Antiochos I

"This article examines Greek and Macedonian political propaganda connected with the Celtic invasions of Greece and Asia Minor in the third century BCE. Because in the Greek world-view of the Hellenistic Age the Celts were seen as the ultimate subhuman, barbaric ‘others’, the Greco-Celtic wars stimulated the development of panhellenic sentiments and became a pivotal point of reference in Hellenistic royal self-presentation. Hellenistic kings presented their, usually easily-won, victories over Celtic forces as the triumph of Civilization over Chaos. Thus they were able to ‘prove’ that they were in actuality the divine Saviours (soteres) they pretended to be in their propaganda. The article traces the development of this imagery from the saving of Delphi by the Aetolians in 279 BCE, through the propaganda of Antigonus Gonatas, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Antiochus Soter, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, to the Attalids of Pergamon, whose Great Altar and related victory monuments formed the apogee of ‘Celtic propaganda’.

Throughout history, the Seleucid military might demonstrated
many times its importance for the maintenance, expansion and defense of the Empire. Rarely the Seleucid army was defeated in a campaign and it happened in front of the almighty Rome. After the defeat at Thermopylae and Magnesia, and following the imminent withdrawal must conquer the Ptolemaic Empire, the new king Antiochus IV Epiphanes held a military parade as never been done before, its real purpose is unknown, but the Seleucids showed the world the power that still had the Empire. Through the stories of several classic sources, we can come closer to this event and what
it could entail.

In 72-69 B.C., L. Lucullus successively captured the most important urban centres of the kingdom of Pontus, and Tigranocerta in Armenia. His army also operated in the kingdom of Commagene und in Upper Mesopotamia. Lucullus’ military campaign was continued by Pompey. We come across incidental information about the scale of robbery and destruction committed by the Roman army (the statue of Autolycus by Sthennis in Sinope, the temple of Ma in Comana, the secret archives of Mithradates VI, the Roman library of Lucullus, the treasures of Darius the Achaemenid). Some objects of the plundered art appeared in public at the triumphal shows of wealth in Rome, which was perfunctorily documented by Pliny the Elder, Appianus of Alexandria and Plutarch (63 and 61 B.C.). Artworks were also acquired by functionaries of the occupying administration from urban communities and private persons through extortion and blackmail. The Roman lawyers and intellectuals worked out a set of skilful legal formulas to justify and legalise the plunder of cultural goods (ius belli, monumentum imperatoris, ornamentum urbis). Cicero, Livy and Plutarch never condemn the robbery of artworks and libraries if they were committed in the name of the Roman state. The fragmentary evidence testifies to the once flourishing literary circles of the kingdoms of Pontus and Commagene (Methrodorus of Scepsis, Athenion, the anonymous authors of inscriptions from Commagene, the epitaphs of the Bosporan kingdom).

I argue that the Seleukid rulers were not the ‘chameleon kings’ of the older literature, who passively adapted their monarchy to supposed local "traditions"; I argue instead that the Seleukids actively negotiated with local elites, and that local customs changed as a result of this, even as these were still presented as ‘traditional’.

Conventional scholarship holds that in the third century BCE, the Seleukid dynasty controlled the various populations of their empire by respecting indigenous ‘traditions’. This paper takes issue with the alleged passivity of the Seleukids and the conceptualization of 'Near Eastern' culture as coherent, static and traditionalist. I focus on the famous Antiochos Cylinder from Borsippa, a document that is often foregrounded as evidence for the early Seleukids’ willingness to adopt the role of ‘traditional’ Babylonian kings. Using globalization theory and Richard White's notion of Middle Ground, I argue instead that the indigenous monarchy outlined by the Cylinder is in fact the innovative result of negotiations between a 'global' imperial elite and a local priestly elite, who cooperated to their mutual benefit. The Cylinder thus reflects neither a top-down imposition of imperial ideology on so-called ‘subalterns’, nor the bottom-up instruction by native experts on how to be a good Babylonian king. The Cylinder instead offers us a unique insight into the dynamics of internal power changes that took place in Babylonian cities after the Macedonian conquest, when priestly families in alliance with the imperial dynasty were able to reassert the supremacy of the central sanctuaries, and hence of their own political dominance.

In the geographical setting of Ai Khanoum there is more than ample archaeological and historical context for the presence of a sometimes angry and enraged Oxus river god. Thus the portrayal on this coin of a vigorously charging Indian humped man-faced bull, or river god. It is possible that at the time of the Greeks in Baktria the oral tradition of the region included reference to the partial destruction of ancient Kohna Qala by the Oxus. Even if not the case, the physical evidence remained for the Greeks to see, less than a couple of kilometres from the Ai Khanoum city gate, across the fertile irrigated fields of the elevated plain adjacent to the mighty Oxus. Any wonder then that when Antiochos I arrived to take up his role as viceroy in the east he paid attention to the mood of the river god and chose to pay homage to that god on his inaugural coinage in the city?

This article presents a hitherto unpublished cuneiform document from the Liagre Böhl Collection (Leiden) that sheds new light on the length of the coregency of Seleucos I Nicator and his son Antiochos (I Soter). Judging by the date mentioned in this document (LB 863), it is plausible to suppose that Antiochos was made coregent at least two years earlier than generally assumed. Furthermore, this discovery accords well with the peculiar date of another cuneiform document (D.T. 189) that has so far defied explanation.