which had existed before the battle of Granicus. In the first place, these conquering dynasties had themselves, while retaining their native names and memories, assimilated to a greater or less degree the penetrating culture of the Greeks. Macedonian blood ran in the veins of princes who bore the names of Mithradata or Ariorath. Greek was spoken at their courts; they prided themselves on being the champions of Hellenism. Even the kings of the Jews and of the Arabs took the surname of Phil-Hellene.

.1

This consideration would, no doubt, tend to make the Greeks look upon the return of Oriental rule more favourably. At Antioch there had existed a party before 83 who were for calling in Mithridates of Pontus: Tigranes actually came in response to an invitation. But, with all that, the prevailing feeling among the Greeks was one of antipathy to the Oriental dynasties. Do what they might to show their phil-Hellenism, they were in the eyes of the Greeks barbarians still. Tigranes had been welcomed in Syria, but before long "the rule of the Armenians was intolerable to the Greeks." Perhaps the Greeks were right in their feeling that Hellenic culture and Oriental despotism could not in the long run subsist together.

In the second place, the existence of this great Greek population all over the Nearer East made the situation in 80 B.C. in reality utterly different from the situation in 333. The Romans found this people, their natural allies, waiting for them when they came to take possession. It was a true instinct which led Alexander and his successors to make the foundation of their work a system of Greek cities. Their dynasties perished, but their cities remained. The Romans had not to begin the work over again. They had but to carry on a work which the disruption of the Greek dynasties had brought to a standstill.

It was in 73 that the Romans put forth their strength a second time to roll back the power of Mithridates. We may regard that year as the date when the tide of barbarian advance

1 It will be remembered that the Parthian court, when the news of the defeat of Crassus arrived in 53, was watching a performance of the Bacchae of Euripides. 2 Just. xl. 1, 2 f.

3 Plutarch, Lucull. 21.

which since the death of Seleucus I had, with an occasional reflux, yet increasingly prevailed, turned before the advance of Rome. The last great general who was a sincere servant of the oligarchy, Lucius Lucullus, drove back Mithridates from Cyzicus, marched victoriously through Pontus, and in 69 invaded Armenia, where Mithridates had sought refuge.

Tigranes was at the moment pushing his conquests further south. He was already master of the Phoenician coast, and had taken Ptolemaïs, where Queen Selene had held out against him, when the news reached him that Lucullus was in Armenia. He hastily retired north, taking Selene with him, who by the fall of Ptolemaïs had come into his hands. At Seleucia on the Euphrates opposite Samosata she was imprisoned, and after some time put to death.1 The successes of Lucullus in Armenia brought about that or the following year the complete evacuation of Syria by the Armenian armies.2

Now the dethroned descendants of Seleucus saw their chance again. The son of Antiochus Eusebes, he probably whom we saw robbed by Verres some six years before, showed himself in Syria, and was hailed by Antioch as the lawful king.3 Lucullus gave his sanction. So once more a Seleucid king reigned in Antioch, Antiochus XIII, nicknamed Asiaticus, from some temporary residence in Asia Minor. True to the character of his race, he was soon fighting, with whom we are not told, probably the neighbouring Arabs. The Arabs had now pushed into the Orontes valley itself. Emisa (mod. Homs) was the seat of a chieftain called Shemash-geram (Sampsigeramus), who had also possession of Arethusa (mod. Ar-rastan). With him, however, Antiochus was friendly, and it was probably with the rival chief Azîz that Antiochus had come to blows. About 65 he suffered a defeat, which so damaged his credit at Antioch that there was a movement to drive him out again. Antiochus, however, was strong enough to quell it, and the ringleaders fled. A son of the late King Philip of the other Seleucid line was living in Cilicia, and the refugee Antiochenes persuaded him to try his chances in Syria. He made a compact with Azîz, and

1 Strabo xvi. 749.

2 App. Syr. 49.

4 Wilcken gives ground for believing that his father, Eusebes.

3 Ibid. 49 and 70. official surname was that of his 5 Cf. Strabo xvi. 753.

was set, as a dependant of the Arab chief's, upon the Seleucid throne. Antiochus placed all his hopes on the support of Shemash-geram, and the ruler of Emisa moved in fact down the Orontes with his bands. He asked Antiochus to come and confer with him in his camp. Antiochus, of course, went and was instantly made a prisoner. Shemash-geram had secretly arranged with Azîz that they should each make away with his Seleucid ally and divide the inheritance between them. Before, however, Azîz had carried out his part of the undertaking, Philip got wind of it and escaped to Antioch.1

2

When in 64 Pompey, having hunted Mithridates out of Asia, appeared as conqueror in Syria, to settle its affairs in the name of Rome, he received an application from Antiochus XIII, entreating to be restored to his throne. But Pompey had a consciousness of what Rome was come into Asia to do-to establish a strong government which would protect the centres of Hellenic life from barbarian dominion. It was that which the cities expected from Rome, and the restoration of such Seleucids as were now to be had was the last thing they wanted. According to one account, Antioch gave Pompey large sums to refuse the application of Antiochus.3 The account

is probably untrue, but it truly represents the attitude of Antioch. Pompey gave Antiochus a scornful answer. The man who had lost Syria to Tigranes was not the man to save it from Arabs and Jews. Syria, except cities which were given their freedom or the districts left to native dynasts under Roman influence, was now made a Roman province and put under the direct rule of a Roman governor. The kingdom of the house of Seleucus was come to an utter end (64).

What became of the surviving members of the royal house is lost in darkness. Antiochus XIII was sooner or later killed by Shemash-geram. Another of them was invited by envoys

1 Diod. xl. 1a and 1b.

2 Was Antiochus at this moment a prisoner of Sampsigeramus? Kuhn thinks that he was; Wilcken thinks this improbable. That he was before is certain, that he was afterwards is equally so, since Sampsigeramus had him killed. Wilcken ingeniously suggests that Sampsigeramus wished him to be made king to obviate Syria becoming a Roman province, and therefore gave him his liberty in order that he might make his application, and that, when Pompey refused, he again imprisoned him. Where King Philip II was all this time we have no idea. 3 Eus. i. p. 261. 4 Just. xl. 2, 3 f.

from Alexandria in 58 to come to Egypt and marry Berenice, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, who reigned there during a temporary expulsion of her father. "He, however," says the account, "fell sick and died." If he is identical with the person nicknamed Kybiosaktes by the Alexandrians, what happened is that the unhappy man accepted the invitation and was incontinently strangled by Berenice. Philip II, the last Seleucid king, reappears for a moment in 56, when he also received an invitation from Alexandria to come and be king in Egypt, but was forbidden by Aulus Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, to go. Then he, and with him the house of Seleucus, finally disappears.2

There were still people for many generations who prided themselves on having in their veins the blood of the imperial house. A priestess of Artemis at Laodicea-on-the-sea, in the beginning of the second century after Christ, tells us in her funeral inscription that she is sprung "from King Seleucus Nicator." The dynasty of Commagene vaunted it, and after the dynasty was brought down, the last members of the family. One of them, Gaius Julius Antiochus Philopappus, put up the well-known monument at Athens about 115 A.D. with a statue of Seleucus Nicator, his great ancestor.1 Another of them, a lady in the train of the Empress Sabina, the wife of Hadrian, visited the Egyptian Thebes in 130 A.D., and left upon the colossal "Memnon," the image of King Amenhotep III, some Greek verses, legible to-day, which record the praises of her mistress and her own royal descent.5 It is as if here, upon this monument of the dead empire of the Dawn, the powers of later fame would leave a register of their passage, a remembrance of names which in their hour were great, they also, in the earth.

1 Strabo xvii. 796.

2 Eus. i. p. 261. There is a special monograph on the Seleucids subsequent to the death of Antiochus Sidetes by Adolf Kuhn (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Seleukiden, Altkirch 1891). 3 C.I.G. No. 4471.

4 C.I.Att. iii. No. 557.

5 C.I.G. Nos. 4725-4730.

CHAPTER XXXII

GOVERNMENT, COURT, AND ARMY

THE kingdoms of Alexander and his successors show a mingling of several distinct traditions, which they did not succeed in altogether happily reconciling. We may distinguish three. (1) There was the Oriental tradition, the forms and conceptions which the new rulers of the East inherited from the "barbarian" Empires which went before them; (2) there was the Macedonian tradition; and (3) the Hellenic.

In the political constitution of the realm the Oriental tradition was predominant, for the kings were absolute despots. There was the same sort of government machine that there had always been since monarchy arose in the East, with the sovereign at the head of it and a hierarchy of officials who derived all their authority from him-satraps and district governors, secretaries, and overseers of taxes. Seleucus Nicator had publicly adopted the principle of despotism that the will of the King overrode every other sort of law.1 We have seen the Seleucid kings following in their practice the barbarian precedent in the punishment of rebels (Molon and Achaeus).

But with all this, the successors of Alexander made a pride of distinguishing themselves from their barbarian predecessors -Pharaohs, Babylonians, and Persians. They would have the world remember that they were Macedonians.2 They avoided the use of titles which had an Oriental colour. "King

of kings," for instance, no Seleucid is found to call himself.

1 See vol. i. p. 64, and Mitteis, Reichsrecht u. Volksrecht, p. 9.

2 Pausanias says of the Ptolemies: ἔχαιρον γὰρ δὴ Μακεδόνες οἱ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ καλούμενοι βασιλεῖς, καθάπερ γε ἦσαν, x. 7, 8. Cf. vi. 3, 1.