A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ BCE, after Seleucus IV had instituted a new and stricter form of royal control over the temple finances in Syria, the high priest Onias opposed this reform. At the time of the king’s death in 175 BCE Onias was in Antioch to justify himself, but the new king, Antiochus IV, dismissed him and appointed his relative Jason instead. The latter obtained the right to create a Greek city (polis) in Jerusalem in exchange for a higher tribute. A few years later, in 171 BCE, Jason was replaced by Menelas and the tribute was increased again. A popular revolt broke out in Judaea, quickly organized by the Maccabees. The suppression of the revolt by the king was very harsh, although it never aimed to annihilate Judaism, contrary to the later assertions of the authors of the two books of the Maccabees. Faced with the resistance of the rebels (who retook the Temple in December of 165 BCE) and after the death of Antiochos IV (in October 164 BCE), negotiations between the Jewish rebels and the Seleucids took place, despite the continuation of the fighting. A new state gradually emerged first around Jerusalem (around 157–152 BCE) under the authority of Jonathan, brother and successor of Judah, and then soon after to include all of Judaea and beyond (Idumaea, Peraea in Transjordan, the Golan, South Lebanon). This new kingdom, led by an ethnarch and high priest who took a royal title around 104–103 BCE, asserted its independence, despite several attempts to recapture it by the Seleucids. This was no longer contested after the short-lived conquest of Jerusalem in 131 BCE by Antioch VII.

The Jews benefited, in their struggle for independence, from the accelerated weakening of the Seleucid royal authority following a dynastic quarrel that deeply affected the succession of Seleucus IV in 175 BCE. At that time, his legitimate heir Demetrius I was being held hostage in Rome. The brother of the deceased king, Antiochus (IV), took advantage of the situation and had himself named king, associated for a time with another under-aged nephew, Antiochus the Young. When Antiochus IV died prematurely in the autumn of 164 BCE, his son Antiochus V succeeded him under the tutelage of the minister Lysias. But Demetrius I escaped from Rome to claim his paternal inheritance (162 BCE) and eliminated Lysias and Antiochus V without a struggle. In 152 BCE, a certain Alexander Balas, calling himself the illegitimate son of Antiochus IV and supported by all those who wanted to weaken the Seleucids (Rome, Pergamon, the Lagids), proclaimed himself king, left for Ptolemais, and eliminated Demetrius I (winter 151/150 BCE). By marrying the daughter of Ptolemy VI, he reinserted the Lagids into Syrian affairs. Thus began an unending dynastic quarrel as the two sons of Demetrius I soon contested the authority of Alexander Balas. The details of the multiple unforeseen developments of this crisis are not important, but the royal authority was henceforth most often fragmented among several pretenders holding only a part of the country. Although Demetrius II (147–138 BCE, then 129–126/5 BCE) and Antiochus VII (138–129 BCE) managed to eliminate usurpers (Balas was defeated in 146 BCE, Diodorus Tryphon in 138 BCE, Alexander Zabinas in 123 BCE) and reign alone for a few years, after the death of Demetrius II, the power (or what was left of it) was constantly shared by at least two competitors, all descended from Demetrius II and Antiochus VII. The competitors eagerly made more and more concessions to the local cities or dynasts that might be willing to help them. Cities often gained their freedom in this way (which freed them from paying tribute), such as Tyre in 126 BCE, Sidon in 112–111 BCE, Seleucia in 108–107 BCE, Tripoli in 105–104 BCE, and Ascalon in 103 BCE. The local dynasts gained a de facto independence from this; thus Jonathan and his successors supported in turn Alexander Balas and then Demetrius I, then Demetrius II and Antiochus VII, etc., which allowed them to extend their domain in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee. This is how the Hasmoneans ― which is the dynastic name of the Maccabees that came to power ― ended up controlling almost all of Palestine, either by conquest or as a gift from the Seleucids. Taking advantage of the prevailing disorder, other principalities formed all around the periphery of Syria and even in its center. Consequently, the Greek or Arab “tyrants” were seen to establish themselves in Philadelphia in Transjordan and in Gerasa, in Byblos, in Lysias in the Apamena, in the mountains of the Lebanon (Chalcis ad Libanum, Abila, Arca), or in Aleppo-Beroea, while tribes such as the Emesenoi settled on the edges of the fertile zones, first in Arethusa on the Orontes river, before founding Emesa toward the middle of the first century BCE.

      The Coming of Rome and the Early Provincia Syria

      This crisis of royal authority led to an increase in the general insecurity, to the point where the inhabitants of Antioch, as well as those in other cities, sought out effective protectors. Those in Damascus thought they found one in Aretas III of Nabataea, whose kingdom extended all the way to the Hauran, and who occupied the Damascus region (84–72 BCE) to counter the threats of Ptolemy son of Mennaeus, the brigand chief who dominated the interior of Lebanon. The inhabitants of Antioch sought a protector further afield: they did not hesitate to ask Tigranes of Armenia to take control of the entire kingdom, which he did without major difficulties (only Seleucia in Pieria remained impenetrable to him) starting in 83 BCE. Rome could not have been happy to see the son-in-law of her main enemy, Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, burst into Syria at the very moment she was fighting against the king. But Rome did not have the means to lead both combats at the same time and was obliged to let Tigranes act. Tigranes nevertheless was forced to leave Syria when Lucullus waged war on Armenia (69 BCE). Two Seleucid offspring, Philip II and Antiochus XIII, took advantage of this to reestablish their own power and restart a fratricidal war. The anarchy in Syria seemed destined to begin again.

This is when Pompey intervened. At first, provided with an extraordinary command against the pirates who infested the entire Mediterranean (lex Gabinia, 67 BCE), Pompey had full power on the sea and over a wide strip of the coast. He took action against the brigands, notably in Cilicia and in Phoenicia. But as the commands held by Lucullus were gradually taken away from him, it allowed Mithridates VI of Pontus to reconquer a part of the lost territories. In the winter of 67–66 BCE, Pompey was entrusted by the lex Manilia with the command of the Roman forces against the king of Pontus and, after driving Mithridates out of Anatolia and gaining the submission of Tigranes, Pompey turned to Syria where his legates had already arrived ahead of him. He decided to return land to those who had chased off Tigranes from possessing the country, not to those who had fled and shown themselves to be incapable of fighting against him. So Pompey decided to depose two Seleucid kinglets (Sampsigeramos of Emesa quickly got rid of Antiochus XIII who had taken refuge near him, while Philip II managed to escape from Azizos of Aleppo before being killed, probably during a riot in Antioch) and reduce all that was left of the kingdom to a Roman province.

      The new province totally lacked geographic unity, since it essentially brought together the cities and allowed most of the principalities that had sprung up over time to remain. If some brigand chiefs had their heads chopped off (Dionysius of Byblos, the Jewish Silas in Lysias in the Apamena), other dynasts saved their lives and their states by handing over large sums to Pompey (Ptolemy son of Mennaeus) or his legates (Aretas III of Nabataea to Aemilius Scaurus in 62 BCE), or simply because their effective power sheltered them from a Roman military intervention (Abgar II in Edessa, Antiochus I of Commagene, Sampsigeramos in Arethusa). The province presented a strong geographic discontinuity: it consisted of most of North Syria (except the mountainous zones), the Lebanese coast (but not the inland area), and cities dispersed across southern Syria (Damascus, Canatha), Transjordan (most of the cities known as the Decapolis), Galilee (Scythopolis), and even the southern part of Palestine (Gaza). The Hasmonean and Nabataean kingdoms had sworn their allegiance, at least formally. As such, directly or indirectly, all of Syria had become Roman.

      The Euphrates marked the edge of the Parthian Empire; neither Sulla’s meeting with the Parthian ambassador of Mithridates II (92 BCE), nor the agreement between Lucullus and Phraates III (70 BCE), renewed in 66 BCE by Pompey and the Parthian leaders, challenged this line of demarcation that was implicitly acknowledged by all. Yet the tension between the two empires remained strong, as neither had renounced the possibility of expanding beyond the line. Although the precise reasons are unknown, but perhaps due to the fear of a Parthian offensive, the Senate entrusted Aulus Gabinius, governor of Syria (57–55 BCE), with the mission of preparing to wage war against them. Although he started a campaign in 55 BCE, Gabinius quickly abandoned this objective in order to reinstate Ptolemy XII to his throne in Alexandria in exchange for a large sum of money. The mission to fight against СКАЧАТЬ