Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/619

 EMPIRE.] PERSIA 591 This implies that besides the kingdom of Bactria and that of Demetrius the latter now confined to India and probably to the lands east of the Indus there were independent states in various districts still Seleucid in 206. Justin s statement is confirmed by the coins, which also show that Eucratides came forth as victor from a series of wars with the lesser states. Sogdiana, accord ing to Chinese authorities, was occupied by the Scythians in the lifetime of Eucratides ; Antimachns, to judge from a naval victory recorded on his coins, once reigned on the lower Indus ; the prin cipal place where coins of him and his successor Antialcides have been found is the Cophen valley ; the latter prince, who borrows from Antiochus Epiphanes the title &quot;Nicephurus,&quot; may be viewed as his younger contemporary. The neighbouring realm of Plato was ephemeral, but his money is unique as giving a date by the Seleucid era (165 B.C.). Pantaleon and Agathocles, whose coins are chiefly to be found in Begram, Cabul, Ghaznf, Kandahar, and Sistan, were doubtless kings of Arachosia and Drangiana. Before this these countries belonged to Demetrius, and even, as the coins show, to his father Euthydemus, who cannot have been contem porary with the last years of Antiochus the Great, so that they were probably given as a dowry to his daughter when she married Demetrius. This marriage really took place, for the Seleucid name Laodice is found among the Bactrian Greeks. The victories of Eucratides are proved by his surfrappe coins. Thus he restruck coins of Antialcides and appears posthumously as &quot;God of the city Kariei &quot; l on money of Apollodotus, king of the Indians. Heliocles, co -regent and successor of Eucratides, and Strato, apparently the successor of Apollodotus, restruck each the money of the other, and Heliocles s name also appears over what is perhaps a coin of Pliilo- xenus, who reigned in the region of Peshawar. On his way back from the conqiiest of India Eucratides was murdered by his son and co-regent, probably Helio cles. 3 The date of this murder may be fixed by that of Demetrius, who must have been born not later than 224, and may be taken to have lost his kingdom not later than 159. Eucratides cannot, according to Justin s account, have lived many years longer. This would give c. 155 B.C. as the lowest possible date for the death of Eucratides. A little before this time notable signs of concession to the rising spirit of the natives appear on the coins. The medals of the older Greek kings follow the Attic standard and have only Greek legends, but from the time of Deme trius the reverse bears a legend in the Indian language spoken in the Cabul valley and in the so-called Arianian character, a letter derived from the Semitic. At the same time we begin to find square coins, and in the later part of the reign of Eucratides a new native standard begins to prevail. 4 lira- In the midst of the civil wars, which became more 18 . of serious after the death of Eucratides, Mithradates of Parthia ia began to extend his dominions at the expense of Bactria ; even in the lifetime of Eucratides he succeeded in annexing the satrapies of Aspiones and Turiua. These seem to have covered Aria, for the Hindu-Kush is named as the eastern boundary of the Parthians (Justin, xli. 6, 8), whence perhaps the mention of Arians amongst the foes of Eucra tides. Another account makes Mithradates rule as far as India, and declares him to have obtained without war the old kingdom of Porus, or the rule over all nations be tween the Indus and the Hydaspes. 5 The two accounts are reconciled by Chinese records, which tell that c. 161 B.C. the nomad people Sse broke into the valley of the Cophen and founded a kingdom in the very place of the 1 7.fi.,Cliaris, a Greek town, which Appian, Syr. , 57, placed in Parthia with two other towns which really lay in Aria. - See in general, A. v. Sallet .s &quot; Nachf. Alex. d. Gr,&quot; in Zcitschr. f. Num., vi. , and Cunningham, Num. Chron., ix. x. a This is the usual assumption, for Heliocles appears on coins both as contemporary and as successor of Eucratides, and there is a surfrappe coin of his which was originally struck by Eucratides for the marriage of Heliocles ith Laodice (perhaps a daughter of Demetrius by his Seleucid queen). But there is much to be said for the view of Cunningham (Journ. As. S. Reng., 1840, p. 869; Num. Chron., ix. 239), that the murderer was Apollodotus, whose title &quot;Philopator&quot; always points to a co-regency. 4 Sallet, op. cit., p. 25 sq. 5 This account goes back through Oros., v. 4 (following Livy),&quot;and Biod., p. 597, to the excellent authority of Posidonius. Parthian conquests in India, which must therefore have 164-138. been ephemeral. This fact has its importance, as illustrat ing the way in which the internal wars of the east Iranian Greeks helped to prepare the ground for the Scythian in vasion. After this success in the east Mithradates turned his attention to the west, where the chances of success were not less inviting. Demetrius had at length fallen before a coalition of the neighbouring sovereigns, powerfully sup ported by the Romans through their instrument the exile Heraclides. A pretender, w y ho called himself son of Anti ochus Epiphanes, was put up as king by the coalition ; he appeared in Syria in 152, and slew Demetrius in battle in 150. The pretender, who took the name of Alexander Theopator Euergetes, proved quite incompetent, and lost the support of Ptolemy Philometor, who in 147 put up Demetrius, the son of Demetrius, against him. At length, in 145, Alexander, utterly defeated by Ptolemy, was slain in his flight by an Arab chieftain. Demetrius II. Nicator, however, soon made himself bitterly hated, and a certain Diodotus of Casiana, in the region of Apamea, a man of Deme- mean origin, was able first to set up against him Alexander s trius IJ - young son Antiochus Epiphanes Dionysus, and then to murder his puppet and proclaim himself as King Trypho. Five years of fighting drove Demetrius out of the greater part of Syria. Such was the state of the empire when war broke out between Media and Parthia, and was finally decided in favour of the latter. Mithradates left Eacasis in Media and turned to Hyrcania. Media in this account appears as independent, and that this was so is confirmed by the notice in Diod., Exc. Esc., 25, that a certain Dionysius &quot;the Mede&quot; raised Mesopotamia in 142 against Trypho to avenge the murder of the young Antiochus. Dionysixis must be a son of Timarchus ; Heraclides, Avhen he installed Alexander in Syria, must have thought also of his own family, and raised it again to the throne of Media, which the senate had already recognized as a separate king dom. But the short-lived independence of Media was, as we have seen, soon cut short by Mithradates, who did not lose the opportunity afforded by the civil wars of Syria in 147. Babylonia followed the fate of Media; Demetrius s lieutenant was defeated, and the whole province, with its capital Seleucia, fell into the hands of the Parthians. Thus the East was finally lost to the Macedonians. The change of rule was not well received by the new subjects of Parthia, least of all by the Greeks and Mace donians of the upper provinces, who sent embassy after embassy to Demetrius. That prince, who had now little to lose in Syria, at length accepted their invitation to come and take the rule over them, hoping that if he could secure the upper satrapies they would help him against Trypho. In 140 he marched into Mesopotamia, and thence by Babylon to the upper provinces. He was well received by the natives, and even the small native states made common cause with him against the proud barbarians, whose neighbourhood they felt as oppressive. He was joined by the Persians and Elymseans, and the Bactrians helped him by a diversion, appearing now for the last time as an independent people. At first things w r ent well, and the Parthians were defeated in several battles, but in Media in 139 Demetrius was surprised by the lieutenant of Mithradates during negotiations for peace ; his forces were annihilated, and he himself taken prisoner and dragged in chains through the provinces that had joined his cause. The Parthian king received his captive with favour and assigned him a residence and suitable establishment in Hyrcania. He even gave him his daughter Rhodogune, and promised to restore him to his kingdom, but this plan was interrupted by death. Mithradates s last campaign was against the king of Elymais, Demetrius s ally; the rich temples of Elymais,