² *CHI* p. 454.
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³ *BMC* p. 19 nos. 1, 2, Pl. VI, 9, 10; *CHI* Pl. IV, 3.
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⁴ *BMC Sel.* p. 4 nos. 36–40. Cunningham noticed this, *NC* 1869 p. 237, but curiously enough thought it had ‘no special significance’. Had he followed it up, Eucratides might have been put in his right place long ago. (See Plate no. 11.)
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⁵ This excludes the possibility of Laodice belonging to the royal house of Pontus, where the name was also at home.
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⁶ In popular speech any king’s daughter was βασίλισσα: Arr. iv, 15, 3, a Scythian. Cf. the ἄνασσαι in Cyprus: Suidas, *s.v.* ἄνακτες καὶ ἄνασσαι.
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Who exactly then was Eucratides? On his Bactrian coins⁷ of c. 165 B.C., whose portraiture can be trusted, he appears as a man in the prime of life, say about 40 to 45; he was therefore born somewhere round about 210–205. As his mother Laodice was married to a commoner, she can hardly have been married till well over twenty, till it was certain that she was not needed for a marriage of high policy; she was therefore born round about 235–225—not later—with a preference for the earlier part of the period. This makes her a daughter of Seleucus II; Seleucus III (226–223 B.C.) is just possible, but as he only reigned three years and is not known either to have married or to have left children, Seleucus II is practically certain, and this is confirmed by the fact that Eucratides on his coinage adopted, though he modified, one of the types of Seleucus II, the Dioscuri.¹ Laodice was therefore a sister of Antiochus III, and Eucratides was first cousin of Antiochus IV. Heliocles must have been general of some satrapy; Antiochus III could hardly have given his sister to a lesser man, and there is the precedent of Diodotus. It would be most natural to suppose that he was, not merely the general of a satrapy, but governor of the upper (eastern) satrapies; but though he might have been so after 193, down to 193 that office must have been filled, in accordance with Seleucid custom, by Antiochus, eldest son of Antiochus III and joint-king with him till his death that year. That Eucratides was governor of the upper satrapies under Antiochus IV goes without saying in view of his selection to reduce the East to obedience; for that was that official’s business, if the king was not going to command in person.
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⁷ Eucratides’ coins: Cunningham, *NC* 1869 pp. 217 sqq.; *BMC* pp. 13, 165; Whitehead *NNM* p. 17; *CHI* pp. 453, 554.
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¹ In the type of Seleucus II (BMC Sel. p. 18 no. 28) the horses are prancing, in that of Eucratides galloping. On the Dioscuri type see H. Mattingly and E. S. G. Robinson, *The date of the Roman denarius*, Proc. Brit. Acad. 1932, and especially Appendix 3 to that work.
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Eucratides’ chronology, India apart, seems certain within very narrow limits. It has been usual, following von Gutschmid, to place his ‘revolt’ about 175, on the ground that that is the date of the accession of Mithridates I of Parthia and that Justin says that the two men came to the throne ‘about the same time’.² This is quite unfounded. No one knows the year of Mithridates’ accession, and a whole range of dates, from 175 to 160, have been proposed by various scholars; the only thing certain is that his activity did not begin till after the death of Antiochus IV in 163. And Justin’s vague phrase might cover an interval of some years, and only means that the two men were roughly contemporaries, as they were. Antiochus’ review at Daphne in spring 166 and his Charisteria at Babylon that summer show that ‘Asia’—the Seleucid empire—had been ‘saved’ by the end of 167, which means that Eucratides had conquered everything up to the Hindu Kush; and as the conquest could not be called complete while Demetrius lived, the latter part of the campaigning season of 167 is the date of the final defeat and death of Demetrius. It agrees with this that Plato’s dated coin struck in 165 B.C. is copied from a coin of Eucratides’ second series, which was issued in 166 after his final victory (p. 203), contemporaneously with the issue in that year of Antiochus’ third series. As to the start. *A priori*, Antiochus might have dispatched him any time after his own accession in 175; but it will appear that any idea of a long protracted war in the eastern provinces of Iran is out of the question, while the first five years of Antiochus’ reign were years of quiescence. He can hardly have dispatched Eucratides before 169, and, as Egypt interfered, probably not till after he had mastered or knew that he could master Egypt and would not need his brilliant general in the west; Eucratides most probably left Babylonia late in 169 and wintered in Seistan; it might be just possible that he did not leave Babylonia till early in 168, but there is a reason (p. 201 n. 2) which makes this unlikely. As it was certainly all over by the end of 167, this would mean that a couple of campaigning seasons sufficed to overthrow the powerful empire of the Euthydemids in Iran. If one considers the time taken by Alexander and Antiochus III to conquer the same territory as did Eucratides, against opposition which on paper should have been less formidable, and if one also considers that Eucratides’ army cannot have been large, it is clear that (if I am right) some convincing explanation of the speed of his conquest is needed. Not only is there such an explanation, but it is one which, I think, forbids us to imagine several years of protracted warfare.
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² Justin XLI, 6, 1, eodem ferme tempore.
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For Eucratides cannot possibly have taken a very large force with him, seeing that the main Seleucid army, 55,500 strong,¹ was with Antiochus in Egypt and was reviewed by him at Daphne. Presumably he had his own troops as governor of the upper satrapies, with some additional mercenaries; though no guess can be made at its strength, it can hardly have seemed an army adequate to overthrow Demetrius. But Eucratides was not altogether relying upon his own sword. His story has been obscured by modern writers persistently calling him a rebel against Demetrius, a statement devoid alike of authority and possibility. He was not a rebel; but he raised a rebellion.
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¹ Polyb. xxx, 25: 46,000 foot, 9500 horse.
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It cannot be guessed what Antiochus' plan would have been had Egypt not intervened, but the plan subsequently followed can be deduced from events: Eucratides was to clean up the East and Antiochus the West, and at the end they were to take Parthia between two fires; the result could not have been in doubt. Though neither of them lived to carry it out, the plan for a combined attack on Parthia seems to follow from the fact that an attempt was made to put it into operation a generation later, when Demetrius II of Syria attacked Parthia from the west and his Bactrian allies (presumably Eucratides' son Heliocles) co-operated from the east;¹ but by that time Parthia had become strong enough to defeat the coalition.
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¹ Justin XXXVI, 1, 4, in 141 B.C.
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Eucratides had the choice of two routes eastward from Babylonia; the northern road by Ecbatana and Hekatompylos to Bactria which Antiochus III had taken, or the southern road through Susiana to Seistan. In 169 the Parthians were across the northern road, with their capital at Hekatompylos and a firm hold on the strong pass of Sirdarra, the ‘Caspian Gates’; he could no doubt have fought his way through, but with much loss of time and perhaps of men, and it is fairly certain that he took the southern route to Seistan and from that province advanced northward by the great road from Seistan by Herat to Merv and Bactria, the route subsequently taken by the colleague of Mithridates II of Parthia in liquidating the Saca invasion.² His conquests included Seistan, Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Sogdiana; Justin gives the list, though not in chronological or geographical order.³ It is unfortunate that the chapter in Justin which deals with Eucratides is Justin at his very worst, for he is trying to summarise an unfamiliar piece of history which he did not understand and which he considered of no importance;⁴ but there was ultimately a good and understanding source behind him (p. 50), and one has to try to restore the real sense. If the above view of Eucratides’ operations be correct, then the two sub-kings who had to bear the first shock of the invasion were Agathocles in Seistan and Arachosia (or rather his provincial governors, for his own seat was Alexandria-Kapisa, p. 158) and Antimachus in Herat and Merv; and as these are the two sub-kings whose propaganda is known, my view probably is correct.
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² Tarn, *SP Stud.* pp. 16–18; *CAH* IX p. 585. See p. 499.
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³ Justin XLI, 6, 3: ‘Bactriani...Sogdianorum et Arachotorum et Drangarum et Areorum Indorumque bellis fatigati ad postremum ab invalidioribus Parthis... oppressi sunt.’ ‘Sogdianorum’ shows that the reference cannot be to the campaigns of Demetrius in Iran; moreover his wars did not end in his being conquered by the Parthians. The reference is therefore to the campaigns of Eucratides, because there is nothing else that it can refer to, and ‘Bactriani’ therefore means Eucratides’ following and in a sense Eucratides himself. Indeed the next sentence proves it: ‘Multa tamen Eucratides bella magna virtute gessit’; that is equivalent to saying: ‘His end was to be conquered by the Parthians; however, he fought well first.’ This will be important later.
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⁴ Shown by his omitting all the other chapters in which Trogus dealt with the Farther East. He only gave the Eucratides chapter because it was Seleucid history.
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It is possible, but not certain, that Demetrius himself was in the Middle Country in India when Eucratides arrived (App. 5), and that during the campaigning season of 168 Eucratides only had to deal with sub-kings. Wherever Demetrius was, he ordered Menander to abandon Pāṭaliputra and all the Middle Country south of Mathurā (p. 227) and he himself hurried to Bactria to meet Eucratides, for it is clear from Justin and from the Yuga-purāṇa that their duel was fought out west of the Hindu Kush and that Eucratides did not invade India till later;¹ whether Demetrius was able to take the field in 168 or not, 167 was the critical year. Justin may show that the struggle was not without its vicissitudes, but his one story²—that Demetrius with 60,000 men besieged Eucratides with 300 and the latter after frequent sorties broke out—has little chance of being true as it stands. The figure 300 is probably correct, as it is the normal figure for the *agema* (bodyguard) of one in Eucratides’ position;³ and the story presumably means that at one point Demetrius cut off Eucratides from his army, but the latter got away. The figure 60,000 is naturally untrustworthy; but if Demetrius was really able to employ a large force it *might* mean that he brought and used Indian troops. The end of course was the death of Demetrius;⁴ otherwise it would not have been the end. Presumably Antimachus was also killed, though all that there really is to go upon here is that by the time Eucratides died there was no one left who could seriously challenge Menander’s rule in India, and Menander was not a Euthydemid.
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¹ Justin XLI, 6, 4 gives the order of the two events explicitly enough. The *Yuga-purāṇa* locates the civil war in ‘their own country’, *i.e.* not India but Bactria (App. 4).
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² Justin XLI, 6, 4.
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³ In the campaign of Antigonus (I) against Eumenes of Cardia the bodyguards of both Antigonus and Eumenes, and the joint bodyguard shared by Antigenes and Peucestas, all numbered 300 men; Diod. XIX, 28, 3; 29, 5 (from Hieronymus of Cardia). A king’s *agema* might be larger.
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⁴ Implied in Justin’s word *liberatus*; but he gives the sequence of events quite clearly.
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I come to the explanation of how it was done, which is furnished by the ‘memorial’ coin-series of Agathocles and Antimachus. These coin-series are the pedigrees of these two kings, *i.e.* of the Euthydemid house (see App. 3); they show that the Euthydemid kings were Seleucids and (by means of the fictitious pedigree) claimed to descend from Alexander. They are propaganda against Eucratides,¹ or rather they are the dead bones of what was once propaganda, and they were therefore issued in 168 or possibly 167;² the matter was naturally made plain by manifestos and speeches, but we can still see the central fact, that when the blow fell it seemed to the Euthydemid princes a vital matter to prove to their people that they were Seleucids.³ The other kings north of the Hindu Kush did the same thing. A strange coin exists which seems to be all that now remains of a similar pedigree series issued by Demetrius himself;⁴ his last coins also have the Seleucid bead and reel edging,⁵ and one of the two Bactrian tetradrachms in the British Museum struck by his son Demetrius II, his joint-king in Bactria itself, also has the bead and reel edging,⁶ the proof that he was joint-king when Eucratides came. Eucratides’ answer was simple; it was the coin figuring his parents, already noticed, which showed that his mother was the Seleucid princess Laodice; naturally he would issue proclamations also.
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¹ So *CHI* p. 453, ‘manifestos against Eucratides’. Incidentally they show that Demetrius did *not* marry a daughter of Antiochus III, or Agathocles could just have pointed to his mother, as Eucratides did.
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² They would take a little time to prepare; probably therefore Eucratides did winter in Seistan in 169–8, and they were engraved during that winter.
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³ Nothing turns on the Alexander-descent, which had no propaganda value; the Euthydemids, in claiming it themselves, equally claimed it for their Seleucid opponents. The cult-names borne by Diodotus and Euthydemus in the series may point to an organised state-cult, and if so Alexander may have been brought in because in the state-cult his name headed the list, as in Egypt.
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⁴ *CHI* p. 451 (Pl. III, 9), tetradrachm with obv. conventional head and no legend, rev. Zeus thundering and legend Διοδότου σωτῆρος; monogram ☩. The reasons given in *CHI* for believing it to be a ‘memorial’ (i.e. pedigree) coin, struck by Demetrius, appear to me to be conclusive. On the date of the monogram (see App. 1) the only alternative to Demetrius would be Demetrius II, and he I think would have necessarily (like Antimachus and Agathocles) put on the coin the word βασιλεύοντος and his name.
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⁵ *CHI* p. 447.
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⁶ Ib. p. 448.
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Now why were the Euthydemid princes so desperately anxious to prove to the world that they were no less Seleucids than Eucratides? Every historian has noticed one thing about the Seleucid empire, the abiding loyalty of the Graeco-Macedonian settlers, when they got the chance, to the person of the reigning Seleucid. When the general Molon revolted against Antiochus III part of his army went over the moment it saw Antiochus himself;¹ when Achaeus marched against Antiochus III, the settlers in his army refused to go on as soon as they guessed against whom they were marching,² though Achaeus was collaterally a Seleucid; there are other instances later.³ That is the explanation of the speed of Eucratides’ conquest: the Greek settlers in the East revolted and joined him wherever he appeared—in one case, that of the two mint-masters in Bactra, this can apparently be traced (App. 1)—and the propaganda of the Euthydemids was a desperate attempt to hold them by showing that they themselves were just as good Seleucids as Eucratides. Eucratides was not a rebel, but he raised and led a rebellion. The most important thing, however, is not that he raised a rebellion, but that the comparatively small force he brought with him proves that he knew beforehand that he *could* raise and lead such a rebellion—that he would find troops to his hand when he arrived. But he was only a Seleucid collaterally, just as his opponents were and just as Achaeus had been; whence came his knowledge? It could only have come in one way: he held Antiochus’ commission, and could proclaim ‘Who fights against me fights against the Lord’s Anointed.’ Once the pedigree coin-series of Agathocles and Antimachus be understood they seem quite conclusive for two things: that Eucratides was a Seleucid and that he came as the representative of Antiochus.
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¹ Polyb. v, 54, 1.
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² *Ib.* v, 57, 6, where τὸν κατὰ φύσιν βασιλέα means the legitimate king of the blood royal according to the rules of heredity.
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³ See Griffith p. 168.
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It is also probable that another factor was at work among the Greek settlers, reinforcing that of loyalty to Antiochus; Eucratides probably knew about it beforehand. More than once Alexander had trouble with those of his Macedonians who disliked what they considered his pro-Persian policy. The policy of the Euthydemids towards the native peoples of Bactria and India has already been explained so far as evidence permits, and there must inevitably have been among the Greeks of Bactria some, perhaps many, who disliked what they considered the pro-native policy of the dynasty and would have preferred to keep the ‘barbarian’ in his place; they would regard the hellenising Antiochus as a better representative of the Greek world in Asia. Demetrius’ fall was doubtless assisted by his ideas being too far in advance of those of a number of his Greek subjects.
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Eucratides’ position with regard to Antiochus can be deduced from his coins. It seems fairly certain now that what used to be called his first series, with the type of the Seleucid Apollo, belongs to a later Eucratides (pp. 271 sq.); his first series was really the coins with the Dioscuri type and the simple legend ‘Of King Eucratides’.¹ His second series, on which he is ‘Great King’, can be dated, for one of the pieces was copied by Plato’s dated coin of 165, and Eucratides’ second series therefore began to be issued in 166 after his victory, contemporaneously with the third series of Antiochus on which he is ‘The Victorious’. The first series of Eucratides, then, is earlier than 166; that is, he began coining as soon as he reached the East. Antiochus then had conferred upon him *before he started* the royal title in the provinces he should conquer. But he was not joint-king. The Seleucid realm had been familiar with joint-kings who governed the eastern provinces from Seleuceia; but they had always been sons or brothers of the reigning Seleucid, and though in fact they governed the East, in theory they were joint-rulers of the whole empire, and Babylon always dated by both names, those of the reigning Seleucid and of the joint-king. But Babylon did not date by Eucratides; after the death of the boy who was joint-king with Antiochus IV till 170–69 she dated by Antiochus IV alone.² Eucratides then was Antiochus’ sub-king; Antiochus was copying the Euthydemids, just as Parthia did later when Mithridates II appointed the Suren to take charge in the East (p. 499), with all the consequences which followed. Antiochus’ action meant that, in plain English, there were in future going to be *two* Seleucid realms, with himself ruler of one and suzerain of the other; doubtless he intended to supervise both from his seat in Babylon. Again Parthia copied. The Parthians were the supreme imitators of the ancient world; except in warfare, where they could be original enough, they never invented anything themselves but always copied from the Greeks, whether of the West or the East; Parthian analogies, therefore, are legitimate illustrations, and in the first century B.C. there were similarly two Parthian realms, one in the west governed by the Arsacids which Romans knew and called Parthia, and one in the east governed by the Surens,¹ at first nominally vassals of the Arsacid, with its centre originally in Seistan and subsequently on the Indus. It is obvious that Antiochus’ innovation was a dangerous one, as the conferring of special powers on a general usually was; but Antiochus had no grown son or brother to employ, Eucratides was his first cousin, and to give him the royal title meant at least that he would not revolt in order to seize it, like Achaeus. The amount of risk in fact depended on Eucratides’ character, about which Antiochus knew more than we do.
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- Βιβλιοθήκη ἱστορική — Διόδωρος ὁ Σικελιώτης, Ancient Greek
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