The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.160

c10.s3.160

Antiochus himself started in 165 to begin clearing up from the western end;³ unless we suppose that the real beginning was his activity in Judaea in 167. He reduced Armenia, which had only been nominally subject to Alexander and had never acknowledged the suzerainty of a Seleucid except for a time that of Antiochus III. He is next heard of in Chaldaea, where he refounded Alexandria at the head of the Persian Gulf as an Antioch (later Charax Spasinu),⁴ though this *might* belong to his visit to Babylonia in 166. Pliny takes him down the Arabian coast of the Gulf to Gerrha, but this is certainly a mistake for Antiochus III, as Pliny adds that that coast had not been explored before,⁵ while it is known from Polybius that Antiochus III had gone as far as Gerrha.⁶ Similarly the activity of Numenius, eparch of Mesene, in the Gulf, recorded by Pliny (VI, 152), belongs to the time of Antiochus III, for it is known that the eparch of Mesene at the end of Epiphanes’ lifetime was Hyspaosines. In fact, except for the refounding of Antioch (Charax), there is nothing to connect Epiphanes with the Persian Gulf at all. The tradition next takes him to Elymais or Susa—it was in reality Susa—and late writers state either that he plundered the temple of Artemis-Nanaia or that he attacked it and was beaten off. This question is considered in Appendix 7; it will suffice to say here that the temple of Nanaia was at Susa, which was his own city; that he had some dealings with the temple authorities, the nature of which cannot now be ascertained but which were certainly peaceable; and that statements that he plundered or attacked the temple are demonstrably untrue. There may have been in late writers the same confusion of his actions with those of Antiochus III as there has been over Gerrha; but that is not really material.