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

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СКАЧАТЬ when Rabbel II died, put an end to the presence of client states to the west of the Euphrates. From then on, Rome administered her possessions by way of three provinces: the original province of Syria with its capital Antioch, governed by an imperial legate of the rank of senator; the province of Judaea, severed from Syria by Vespasian in 68 ce and governed from Caesarea by an imperial legate of praetorian rank until 134 ce, and after that by an imperial legate of consular rank, when it took on the name of Syria-Palaestina; and finally Arabia with its capital Bostra, covering the entire expanse of the Nabataean kingdom from the Hauran all the way to the Hejaz (Hegra marking its southern boundary), entrusted to an imperial legate of praetorian rank.

      Roman Expansion across the Euphrates

      At the same time as he was putting an end to the vassal principalities to the west of the Euphrates, Trajan was initiating a policy of aggression to the east of the river. On the pretext that the Parthians were intervening in Armenian affairs, which violated the compromise established back in the time of Nero, Trajan launched an expedition against the Parthians in 114 ce, which allowed him to gain the allegiance of various princes on the other side of the river (Abgar VII of Edessa, the Arab dynasts of Upper Mesopotamia, the princes of Hatra), burn the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, and attain the banks of the Persian Gulf where he rekindled a traditional friendship with the king of Characene-Mesene, Attambelos V. He created three new provinces: Assyria, Armenia, and Mesopotamia, and gave a new king to the Parthians, considered henceforth as a client state. One might have hoped to have seen a renewal of the political unity between Syria and Mesopotamia that was typical under the first Seleucids. But uprisings in several Mesopotamian cities and then the death of Trajan convinced his successor Hadrian to abandon the new conquests (118 ce). The three provinces were in effect eliminated, but Rome conserved her friendships beyond the river, and even some supporters. A meeting on the Euphrates between Hadrian and the Parthian king Chosroes I brought the conflict to a definitive close in 123 ce.

      When two young princes, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, rose to the head of the empire in 161 ce, the Parthian king Vologases IV took advantage of the situation and put a Parthian prince on the Armenian throne, which provoked a reaction from the governor of Cappadocia. The Roman retaliation was poorly prepared and ended in disaster and Cappadocia as well as North Syria were invaded by the Parthians. Friendly to Rome, the prince of Edessa, Ma’nu VIII, was pushed out by a rival supported by the Parthians in 162 ce. Leadership of the campaign, decided as soon as the Armenian affair blew up, was entrusted to Lucius Verus who took his time coming to Syria. Not only was Ma’nu reinstated in Edessa, but Rome also annexed a strip of territory along the Euphrates, including the important city of Dura-Europos, which finally became part of the empire in 165 ce; other territories further north, such as Nisibis, were probably acquired during this period. But the Roman army could not pursue its expedition after 165 ce because an epidemic of the plague hit. The prestige that Avidius Cassius, legate of the third legion Gallica and native of Cyrrhus in North Syria, had gained from his victories led him to believe that he could declare himself emperor upon hearing a false report of Marcus Aurelius’s death in 175 ce. Avidius Cassius suffered a defeat almost immediately and was killed.

      The conquest beyond the Euphrates was completed some twenty years later by Septimus Severus. On the pretext that several client princes had supported the governor of Syria, Pescennius Niger, his rival for the imperial throne in 193 ce, Severus undertook in 195 ce a campaign against Edessa and its neighboring principalities. Starting in 195 ce, he annexed a large part of the principality of Edessa which, together with others (Batnai, Anthemousia), formed the new province of Osrhoene. Abgar VIII kept his title and his ownership of Edessa and its surroundings. A new campaign in 198 ce led Severus to Ctesiphon (in January of 198 ce) and to Hatra, which resisted but nevertheless entered into an alliance with Rome. A Mesopotamian province was thus created to the east of Osrhoene, with Nisibis as its capital, and legions were stationed at Rhesaina and then Singara. Simultaneously, Severus cut Syria into two provinces, Coele Syria to the north and Syria Phoenice to the south, most likely in a move to diminish the power of the provincial governor.

After Edessa was annexed and promoted to the rank of Roman colony (213 ce), Caracalla campaigned (215–217 ce) in Adiabene and Babylon. Caracalla’s assassination was followed by a vigorous Parthian counter-offensive, which crushed Caracalla’s successor Macrinus at the gates of Nisibis; Macrinus agreed to pay 50 millions of deniers for the Parthians to leave the area.

      The Sasanian Threat and the Near Eastern Lands in the Third Century

      When the Sasanian Persians replaced the Arsacid Parthians starting in 224–225 ce, the situation in the Near East was deeply altered. Although the Parthians had ended up establishing a sort of modus vivendi with the Romans and in the end were attacked more often by Rome than they were themselves the aggressors, the Persians soon showed their aggression toward Syria. Starting in 230 ce, a first Persian invasion brought them to the gates of North Syria. The retaliation took a long time to organize, and Alexander Severus, who was advancing along the Euphrates, had to retreat toward Antioch.

      Although Roman Syria had experienced great stability for two centuries, instability remained the norm in Syria during the third century, due to the conflicts with the Persians and internal crises. War with the Persians resumed under Gordian III who briefly reestablished the Abgarid dynasty in Edessa (239–242 ce) in an attempt to create a barrier against the advancing Persians. But he could not prevent the capture and destruction of Hatra (242 ce) even though in 243–244 ce he led a largely victorious campaign that allowed him to retake most of the cities in Mesopotamia and advance toward Ctesiphon. But in the beginning of the year 244 ce, the Roman army was routed at Misichē in the Euphrates valley, leaving the emperor dead and replaced by his praetorian prefect Philip, a native of the province of Arabia. Philip negotiated a costly peace with the Persians and managed to conserve a large part of the province of Mesopotamia.

      The peace was broken in 252–253 ce, and the Persian Shapur I took over Dura in 252 ce. Dura was soon after this liberated and then retaken a second time and destroyed in 256 ce. Several North Syrian cities seem to have been pillaged, and fear reigned across all of Syria and into Arabia where cities began to be fortified (Bostra, Adraa). In this political climate, some local personalities, such as Uranius Antoninus in Emesa and Odaenathus in Palmyra, attempted to organize resistance to the Persians. The partial success of this resistance did not prevent a fresh Persian offensive in 259 ce, which affected all of North Syria and forced the emperor Valerian to personally lead the campaign. But Valerian was taken prisoner during a fight near Edessa (late 259 ce) and Antioch was taken.

      Since Valerian’s son and co-emperor Gallienus was held up by operations in the West, Odaenathus of Palmyra showed himself to be an indispensable ally because Palmyra was the only city of the empire to have kept an armed militia to maintain peace and safety along the desert routes used by caravans. Thanks to these troops and mobilizing only a part, at least, of the Roman troops in Syria, Odaenathus of Palmyra fought against the usurpers Macrianus and Quietus (260 ce), and managed to stop the Persians by handing them a defeat in the Orontes river valley. He brought war to Mesopotamia, taking Ctesiphon twice, it seems, in 262 ce and then in 267 or 268.

Odaenathus of Palmyra, thanks to his success against the Persians, had gained the upper hand over all of Syria and had accumulated some very special titles (exarch of the Palmyrenes, “King of Kings”) with Gallienus’s permission. This did not prevent Palmyra from remaining fully a city of the empire, a Roman colony under the classic administration of the duumvirate. For unknown reasons, Odaenathus was assassinated along with his eldest son Hairan/Herodes in 268 ce. Odaenathus’s widow Zenobia refused to recognize Quintillus when Claudius II died in the summer of 270 ce and declared her son Vaballathus imperator while recognizing Aurelian as Augustus. Nevertheless, troops placed under Palmyrene authority immediately endeavored to take control of the Roman provinces of the Near East. Then fell, one after the other, Coele Syria, Syria Phoenice, Arabia (not without a fight, since the temple of Jupiter Hammon in Bostra was destroyed by the Palmyrenes), СКАЧАТЬ