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

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СКАЧАТЬ third century B.C. Bactria had been consolidated under the authority of Euthydemos. The treaty he signed with Antiochos III in 206 B.C. gave him a free hand over this region.¹²¹

      Settlements Founded by the Seleucids and/or the Graeco-Bactrian Kings

      The Seleucid presence in central Asia is reflected in the names of various settlements: for example, ANTIOCH in Margiana, the refounded ALEXANDREIA, and ANTIOCH in Scythia, possibly a refounded ALEXANDREIA. Another Seleucid foundation, probably in Aria, was SOTEIRA.¹²² The relatively few Seleucid foundations in the region are, undoubtedly, a reflection of the short and tenuous nature of Seleucid rule there. They also reflect strategic priorities: a glance at a map indicates quite clearly that Seleukos I and Antiochos I focused most of their settlement founding activity on the central and western regions of their vast empire rather than on the eastern periphery. One sees the result of this rather clearly if one considers Appian’s enumeration of the settlements founded by Seleukos I (Syr. 57). Appian says that as a result of this activity, Syria and the “barbarous regions of upper Asia” were filled with towns bearing Greek and Macedonian names. He then proceeds to give a list of town names in Syria and Parthia. In addition he mentions one settlement in India (ALEXANDROPOLIS), one in Scythia (ALEXANDRESCHATA), one in Mesopotamia (NIKEPHORION), and one in Armenia (NIKOPOLIS). Notably absent from Appian’s list are settlements in central Asia (except for SOTEIRA, KALLIOPE, CHARIS, HEKATOMPYLOS, and ACHAIA in Parthia). Fraser provided another explanation for the relative absence of evidence for Seleucid settlements in the region: he suggested that the lists of Alexandreias in the various recensions of the Alexander Romance and in Stephanos were derived from a lost Liber de Urbibus Alexandri that was composed in ALEXANDREIA near Egypt during the third century B.C.—that is, while it was still under Ptolemaic rule. He further suggested that the Liber de Urbibus Alexandri served a propaganda purpose in the struggle between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies by attributing to Alexander settlements that, in fact, had been established by the Seleucids.¹²³ Thus, he mentions ALEXANDREIA in Margiana (ANTIOCH in Margiana), ALEXANDREIA ΠΡΟΣΠΕΡΣΑΣ (ANTIOCH in Persis), ALEXANDREIA on the Tigris River (SELEUKEIA on the Tigris), ALEXANDREIA near Babylon (SELEUKEIA near the Hedyphon?), ALEXANDREIA ΕΠΙ ΣΟΥΣΟΙΣ (SELEUKEIA on the Eulaios), ALEXANDREIA in Scythia (ANTIOCH in Scythia), and ALEXANDREIA in Mesopotamia (ANTIOCH in Mygdonia).¹²⁴ Other settlements, such as DEMETRIAS in Arachosia as well as EUKRATIDEIA, would have been founded by Graeco-Bactrian dynasts. There are, in addition, other settlements with Greek toponyms about which rather little is known and which cannot, therefore, be ascribed with certainty to any particular monarch or dynasty. Despite that, we can, at the very least, see them as further proof of a Greek presence in the region.

      INDIA

      In the context of Hellenistic history the toponymic term “India” is used, somewhat arbitrarily, to refer to an area that essentially encompasses modern-day Pakistan and southern Afghanistan—namely, the area roughly between the Hindu Kush and the Indus/Hyphasis River valleys.¹²⁵ During the Hellenistic period both history and geography conspired to keep this region far removed from Greek lands and areas of intensive Greek habitation. The area had been traversed by Alexander, and then briefly came under the control of Seleukos I Nikator. However, as I have mentioned, already at the end of the fourth century B.C. Seleukos I was forced to cede the region to the Mauryan Chandragupta. Subsequently, the loss of Parthia and Hyrcania to the Parthian dynasty in the period after the mid-third century B.C., and the ascent of Bactria around the same time, effectively removed these regions from Seleucid control and thus further removed northwest India from regular overland contact with the rest of the Seleucid empire.¹²⁶ As for Mauryan rule, it lasted until the early second century B.C., when it was overthrown by Pushyamitra. The collapse of the Mauryan dynasty essentially created a vacuum into which the Graeco-Bactrians moved. By invading India and establishing power there they effectively extended—at this relatively late date in the Hellenistic period—a Greek presence into India.

      As is the case for Bactria, the number of likely Hellenistic settlements whose exact location can be fixed is disappointingly small. For example, scholars have not been able to identify the precise site of any of the Alexandreias that were located in India. In a number of other instances—for example, BOUKEPHALA and NIKAIA—the sources point to a likely general area; nevertheless, it has not yet been possible to fix their exact site. In still other instances, where we can identify the location of a particular town—for example, PUSHKALAVATI and TAXILA—we cannot definitely affirm that this had been the site of a Hellenistic foundation.

      As with Bactria, the extant literary sources provide only a fragmentary account of the history of the region when it was under Greek hegemony. Most of the kings and subkings are known to us only through coins that have survived. But even if the numismatic evidence does not allow a complete reconstruction of the history of the region, it does—by its very abundance and high quality—call attention to the region’s wealth.

      1. See, for example, Herzfeld, Empire 313–17; Musti in CAH² 7:183–84; Sullivan, Royalty 96–105, 280–91, et passim; Schottky, Media 76–231; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, Samarkhand 190–97; P. Bernard, Topoi Supplément 1 (1997) 181–85; Mittag, Antiochos 296–98 et passim; and M.-L. Chaumont, Syria 70 (1993) 431–41; R. H. Hewsen, REArm 13 (1979) 77–97 (on Armenian historical geography). On the alleged Thessalian origins of Armenia see Strabo 11.14.12–14 (“There is an ancient story of the Armenian race to this effect: that Armenus of Armenum, a Thessalian city . . . accompanied Jason into Armenia; and Cyrsilus the Pharsalian and Medius the Larisaean, who accompanied Alexander, say that Armenia was named after him. . . . They say that the clothing of the Armenians is Thessalian. . . . I have already discussed Medeia in my account of the Medes; and therefore, from all this it is supposed that both the Medes and the Armenians are in a way kinsmen to the Thessalians and the descendants of Jason and Medeia”; trans. Jones); and P. Bernard in Topoi Supplement 1 (1997) 131–216.

      2. See Mehl, Seleukos 296 n. 33 (“Völlig unklar ist die Situation bezüglich Armenien”); Brodersen, Komment 123; Schmitt, Antiochos 37–38; Schottky, Media 92–94; Bernard, Topoi Supplement 1 (1997) 183, suggested that Armenia might have come under the control of Seleukos I in 281 after the battle of Korupedion.

      3. On Mygdonia in Mesopotamia see, for example, Bousdroukis, Recherches 40–47. ANTHEMOUSIAS and BATNAI were the names of both a settlement and the region around it in northern Mesopotamia. See those entries.

      4. Strabo does say that Gordyene east of the Tigris was named for Gordys the son of Triptolemos who migrated and settled there (7.1.25, 7.2.5; see also 16.1.24). But here we are in the realm of mythological origins; see also the scholiast to Lycophron (ed. Scheer) 1443. On Gordyene see E. Herzfeld, Memnon 1 (1907) 121–22.

      5. See Mørkholm, Antiochus 125–26; id., INC Rome 2:63–67.

      6. Of course the absence of these mints in the regions beyond northern Mesopotamia may also reflect the swiftly declining Seleucid control after the mid-second century B.C.

      7. Mørkholm, Antiochus 126.

      8. In CAH 7:155–56 and SEHHW 478, where he described Syria and northern Mesopotamia as “the centre of his [i.e., Seleukos’s] power and the seat of his great capitals.”

      9. See, for example, Sherwin-White in Hellenism 16–18 and below; Briant in Religion 47. Cf. Bickerman, who remarked—citing Strabo 11.9.2—that “Iran and Syria were two heartlands of the Seleucid Empire” (in La Persia [1966] 108).

      10. Samarkhand 1, 91; see, earlier, Ach. Hist. 8: 311.

      11. In Religion 47; see also Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, Samarkhand 36–39 on the importance of Hellenistic Babylonia—“the core of the empire”; see also Van der Spek in Roi et economie 304; and Kuhrt (in Hellenistic Kingship 41–54), who emphasized the presence of the Seleucids in Babylonia. СКАЧАТЬ