Appian, The Syrian Wars 10

Although only his books on the Roman Civil Wars survive in their entirety, large parts of Appian's book on the Syrian War, or Syriaca, have also come down to us. This book deals with the war that the Romans and the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great fought in 192-188, but also discusses, as an appendix, the history of the Seleucid Empire. The Syriaca is a valuable source for the history of the ancient Near East between the reign of Alexander the Great and the Roman conquest.

The translation was made by Horace White; notes by Jona Lendering.

Decline of the Seleucid Empire (cont'd)

[46] Epiphanes^note[King Antiochus IV Epiphanes.] died, leaving a son, Antiochus, nine years of age, to whom the Syrians gave the name of Eupator, in commemoration of his father's bravery. The boy was educated by Lysias. The Senate was glad that this Antiochus, who had early shown himself high spirited, died young.^note[162/161 BCE.]

When Demetrius, the son of Seleucus and nephew of Antiochus Epiphanes (grandson of Antiochus the Great and first cousin of this boy), at this time a hostage at Rome, and twenty-three years old, asked that he should be installed in the kingdom as belonging to him rather than to the boy, the Senate would not allow it. They thought that it would be more for their advantage that Syria should be governed by an immature boy than by a full-grown man.

Learning that there were many elephants in Syria and more ships than had been allowed to Antiochus in the treaty,^note[The treaty of Apamea, concluded in 188 BCE.] they sent ambassadors thither, who killed the elephants and burned the ships. It was a pitiful sight, the killing of these rare and tame beasts and the burning of the ships. A certain Leptines of Laodicea was so exasperated by the sight that he stabbed Gnaeus Octavius, the chief of this embassy, while he was anointing himself in the gymnasium at that place, and Lysias buried him.

[47] Demetrius came before the Senate again and asked at all events to be released as a hostage, since he had been given as a substitute for Antiochus, who was now dead. When his request was not granted he escaped secretly by boat.

As the Syrians received him gladly,^note[162/161 BCE.] he ascended the throne after having put Lysias to death and the boy with him. He removed Heraclides from office and killed Timarchus, who rebelled and who had administered the government of Babylonia badly in other respects. For this he received the surname of Soter, "Savior", which was first bestowed upon him by the Babylonians.

When he was firmly established in the kingdom he sent a crown valued at 10,000 pieces of gold to the Romans as the gift of their former hostage, and also delivered up Leptines, the murderer of Octavius. They accepted the crown, but not Leptines, because they intended to hold the Syrians responsible for that crime.

Demetrius took the government of Cappadocia away from Ariarathes and gave it to Olophernes, who was supposed to be the brother of Ariarathes, receiving 1000 talents therefor. The Romans, however, decided that as brothers both Ariarathes and Olophernes should reign together.

[48] These princes were deprived of the kingdom - and their successor, Ariobarzanes, also, a little later - by Mithridates, king of Pontus. The Mithridatic war grew out of this event, among others - a very great war, full of vicissitudes to many nations and lasting nearly forty years.^note[Mithridates VI Eupator (121/120-63) waged several wars against the Romans, and expelled the Cappadocian king Ariobarzanes I Philoromaeus (c.95-c.62) no less than six times. Appian says that the Mithridatic war lasted forty years, which is more or less correct. The First Mithridatic War (88-84) was an attempt to expel the Romans from Asia Minor; the Roman commander, Sulla, restored Rome's fortunes. The Second Mithridatic War (83-81) broke out because Sulla returned home; Licinius Murena forced Mithridates to accept the peace treaty. 74-64: The Third Mithridatic War (74-64) was won by the Roman commanders Lucullus and Pompey the Great. The fourth conflict, from 48 to 47, was Julius Caesar's war against Mithridates' son Pharnaces II.] During this time Syria had many kings, succeeding each other at brief intervals, but all of the royal lineage, and there were many changes and revolts from the dynasty. The Parthians, who had previously revolted from the rule of the Seleucids, seized Mesopotamia,^note[141 BCE.] which had been subject to that house.

Tigranes, the son of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who had annexed many neighboring principalities, and from these exploits had acquired the title of "king of kings",^note[Tigranes II the Great of Armenia (c.95-55) was master of the Seleucid Empire from 83 to 69.] attacked the Seleucids because they would not acknowledge his supremacy.^note[83 BCE.] Antiochus [X Eusebes] Pius was not able to withstand him. Tigranes conquered all of the Syrian peoples this side of the Euphrates as far as Egypt. He took Cilicia at the same time (for this was also subject to the Seleucids) and put his general, Magadates, in command of all these conquests for fourteen years.

[49] When the Roman general, Lucullus,^note[Lucius Licinius Lucullus.] was pursuing Mithridates,^note[69 BCE.] who had taken refuge in the territory of Tigranes, Magadates went with his army to Tigranes' assistance. Thereupon Antiochus, the son of Antiochus Pius,^note[Antiochus XIII, the son of Antiochus X.] entered Syria clandestinely and assumed the government with the consent of the people. Nor did Lucullus, who first made war on Tigranes and wrested his newly acquired territory from him, object to Antiochus exercising his ancestral authority.

But Pompey, the successor of Lucullus, when he had overthrown Mithridates, allowed Tigranes to reign in Armenia and expelled Antiochus from the government of Syria, although he had done the Romans no wrong.^note[64 BCE.] The real reason for this was that it was easy for Pompey, with an army under his command, to rob an unarmed king, but the pretense was that it was unseemly for the Seleucids, whom Tigranes had dethroned, to govern Syria, rather than the Romans who had conquered Tigranes.

[50] In this way the Romans, without fighting, came into possession of Cilicia and both inland Syria and Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, and all the other countries bearing the Syrian name from the Euphrates to Egypt and the sea. The Jewish nation still resisted,^note[63 BCE.] and Pompey conquered them, sent their king, Aristobulus, to Rome, and destroyed their greatest, and to them holiest, city, Jerusalem,^note[Pompey's capture of Jerusalem is described here.] as Ptolemy, the first king^note[The first Macedonian king of course.] of Egypt, had formerly done.^note[Not otherwise recorded.] It was afterward rebuilt and Vespasian destroyed it again,^note[70 CE.] and Hadrian did the same in our time.^note[135 CE.]

On account of these rebellions the tribute imposed upon all Jews is heavier per capita than upon the generality of taxpayers. The annual tax on the Syrians and Cilicians is 1% of the valuation of the property of each. Pompey put the various nations that had belonged to the Seleucids under kings or chiefs of their own. In like manner he confirmed the four chiefs of the Galatians in Asia, who had cooperated with him in the Mithridatic War,^note[The Third Mithridatic War.] in their tetrarchies. Not long afterward they all came gradually under the Roman rule, mostly in the time of Augustus.