Parthia 5

While Hellenism was thus gaining a firm footing in all

the East, the native population remained absolutely passive. Apart from the rude mountain tribes, no national resistance was dreamed of for centuries. The Iranians quietly accepted the foreign yoke, and the higher classes adopted the external forms of the alien civilization even though they were unable to renounce their innate characteristics. Eratosthenes, for instance, speaks (ap. Strabo i. 66) in high terms of the Iranians (Ariani), ranking them (as well as the Indians, Romans, and Carthaginians) on a level with the Greeks as regards their capacity for adopting city civilization. The later Parsee tradition contends that Alexander burned the sacred books of Zoroaster, the Avesta, and that only a few fragments were saved and afterwards reconstructed by the Arsacids and Sassanids. This is absolutely unhistorical. The Persian religion was never attacked by the Macedonians and Greeks. Under their dominion, on the contrary, it expanded with great vigour, not only in the west (Armenia, north Syria and Asia Minor, where it was the official religion of the kings of Pontus and Cappadocia), but also in the east, in the countries of the Indian frontier. That the popular gods—Mithras, Anaitis, etc.—had come to the forefront has already been mentioned. This propagandism, however, was void of all national character, and ran on precisely the same lines as the propagandism of the Syrian, Jewish and Egyptian cults. Only in Persis itself the na tional character of the religion survived side by side with the memory of their old imperial position; here a local Persian dynasty was allowed to rule in the centre of the province at Istakhr (cf. PERsis).

Decline of the Seleucids.—In 282 B.C. Seleucus took the field against Lysimachus, and annexed his dominions in Asia Minor and Thrace. In 281 he was assassinated in crossing to Europe, and his son Antiochus I. was left supreme over the whole empire. From that time onward the Seleucid empire was never at rest. Its gigantic extent, from the Aegean to the Indus, everywhere offered points of attack to the enemy. The Lagidae, especially, with their much more compact and effective empire, employed every means to weaken their Asiatic rivals ; and auxiliaries were found in the minor states on the frontier—Atropatene, Armenia, Cappadocia, Pontus and Bithynia, the Galatians, Pergamum, Rhodes and other Greek states. Moreover, the promotion of Greek civiliza tion and city life had created numerous local centres, with sepa rate interests and centrifugal tendencies, struggling to attain complete independence, and perpetually 'forcing new concessions from the empire. Thus the Seleucid kings, courageous as many of them were, were always battling for existence (see SELEUCID DYNASTY).

These disturbances severely affected the borders of Iran. While the Seleucid empire, under Antiochus II. Theos (264-247), was being harried by Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, and the king's at tention was wholly engaged in the defence of the western provinces, the Greeks revolted in Bactria, under their governor Diodotus (q.v.). Obviously, it was principally the need of protection

against the nomadic tribes which led to the foundation of an in dependent kingdom ; and Diodotus soon attained considerable power over the provinces north of the Hindu-Kush. In other provinces, too, insurrection broke out (Strabo xi. 575; Justin, xli. 4) ; and Arsaces, a chief of the Parni or Aparni—an Iranian nomad tribe (therefore often called Dahan Scythians), inhabit ing the steppe east of the Caspian—made himself master of the district of Parthia (q.v.) in 248 B.C. He and his brother Tiridates (q.v.) were the founders of the Parthian kingdom, which, how ever, was confined within very modest limits during the follow ing decades. Seleucus II. Callinicus (247-226) successfully en countered Arsaces (or Tiridates), and even expelled him (c. 238) ; but new risings recalled Seleucus to Syria, and Arsaces was enabled to return to Parthia.

Greater success attended Antiochus III. the Great (222-187). At the beginning of his reign (220) he subdued, with the help of his minister Hermias, an insurrection of the satrap Molon of Media, who had assumed the royal title and was supported by his brother Alexander, satrap of Persis (Polyb. v. 4o sqq.). He further seized the opportunity of extorting an advantageous peace from King Artabazanes of Atropatene, who had con siderably extended his power (Polyb. v. 55). After waging an unsuccessful war with Ptolemy IV. for the conquest of Coele Syria, but suppressing the revolt df Achaeus in Asia Minor, and recovering the former provinces of the empire in that quarter, Antiochus led a great expedition into the East, designing to restore the imperial authority in its full extent. He first removed (2n) the Armenian king Xerxes by treachery (Polyb. viii. 25; John of Antioch, jr. 53), and appointed two governors, Artaxias and Zariadris, in his place (Strabo xi. 531). During the next year he reduced the affairs of Media to order (Polyb. x. 27) ; he then conducted a successful campaign against Arsaces of Parthia (209), and against Euthydemus (q.v.) of Bactria (208-206), who had overthrown the dynasty of Diodotus (Polyb. x. 28 sqq., 48 sqq., xi. 34; Justin xli. 5). In spite of his successes he con cluded peace with both kingdoms, rightly considering that it would be impossible to retain these remote frontier provinces permanently. He next renewed his old friendship with the Indian king Sophagasenus (Subhagasena), and received from him 15o elephants (206 B.c.). Through Arachosia and Drangiane, in the valley of the Etymander (Helmand), he marched to Car mania and Persis (Polyb. xi. 34). Both here and in Babylonia he re-established the imperial authority, and in 205 undertook a voyage from the mouth of the Tigris, through the Arabian gulf to the flourishing mercantile town of Gerrha in Arabia (now Bahrein) (Polyb. xiii. 9).