A Seleukid Prosopography and Gazetteer

845 Pages·1997·29.151 MB·English

by  John D. Grainger

-
-
A SELEUKID PROSOPOGRAPHY
AND GAZETTEER
BY
JOHN D. GRAINGER
BRILL
LEIDEN · NEW YORK · KOLN
1997
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Coagr.s Calalogiag-iD-Pablic:atioa Daca
Graingcr,John D., 1939-
A Sdeukid prosopography and gazetteer / by John D. Grainger.
p. an. - (Mnemosyne, bibliochcca classica Batava.
Supplcmentum, ISSN0169-8958; 172)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 900ll0799I (doth : alk. paper)
I. Syria-History-To 333 B.C-Biography. 2. Sdcucids.
I. Tide. D. Series.
DS96.G73 1997
939'.43-dc21 97-29995
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A Sclcukid prosopography and gazetteer / by JohnD . Grainger. -
Leiden; New Yori; Kolo: Brill, 1997
(Mnrmmynr : Supplrmcntum ; 172)
ISBN !I0-«--10799-1
ISSN 0169-8958
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CONfENfS
Introduction ................ ...... ......... ................................................. vii
Abbreviations .............. .............. .. . ........ ..... .............................. .... xvii
Prosopog,apl.r.y•. .. ... •.. .••.... •••..• ••...• .. .............. ••.... •..•.... .................... I
I. Kings and their Families ................................................ 5
II. The Officials of the Kingdom ................................... - 73
III. Subjects of the Kingdom ............................................... 125
IV. Foreigners Affecting the Kingdom ................................ 633
Ga.ztt/Nr ........................................................................................ 671
I. Places of the Kingdom ................................................... 673
II. Institutions of the Kingdom ........................................... 795
Genealogical Tables ................................................................... 819
1. The Early SeleukidD ynasty. .........................................8..2..0
2. The Later Seleukid Dynasty .............................................. 821
Maps ...............................................................................................i.l l
l. The Regions of the Seleukid Kingdom ............................ 825
2. Western Asia Minor............................................................ 826
3. Syria and Palestine ............................................................. 827
4. Babylonia ............................................................................. 828
INTRODUCTION
An attempt has been made here to list all the people who were
subjects of the kingdom ruled by the kings of the family of Sclcukos I,
and those places which comprised that empire. The ideological
justification for such a list, if that is the correct term, is a belief that
it is only in the actions of individuals, in their lives and behaviour,
that true history resides. Many of the actions noted here arc ex
tremely minor, and affected only a few people at the time, and none
since, but the accumulation of such actions is what we study. And
one of the prime reasons for history as a subject is to preserve the
record of what people did, and, even more basic, who they were.
That means recording their names, and their deeds. This is what
this book consists of.
The people of the Prosopography subdivided themselves readily
into rulers and ruled, and 'rulers' breaks down into members of the
royal family and their officials. In addition those people who affected
the kingdom's history in some way from outside arc listed under the
heading of Foreigners. However, as soon as any attempt at classifi
cation is made, problems arise. Some officials became kings-Molon,
Timarchos, Achaios, Tryphon-and many of the kings, beginning
with Scleukos the Founder himself, operated as officials. And then
there arc officials of civic competence, but whose office may be seen
as one, at the least, inspired by the inclusion of their city in the
kingdom. For example, the royal cult had local priests in each city.
In these disputed classifications no particular rule has been followed,
other than common sense. The officials who became kings have been
regarded as kings, for, after all, they were so treated by large num
bers of their subjects. But those officials who became kings in order
to break away from the kingdom and form a separate state, arc listed
as officials, which is what they were when they were inside the king
dom. The civic priests have been treated as subjects, for their office
was filled by local election and not by royal appointment, but those
appointed by the kings arc treated as officials.
viii
INTRODUCTION
Limits
The temporal and geographical limits to be observed are a problem.
Just when, for example, did Baktria cease to be a Seleukid province?
Was Bahrain, under the name Tylos, ever under Seleukid rule? And,
most difficult of all, what about Asia Minor, its various sections and
cities? These awkward areas became even more difficult when the
records of people there are undated. In the end the decision was
made that people who are recorded as possibly Seleukid subjects should
be included, which is unsatisfactory, but less so than excluding likely
subjects simply because they are doubtful.
So for each region a cut-off date has been devised, and people
who are known of only before or after these dates are excluded. The
various dates are as follows (all dates throughout the work arc BC):
Baktria, 303-256.
Media, 311-141.
Babylonia, 320-129.
Susiana, 311--c. 140.
Syria, 301-64.
Phoenicia and coastal Palestine, 200-c. 100.
Judaea, 200-129.
Kilikia, 294-64.
Asia Minor, 281-188.
However, individual cities and sub-sections will vary.
These rough guides mean that certain places and periods are in
cluded which strictly should not be. The first period of Parthian rule
in Babylonia ( 139-131) is taken as Seleukid: after all, people alive in
those years were Seleukid subjects before and after, but any person
recorded only after 129 is excluded. This is not logical, since a per
son adult enough in 128 to be recorded then had been a Seleukid
subject the year befo~ut at least the rule is more or less clear.
Similarly in Syria, the period of rule by Tigranes is treated as Seleukid.
The real difficulty is Asia Minor, because the cities of the western
coast are particularly productive of names, because of their well
researched epigraphy. And, of course, these cities flitted in and out
of the kingdom as its power locally ebbed and flowed. In many cases
the exact dates at which any particular city was in the kingdom are
not known. In these circumstances guesses have to be made, and
doubtful cases have been included rather than excluded. On the other
INTRODUCTION IX
hand people whose names arc known only because their children
arc known-that is, they appear as patronymics-arc excluded. They
arc, of course, included as patronymics, but they have not been listed
separately.
The Kmgs
The names of kings, queens, and princes arc generally well enough
known, though there arc several persons listed who arc not usually
noted in the text-book genealogies. No attempt has been made to
rectify the numbering system of the kings, even though it is clearly
unsatisfactory. As already noted, 'usurpers' (Molon and company} arc
included, as arc the two Alexanders, who arc as much or as little,
usurpers as the others. Also noted arc wives and children of kings,
but not more distant relatives, who arc, in fact, very little known.
For example, the father of a queen is not listed as such, though he
may get into one of the lists by some other means.
This limits the number of people who can be listed as royals, but
in compensation much more is known about them. Here the aim
has been to provide a succinct account of their lives without any
speculations or explanations, and all details arc sourced. References
arc included for further reading, but these lists arc not by any means
comprehensive, and arc biased towards material written in the rela
tively recent past. The habit of researchers of including all references
back to the beginning of time means that the articles and books
noted generally include extensive bibliographies.
Officials
An 'official' was a person who did a job for which he was appointed
by a king, or by another official. Thus the list includes governors of
provinces and local tax collectors, generals commanding armies and
officers commanding minor units, clerks in offices and commandants
of citadels. These men (there is only one woman) tum out to be sur
prisingly numerous, though perhaps the number is not so large as
might be expected for a kingdom which covered the whole Middle
East and lasted in some parts for over two centuries.
The lower down the scale of power and responsibility, of course,
X INTRODUCTION
the fewer names arc known. No more than a handful of tax collec
tors, and only one archivist, arc listed, but a large number of provin
cial governors arc known. Virtually all provinces have at least one
governor known by name and date of office, yet this only empha
sises the large number who arc clearly not known. For example, in
the great province of Media, five strategoair e known by name (two of
whom tried to make themselves king). But these six men can only
account for twenty years in the history of the Seleukid rule of that
province, which lasted for 170 years. Even if the longest tenure known
is taken as the norm-Diogenes seems to have held the office for
twelve years--the minimum number of governors for this one prov
ince is fourteen. And in fact there were surely many more than that.
Of the six men known, only one was in office more than three years.
If tJuui s the norm, there were over fifty governors of Media. And
there were well over twenty provinces, perhaps up to fifty. A conser
vative estimate would therefore suggest that there were getting on
for a thousand men who acted as provincial governors during the
kingdom's existence. And that is not counting sub-governors.
The obvious contrasts with such a situation are with the preced
ing Achaemenid empire, which lasted as long and covered the same
ground, but whose records arc even worse, with the Parthian Em
pire, which was smaller but lasted longer, and whose prosopography
of kings and officials comprises a relatively small book, and with the
Roman Empire, whose records are infinitely better. In all these cases
the hereditary element is strong. The Parthian governors seem to have
had some sort of family expectation of succession, and the Roman
empire's oligarchic system presupposed that a governor's son would
have a good chance of becoming a governor himself. At the same
time the possibility was always open for recruitment into the oligar
chy from below. The Seleukid system is closer to the Roman than
the Achaimenid and Parthian, but only in a couple of cases can any
family succession be noted: the best example is that of the family of
Ptolemaios · son of Thraseas, where four or five generations can be
observed. There arc undoubtedly other such families, but the neces
sary family links arc not clear, as yet. (The fact that the succession
of Ptolemaios Thrasea has only recently been worked out, after a
good century of research, is a sign of the scarcity of records, but also
that persistence brings rewards.) The Asia Minor dynasts-the Lysiads,
the Attalids, the decendants of Lysimachos, the family of Achaios, to
which may be added the descendants of Laomedon of Mitylene,
xi
INTRODUCTION
domiciled at Priene-can also be included, thus boosting the heredi
tary element in the 'official class'. These families arc the ancestors,
perhaps in some cases the direct ancestors, of the oligarchic families
who arc well known in the area in Roman times. It is notable that
in both Seleukid and Roman periods, these families combined per
sonal wealth based on landholding with state service.
The other element in the Roman system was promotion through
a graded series of position. This is an element in the Seleukid system
which is near-invisible. It is extremely difficult to discover a man
whose career began in a subordinate office, and continued into higher
offices. Partly this is because of he comparative shortage of evidence,
but it is perhaps partly due also to the possibility that a career struc
ture, even in a primitive way, did not exist. The only likely candi
date for promotion through a hierarchy of offices is Heliodoros, who
may be the official noted at Dura-Europos as a tax collector, then as
dioiketesi n Palestine, and finally as chief minister for Seleukos IV.
The sequence has the merit of a consistent involvement with finance,
but such a career cannot be proved, and it is based here only on the
names of the three officials, and a reasonable chronology. But, it is
clearly possible. Whether it actually happened that way to anyone
else is unclear, and whether such a career was common is perhaps
unlikely.
For the way men were appointed to official posts was not by pro
motion through the ranks, but by selection by the king from among
those who attended him at court. It was thus quite possible for a
young man to hold a high position. It was also possible for a man
to hold a succession of posts which, to our bureaucratic and hierar
chical notions, represents a mixture of promotion and demotion. It
was therefore possible for a man to go only so far by means of pro
motion: over a certain level he had to gain the eye of the king, and
once he did, almost any job might come his way. The best example
is Zeuxis, originally appointed to Babylon by Seleukos III, but taken
up by Antiochos III and used as military commander, governor of
Asia Minor and diplomat. Other men had similar lives.
Subjects
Very few of the people classified as merely subjects have much be
yond their names and a single fact about them known. But where a
xii
INTRODUCTION
substantial quantity of information on individual actions survives,
then that on the individual persons accumulates. There are two areas
which have produced the great majority of names in the subjects list:
Babylonia, and western Asia Minor. In Babylonia most names arc
found in the clay tablets on which records of business transactions
were kept at the single city of Uruk. These have produced about a
thousand names, which provides a good record of the wealthy stra
tum of Uruk society over a century and three quarters. A sizeable
number. But let us be clear. This was a large city, and the great
majority of the people have left no records at all. Yet had the same
proportion of names survived in other Babylonian cities, we would
have approaching ten thousand names, which would still only com
prise the wealthy set of Babylonian society, and perhaps no more
than one per cent of the total population.
In lonia the reason for recording names is different, and most
names arc those of men (and women, in some cases) undertaking
religious duties, honouring others, holding civic offices, acquiring civic
citizenship, or dying. But once again the proportion of names surviv
ing to those of whom no record exists, or was ever made, is very
small. Yet the different purposes of the records in the two areas applies
to the same part of the population-the wealthy. Further, the records
arc only of those who, in Uruk, bought and sold land and temple
prebends, and acted as witnesses: a family which simply owned land
or prcbends, or a shop, but was involved in no transactions, may not
be in the record, no matter how wealthy. In lonia, a family not
involved in any of the local civic or religious offices would not be
recorded. So we have records of only a part of a fraction of the
population.
Nevertheless, bearing these qualifications in mind, certain conclu
sions may be drawn. The most obvious one is that there is remark
ably little connection between these subjects and the royal and official
individuals listed. There arc very few cross-references between sec
tions of the prosopography. This is largely a record of individuals
involved in single acts, but it is still the case that the relationship
between governors and subjects seems a distant one. At the same
time, if other records had survived, a different conclusion could have
been drawn. Had records of military recruitment survived, for ex
ample, it could be clearly and statistically shown that this same class
of wealthy people provided the recruits for the army, and were thus