The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India. Getzel M. Cohen

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СКАЧАТЬ Seleucid rulers: for example, Seleukos I, Antiochos I, or Antiochos III.⁶⁰ The interpretation of these coins in the larger historical context has been the subject of an interesting discussion. Mørkholm noted that the coins were minted on the Attic standard and suggested this indicates that trade from eastern Arabia was primarily oriented toward the Seleucid empire. Furthermore, he suggested that the fact these “Arabian Alexanders” have been found on Failaka, at Susa (SELEUKEIA on the Eulaios), in northern Syria, and at Gordion in central Asia Minor demonstrates the route(s) on which the trade was being conducted. M. Huth and D. T. Potts disagreed. They suggested that the appearance of these coins in Syria and Phrygia simply reflects the movement of Antiochos III’s troops into Asia Minor after his expedition to the Persian Gulf area.⁶¹

      ASSYRIA AND APOLLONIATIS

      Apolloniatis (formerly called Sittakene), which Strabo describes as “extensive and fertile,”⁶² introduces a unique problem for the historian interested in the Hellenistic settlements in the Near East: the need to distinguish the Graeco-Macedonian settlements founded by Alexander and his successors from the colonies of Greeks and others that owed their origins to the population transfers carried out by the Persians, particularly in the early part of the fifth century B.C. At that time—especially under Darius and Xerxes—population transfer as a punitive measure was a standard policy of the Achaemenids.⁶³ Essentially, this policy resulted in Greeks and others being exiled to the interior and especially to the far eastern and southern regions of the Persian Empire.⁶⁴ It brought Barcaeans from Libya to Bactria (Hdt. 4.204), Paeonians to Asia (Hdt. 5.12), Milesians and others to the Red Sea basin (Hdt. 3.39, 6.20; Ctesias Persika 688 F14[43]) and Bactria (Branchidae: table of contents to Diodorus book 17 and Curt. Rufus 7.5.28–35, on which see Altheim-Stiehl, Geschichte 158–59; P. Bernard, Aï Khanoum 4:123–25), Eretrians from Euboea to Susiana (Hdt. 6.119; Pal. Anth. 7:259), Media (Philostratus Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1.24.2 = Pal. Anth. 7:256), and/or Gordyene in northern Mesopotamia (Strabo 16.1.25), Boeotians to Sittakene/Apolloniatis (Diod. 17.110.4–5), and Carians to the right bank of the Tigris, opposite Sittakene (Arr. 3.8.5; see also Diod. 17.110.3–4 and 19.12.1), as well as to Bactria (Strabo 11.11.4).⁶⁵

      As a result, when Alexander and his successors came to these various regions in and adjacent to Mesopotamia as well as those farther east, they encountered the descendants of those Greeks who had been sent there by the Persians two hundred or more years before and who still remained identifiably Greek. Thus, in describing some of the Boeotians in Sittakene, Diodorus noted: “There dwells here down to our time [i.e., latter half of the first century B.C.] a settlement of Boeotians who were moved in the time of Xerxes’ campaign, but still have not forgotten their ancestral customs. They are bilingual and speak like the natives in one language, while in the other they preserve most of the Greek vocabulary, and they maintain some Greek customs” (17.110.4–5, trans. Welles).

      This raises an interesting problem for the historian of the Hellenistic Near East: there are a number of settlements in Mesopotamia and Apolloniatis that are described by Isidore of Charax in the first century A.D. as poleis hellenides.⁶⁶ How many of these were settlements of Greeks that were established during the Hellenistic age, and how many were vestiges of the Achaemenid policy of population transfer? In some cases the paucity of the evidence does not allow us decide. As a result, in the absence of other extant information about these towns, we must consider the possibility that in some cases their “Hellenic character” reflected the forced settlement of Greeks by the Persians in the fifth century rather than the settlement practice of either Alexander or the Seleucids.

      We actually find relatively more settlements in this region—for example, ANTIOCH, APOLLONIA, ARTEMITA, and CHALA—than in the most areas of the Iranian plateau on the other side of the Zagros Mountains. None were apparently of any great importance.⁶⁷

      THE IRANIAN PLATEAU

      In any discussion of the Hellenistic Near East, it immediately becomes clear that once we cross the Tigris and move east the environment begins to change in a number of ways. I have already mentioned that the minting of quasi-municipal coinage, which is found in southeastern Anatolia, northern Syria, and Phoenicia, as well as northern Mesopotamia, is not attested in southern Mesopotamia, Iran, or any other point farther east. The territory east of the Tigris that Seleukos Nikator initially controlled was immense. The farther east beyond the Tigris that the Greeks and Macedonians went the fewer there were of them and the more difficult it was for them to come over from the Greek mainland. Furthermore, the Iranian plateau and central Asia encompass a vast area.⁶⁸ One thinks, incidentally, of the colonial French in the great stretches of what they called the “pays d’en haut” of North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—that is, the land upriver from Montreal or, roughly, western Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.⁶⁹ French explorers, hunters, and traders roamed over this region. The names of numerous towns and cities in this regions (and beyond) recall their presence: for example, Presque Isle (Pennsylvania), Belpre—originally, Belle Prairie—(Ohio), Detroit and Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan), Terre Haute, French Lick, and Versailles (Indiana), La Salle (Illinois), Eau Claire and Marquette (Wisconsin), and so on. But in most cases the toponyms are all that remain as witnesses of the French presence. Why is this? There are, of course, many reasons and numerous explanations. Most of the French operating in these regions were traders and hunters, not settlers. Furthermore, the French colonial officials never followed a cohesive policy to encourage settlement of this area. Their apparent avoidance of a clearly articulated settlement policy may also reflect, among other things, a harsh demographic fact: there were not enough Frenchmen available (or willing) to settle this vast area.

      Like the French in North America, there were not enough Graeco-Macedonian settlers to fill the vast stretches of the Iranian plateau and central Asia.⁷⁰ A glance at a map of the Iranian plateau makes clear both the extraordinarily large area under consideration and the relative paucity of Hellenistic settlements in most parts of it. The contrast with Syria is quite striking. Furthermore, climate and geography will have made this region much less attractive to Greeks and Macedonians than, for example, Syria and Phoenicia. By comparison with the moderate Mediterranean climate of Syria and Phoenicia, the continental climate of the Iranian plateau and central Asia is harsh: hot, dry summers and cold winters.⁷¹ Furthermore, the Iranian plateau is mostly rocky and dry; it has two salt deserts in the center and is surrounded by mountain ranges that extend well into much of central Asia.⁷²

      In addition, we should bear in mind the geopolitical context.⁷³ In recent years scholars have correctly reemphasized the importance of Mesopotamia and especially Babylonia in the Seleucid realm.⁷⁴ Nevertheless, we should not forget that in 300 B.C., immediately after his conquest of northern Syria, Seleukos made the conscious decision to establish four major settlements there, including the foundation that was destined to become the capital of his kingdom, ANTIOCH near Daphne. Despite the establishment of Antiochos I in SELEUKEIA on the Tigris as coruler, the net effect of that decision focused Seleucid attention westward and undoubtedly weakened Seleucid authority beyond the Tigris, namely, in Iran and especially points farther east. One thinks of Edmund Burke’s observation in his “Speech on Conciliation with America,” which he delivered on March 22, 1775: “The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the [American] colonies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system. . . . In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt, and Arabia, and Kurdistan, as he governs Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. . . . The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole of the force and vigour СКАЧАТЬ