Antiochus III the Great

Ascending to the throne at the age of eighteen, Antiochus inherited an empire in turmoil after the death of his brother, Seleucus III Ceraunus. While his initial campaigns against Ptolemaic Egypt ended in failure, he spent the decade that followed successfully reasserting Seleucid authority over territory such as central Asia Minor, Parthia and Bactria. Pressing as far as the Kabul valley, he renewed a friendship with the Indian king Sophagasenus and earned himself the epithet "the Great" (Antiochos Megas). He also assumed the title Basileus Megas (Greek for 'Great King'), the traditional title of the Persian kings. Upon his return to the west, Antiochus launched another campaign against the Ptolemies and brought Coele-Syria, Phoenicia and Judea under Seleucid control.

Antiochus's designs on the Greek city-states earned him the antagonism of the Roman Republic. Declaring himself the "champion of Greek freedom against Roman domination", he waged a four-year war against Rome beginning in mainland Greece in the autumn of 192 BC, advised by the exiled Carthaginian general Hannibal and supported by an alliance with the Aetolian League. He was resoundingly defeated at the battles of Thermopylae (191 BC) and Magnesia (190 BC), resulting in the loss of much of the Seleucid lands in Asia Minor to Rome's allies. Renewed rebellions ensued, and Antiochus died three years later on another expedition to the east.

Biography

Background and early reign

Antiochus III was a member of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty. He was the son of king Seleucus II Callinicus and Laodice II, aunt of Seleucus, and was born around 242 BC near Susa in Persia. He may have initially borne a non-dynastic name (starting with Ly-), according to a Babylonian chronicle. He succeeded, under the name Antiochus, his brother Seleucus III Ceraunus, upon the latter's murder in Anatolia; he was in Babylon at the time.

Antiochus III inherited a disorganized state. Not only had Asia Minor become detached, but the easternmost provinces had broken away, Bactria under the Seleucid Diodotus of Bactria, and Parthia under the rebel satrap Andragoras in 247–245 BC, who was himself later vanquished by the nomad chieftain Arsaces. In 222 BC, soon after Antiochus's accession, Media and Persis revolted under their governors, the brothers Molon and Alexander. The young king, under the influence of the minister Hermeias, headed an attack on Ptolemaic Syria instead of going in person to face the rebels. The attack against the Ptolemaic empire proved a fiasco, and the generals sent against Molon and Alexander met with disaster. Only in Asia Minor, where the king's cousin, Achaeus, represented the Seleucid cause, did its prestige recover, driving the Pergamene power back to its earlier limits.

In 221 BC Antiochus at last went far east, and the rebellion of Molon and Alexander collapsed which Polybius attributes in part to his following the advice of Zeuxis rather than Hermeias. The submission of Lesser Media, which had asserted its independence under Artabazanes, followed. Antiochus conspired with his physician and allies to have Hermeias assassinated, and then returned to Syria (220 BC). Meanwhile, Achaeus himself had revolted and assumed the title of king in Asia Minor. Though, due to the brewing mutiny of his troops arising from their dissatisfaction over his rebellion against their king, Achaeus desisted from his attempted coup and retreated. While sending additional threats to Achaeus, Antiochus left him for the time being and renewed his attempts on Ptolemaic Syria.

Early wars against other Hellenistic rulers

The campaigns of 219 BC and 218 BC carried the Seleucid armies almost to the confines of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, but in 217 BC Ptolemy IV defeated Antiochus at the Battle of Raphia. This defeat nullified all Antiochus's successes and compelled him to withdraw north of Lebanon. In 216 BC his army marched into western Anatolia to suppress the local rebellion led by Antiochus's own cousin Achaeus, and had by 214 BC driven him from the field into Sardis. Capturing Achaeus, Antiochus had him executed. The citadel managed to hold out until 213 BC under Achaeus's widow Laodice who surrendered later.

Having thus recovered the central part of Asia Minor (for the Seleucid government had perforce to tolerate the dynasties in Pergamon, Bithynia and Cappadocia), Antiochus turned to recovering the outlying provinces of the north and east. He besieged Xerxes of Sophene in 212 BC, who had refused to pay tribute. During the siege of Arsamosata, some of Antiochus's advisors proposed deposing Xerxes and installing Mithridates, a nephew of Antiochus, in his place. Antiochus declined this counsel. He summoned Xerxes, waived the bulk of the tribute arrears his father, Arsames I, had accumulated, and accepted a reduced immediate settlement in silver, horses, and mules. He allowed Xerxes to continue ruling Sophene and gave him his sister Antiochis in marriage. In 209 BC Antiochus invaded Parthia, occupied the capital Hecatompylos and pushed forward into Hyrcania, winning the Battle of Mount Labus. The Parthian king Arsaces II apparently successfully sued for peace.

Bactrian campaign and Indian expedition

The year 209 BC saw Antiochus in Bactria, where the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I had supplanted the original rebel. Antiochus again met with success. Euthydemus was defeated by Antiochus at the Battle of the Arius, but after resisting the Seleucid king in the Siege of Bactra, he obtained an honourable peace by which Antiochus promised Euthydemus's son Demetrius the hand of Laodice, his daughter, and allowed Euthydemus himself to keep his royal title.

Antiochus next, following in the steps of Alexander, crossed into the Kabul valley, reaching the realm of Indian king Sophagasenus and returned west by way of Seistan and Kerman (206/5). According to Polybius:

He crossed the Caucasus and descended into India, renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus, king of the Indians, and received more elephants, raising their number to a total of one hundred and fifty, and provisioned his army once more on the spot. He himself broke camp with his troops, leaving behind Androsthenes of Cyzicus to bring back the treasure which this king (Sophagasenus) had agreed to give him.

Persia and Coele Syria campaigns

From Seleucia on the Tigris he led a short expedition down the Persian Gulf against the Gerrhaeans of the Arabian coast (205 BC/204 BC). Antiochus seemed to have restored the Seleucid empire in the east, which earned him the title of "the Great" (Antiochos Megas). In 205/204 BC the infant Ptolemy V Epiphanes succeeded to the Egyptian throne, and Antiochus is said (notably by Polybius) to have concluded a secret pact with Philip V of Macedon for the partition of the Ptolemaic possessions. Under the terms of this pact, Macedon was to receive the Ptolemaic possessions around the Aegean Sea and Cyrene, while Antiochus would annex Cyprus and Egypt.

Once more Antiochus attacked the Ptolemaic province of Coele Syria and Phoenicia, and by 199 BC he seems to have had possession of it before the Aetolian leader Scopas recovered it for Ptolemy. But that recovery proved brief, for in 198 BC Antiochus defeated Scopas at the Battle of Panium, near the sources of the Jordan, a battle which marks the end of Ptolemaic rule in Judea.

War against Rome and death

Antiochus then moved to Asia Minor, by land and by sea, to secure the coast towns which belonged to the remnants of Ptolemaic overseas dominions and the independent Greek cities. This enterprise earned him the antagonism of the Roman Republic, since Smyrna and Lampsacus appealed to the Republic, which at the time acted as a defender of Greek freedom. The tension grew when Antiochus in 196 BC established a footing in Thrace. The evacuation of Greece by the Romans gave Antiochus his opportunity, and he now had the fugitive Hannibal at his court to urge him on.

In 192 BC Antiochus invaded Greece with a 10,000-man army, and was elected the commander in chief of the Aetolian League. In 191 BC, however, the Romans under Manius Acilius Glabrio routed him at Thermopylae, forcing him to withdraw to Asia Minor. The Romans followed up their success by invading Anatolia, and the decisive victory of Scipio Asiaticus at Magnesia ad Sipylum (190 BC), following the defeat of Hannibal at sea off Side, delivered Asia Minor into their hands.

By the Treaty of Apamea (188 BC) Antiochus abandoned all the country north and west of the Taurus Mountains, most of which the Roman Republic gave either to Rhodes or to the Attalid ruler Eumenes II, its allies (many Greek cities were left free). As a consequence of this blow to Seleucid power, the outlying provinces of the empire, recovered by Antiochus, reasserted their independence. Antiochus mounted a fresh eastern expedition in Luristan, where he was killed while pillaging a temple of Bel at Elymaïs, Persia, in 187 BC.