Antiochus the Great
Page 9
After four months’ campaign, Ptolemy dismissed his troops, paying them a generous donative of 300,000 gold pieces, and soon drifted back into alcoholism, leaving an able cadre of advisors led by Sosibus to run the government. Antiochus, by contrast, emerged from the defeat with his energy and drive undiminished. With the war with Ptolemy finally at an end, he now was ready to focus upon another pressing matter: the rebellion and separatist kingdom of his cousin Achaeus in Asia Minor.
Plate 1. Antiochus III: portrait bust, Louvre Museum, Paris. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 2. Seleucus Nicator (r. 312—281 BC), portrait bust, Louvre Museum, Paris. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 3. Antiochus IV (r. 175—164 BC), portrait bust. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 4. Attalus I: Portait bust of Attalus I. Openly proclaiming himself king in the 240s BC, he ruled a shifting territory in Asia Minor until his death in 197 BC. During his low-water mark after Antiochus III’s vigorous campaigns, Attalus controlled only his citadel at Pergamon and its environs. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 5. Eumenes II (r. 197–159 BC): Portrait of Eumenes II, son of Attalus I, who led the decisive cavalry charge at Magnesia, and obtained major territorial concessions in the Peace of Apamea. Now on display in the Hierapolis Museum. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 6. Arsaces II: The king of the Parthians, defeated but not overthrown during Antiochus III’s anabasis. He contented himself as a Seleucid vassal, with the official title of ‘autokrator’. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 7. Euthydemus: Coin of the Bactrian king Euthydemus, who defended his realm from Antiochus’ attacks from 210 to 208 BC, ultimately accepting the status of a subordinate but still largely independent client king. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 8. Demetrius I: Son of Euthydemus. Antiochus III ceremoniously approved him as a successor to the Bactrian throne in 208 BC, paving the way for peace between a semi-independent Bactrian dynasty and the Great King. He ruled from c. 200 to 180 BC. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 9. Gilded metalwork from Ai Khanoum in Bactria, showing a mix of Hellenic and Eastern motifs. The piece is widely held to embody the intercultural fusion facilitated by the geographic scope of the Seleucid Empire. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 10. Ptolemy IV (r. 221–205 BC): Despite a reputation of sloth and debauchery, his personal heroism at Raphia led to a resounding victory over Antiochus III. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 11. Ptolemy V (r. 205–81 BC): He succeeded his father as a mere boy overseen by a tumultuous regency government. As a condition to peace after the Battle of Panion, he married Antiochus III’s daughter Cleopatra ‘the Syrian’. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 12. Rafah (ancient Raphia). Modern day border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza strip, situated at the natural choke point, near to where almost 150,000 Ptolemaic and Seleucid troops clashed in 217 BC. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 13. Marsyas: Statue of the satyr Marsyas, who in myth was flayed to death by the god Apollo in Asia Minor. The legend may have resonated with Antiochus’ brutal torture and execution of his older cousin Achaeus outside Sardis, given the close association between the Seleucid dynasty and Apollo. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 14. Sardis Citadel: Commanding position held by Achaeus and his wife after Antiochus III captured the main city. (Photo courtesy of Randall Souza)
Plate 15. Demetrias (modern-day Volos): One of the fetters of Greece, Antiochus landed in 192 BC, commencing his invasion of Greece. (Photo by author)
Plate 16. Thermopylae: The cliffs of Mount Callidromos loom above the narrow pass at Thermopylae. Marcus Porcius Cato was able to find a path through the mountains to flank the Seleucid position, imitating the Persian manoeuvre against the Spartans almost three centuries earlier. (Photo by author)
Plate 17. Scipio Africanus (consul 205, 194 BC): Vanquisher of Hannibal and one of the greatest Roman generals of all time, he was a strong advocate for war with Antiochus III. While serving as a legate with his brother, Lucius Scipio, he took ill and was therefore absent from the Battle of Magnesia. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 18. Pen and ink drawing of a bronze plate found during German excavations around Pergamon. While initially believed to depict a battle between Hellenistic forces and Galatian warriors, it most likely depicts the Battle of Magnesia, with Roman infantry and Attalid cavalry assailing the beleaguered Seleucid phalanx. (Illustration from Alexander Conze, Die Altertümer von Pergamon, Vol I.ii, Berlin: W. Spemann, 1913)
Plate 19. Trireme: The Olympias, a modern reconstruction of the ancient warship and a commissioned vessel in the Greek navy. While the heyday of the trireme was the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Antiochus III still had many of these un-decked vessels in his new blue-water fleet. (Photo by author)
Plate 20. Galatian: Terracotta of a Galatian warrior, now in the Louvre Museum. Galatian mercenaries were an important supplement to Seleucid armies. (Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)
Plate 21. Roman infantryman and Macedonian cavalrymen: A dramatic scene from the Pydna monument of Aemilius Paullus (c. 165 BC). It could equally portray the clash between Antiochus III’s heavy cavalry and L. Scipio’s legions at Magnesia. Now on display at the Delphi museum. (Photo by author)
Plate 22. Another scene from the Pydna monument, featuring a fallen Macedonian heavy infantry phalangite with characteristic shield. Antiochus’ phalanx would have been equipped very similarly. A Roman cavalryman rides over him and a Roman infantryman rushes up with his long shield. (Photo by author)
Chapter Five
The Defeat of Achaeus
The next three years of Seleucid history, from 217 to 214, are largely undocumented, as Polybius becomes distracted by the centrepiece of his history, the epic confrontation between Rome and Carthage. Nonetheless, it is clear that Antiochus spent these ‘lost’ years slowing grinding away at Achaeus’ realm.
The rebel still controlled much of Asia Minor. With Antiochus distracted fighting Ptolemy IV, Achaeus had further expanded his domain with a successful campaign against an Anatolian people known as the Selgians.1 The size of the rebel army is uncertain. At one point Achaeus was able to detach a force of 6000 infantry and 500 cavalry under a subordinate,2 but his overall force was likely several times this. This strength would still have been no match for Antiochus’ royal army, although the King probably campaigned with far fewer than the 68,000 troops he commanded at Raphia. There is no record of any set piece battle. Instead, Achaeus waged a defensive campaign, and it took Antiochus two full years (from 216 to 214) to fight his way up the old Persian royal highway and finally besiege Achaeus in the capital of Sardis.
Sardis was an old city, first the royal seat of the dynast Croesus’ midsixth century Lydian empire and then the regional capital of the Persian Empire. It was well fortified and dominated by an imposing acropolis. Once Achaeus and his remaining forces drew behind Sardis’ walls, the war reached a stalemate, as reported by Polybius:
Around Sardis were endless skirmishes and combats, both by night and day, as the soldiers devised every manner of ambush, retaliation and assault against each other. To write about these things one after the other would be not only profitless, but altogether timeconsuming. (Polybius 7.15.1)
The siege had lasted for over a year when one of Antiochus’ frustrated mercenary officers sought to infiltrate the city.
This officer, named Lagoras, was a Cretan mercenary with considerable combat experience. He had fought under Ptolemy IV during the recent war and suffered defeat at the hands of Antiochus in Beruit.3 The end of the Syrian war closed off his opportunities with the Ptolemies, and he now turned to Antiochus, as did many other Ptolemaic mercenary officers. On his own initiative, Lagoras observed Sardis’ defensive walls, looking for areas of weakness. He knew from experience that
sections of the wall overlooking rough terrain were often times inadequately guarded, and he observed a cliff where the besieged inhabitants dumped refuse: human corpses as well as the entrails of dead horses and mules (the defenders were by now hungry enough to eat dead animals, but not so hungry as to feel compelled to eat the tripe!). Vultures flocked to this area, and the fact that these birds did not abandon the cliff after they had eaten their fill suggested to Lagoras that no guards were regularly posted in this spots. Acting on his own initiative, Lagoras sneaked up to the cliff at night and confirmed that it was unguarded and could be scaled with ladders.
Lagoras took this scheme to the King, who approved it instantly and gave him permission to lead the attack. Perhaps fearful of blame in the event of failure, Lagoras asked that two of the King’s favourites join the assault, Theodotus the Aetolian and Dionysius, the commander of the hypaspists, an elite subset of the Silver Shields.4
Three special units were organized. The first consisted of fifteen men, selected for their strength, which would carry the ladders to the cliff, scale the wall, and enter the city, along with Lagoras, Theodotus, and Dionysius. They would then proceed to the nearest gate, where they would pull out the pins and remove the bar.
A second platoon of thirty soldiers would rush to the gate from the outside and assist in the demolition. Once opened, a special battalion of two thousand men (possibly the hypaspists themselves) would rush to take position at the top of the city’s theatre, seizing key urban terrain that would allow follow-on forces to overrun the remainder of the city.
The plan required a moonless night to cover the movement to the cliff face. After waiting for the moon to wane, the operation was set into motion: the three units took their position at the base of the cliff and waited for daybreak to scale the wall. As expected, the steep cliffs shielded the attackers from Achaeus’ sentries. However, the soldiers in Antiochus’ main army, many of whom had front-row seats to the dramatic operation from their siege lines, caused an unforeseen and unfortunate commotion. The King feared that these undisciplined cheers might betray the assault force as it scrambled up the ladders, and to divert the defenders’ attention, he launched an impromptu diversionary assault at one of the other gates into town, known traditionally as the Persian Gate. Unaware of the larger strategy, Achaeus’ garrison commander, Aribazus, dispatched a force to repel Antiochus’ attack; he even opened the gate to facilitate a counter-attack against Antiochus’ diversionary force. Achaeus himself ordered the opposite gate to be reinforced as a precaution, but the reinforcements did not arrive in time.
Lagoras and his special force quickly tore down the gate from the inside, permitting the 2000 men stationed outside to rush into the city and seize the theatre. Aribazus sought to recall his troops to deal with this new threat, but opening the Persian gate was a grave mistake. The rebel soldiers withdrew back into the Persian gate, but failed to close it. Antiochus’ men followed in close pursuit, and secured this second gate after a brisk struggle. The King led his assembled forces into the city, and Seleucid units burst through gate after gate. Aribazus, realizing the situation was hopeless, withdrew his troops to the inner defences of the city’s imposing citadel, where Achaeus and his family were already secured, and watched as Antiochus and his men inflicted the traditional punishment upon a besieged city. On this scene, Polybius nonchalantly reports:
Some murdered anyone they happened to encounter, while others burned down the dwellings and others prowled about in search of spoils and loot. The destruction and sack of the city was total. In this way, Antiochus became lord of Sardis. (7.18.9–10)
Now in control of the city, Antiochus needed to access the steep citadel in order to capture Achaeus and end the rebellion once and for all. Back in Egypt, Ptolemy IV’s minister Sosibus was eager to ensure that Achaeus escaped alive from Sardis. While Ptolemy IV was technically at peace with Antiochus, the energetic minister knew that active war had merely been replaced by a cold war of subterfuge and containment. Any Seleucid loss would be a Ptolemaic gain. Sosibus also knew the narrow margins of Ptolemaic victory in the previous war. It would be advantageous to the fragile Ptolemaic state if Sosibus could sabotage Antiochus by smuggling Achaeus out of Sardis: the rebellion’s persistence would continue to compromise the Seleucid position in Asia Minor.
With this in mind, Sosibus commissioned Bolis, a Cretan mercenary captain, to facilitate a dangerous rescue mission. Bolis had previously visited Sardis and was familiar with the terrain of the citadel. Even more significant, Bolis was friends with another high-ranking Cretan mercenary commander then in the service of Antiochus, a man by the name of Cambylus, whose unit of Cretans secured a forward outpost in rough terrain near the citadel. Sosibus provided Bolis with encoded letters of recommendation, as well as ten talents of silver to cover travel expenses and the cost of bribing Cambylus to agree to the plan.
Bolis made his way to Sardis via Rhodes and Ephesus, meeting with Ptolemaic agents and confidants of Achaeus along the way. He finally met with his friend and relative Cambylus, and the two men engaged in a plot that seems to confirm ancient stereotypes that portray Cretans as untrustworthy and treacherous. The two men agreed to split the ten talents between them, and then betrayed the entire plot to Antiochus in the hopes of receiving an additional reward. Antiochus was thrilled when the double agents presented themselves and immediately endorsed their plan. Bolis would cross enemy lines and offer to slip Achaeus to a friendly Ptolemy, only to treacherously deliver him directly to Antiochus.
Bolis sent letters, supposedly smuggled through Seleucid lines, urging Achaeus to accept his offer of rescue, and Achaeus decided the proposal was his best chance of escaping a hopeless military situation. But he decided to hedge his bets. When Bolis arrived, Achaeus dressed himself as an attendant and instructed a friend to impersonate him. To prevent betrayal, he told no one of his plans to depart, save for his loyal wife Laodice.
Achaeus and his followers linked up with Bolis in the middle of the night, and sneaked down the crags surrounding the citadel. As they moved over the steep terrain, Bolis noticed that the seemingly lowly attendant was receiving excessive deference from the better-dressed members of the party, especially when he required assistance down steep sections of the path. Having uncovered the switch and identified his target, Bolis gave a whistle that initiated the prearranged ambush. Bolis tackled Achaeus, overpowering him and preventing him from attempting suicide with a hidden blade; the King wanted his quarry alive. Polybius describes the scene that follows, emphasizing the irony of Achaeus’ suddenly degraded position:
The king, for a long while waiting the outcome in suspense, dismissed his courtiers and remained awake in his tent with only two or three bodyguards. When Cambylus and his men arrived and deposited Achaeus upon the floor bound hand and foot, Antiochus was utterly speechless at this incredible sight and remained silent for some time. Finally, full of sympathy, he wept and was deeply affected and burst into tears, affected, it seems to me, by seeing how difficult it was to withstand or anticipate such a turn of fortune (tyche). For Achaeus was the son of Andromachus, the brother of the Laodice who married Seleucus. He married Laodice the daughter of King Mithridates, and was lord of the whole of Asia this side of the Taurus. At that moment, it was believed by both his own troops and those of the enemy that his was in the safest spot in the whole world, but in fact he sat bound upon the ground, in the hands of his enemies, no one knowing what had just happened except those who carried it out. (Polybius 8.20.8–12)
For all the King’s tears, he would have no mercy upon the rebel. The King’s friends were summoned to witness the unhappy Achaeus and debate the proper punishment. They crafted a grisly execution protocol: Achaeus’ genitals were cut off, and his misery ended shortly afterward with decapitation. His head was sewn into the skin of a donkey, while his headless body was crucified for display by the army. While this punishment was the ad hoc product of the more sadistic urges of Antiochus and his council, the habit of m
utilating pretenders had Persian precedent and recalled the grim treatment of Molon’s corpse almost nine years previously.
In the citadel, Laodice despaired at the joyous commotion in the Seleucid camp and realized that her husband’s escape attempt had failed.5 Shortly afterwards a royal herald arrived at the citadel to announce the gruesome execution and demand an immediate surrender. Despite this, the rebels maintained position, but there was no clear notion of who might succeed Achaeus. Both Laodice and the citadel commander Aribazus claimed to be in charge, and their quarrelling divided the garrison, prompting an eventual surrender. Eight years after the initial revolt, the rebellion of Achaeus and Laodice was over.6
The city of Sardis faced harsh punishment in the aftermath of the revolt. An additional 5 per cent tax was levied upon the inhabitants. Half the houses in the city were appropriated to quarter royal troops, and the city gymnasium converted to use for military purposes.7 Soon, however, a more conciliatory policy emerged that focused on reconstructing the war-ravaged city, as evidenced by an inscribed royal letter: