SYRIA
101
SYRIA
revolt of the Jews, which proved a permanent loss to the empire and an aggravation of its weakness. After the death of Epiphanes the empire rapidly verged to its fall. The regal power fell into the hands of an infant, Antiochus "V (Eupator), son of Epiphanes (B.C. 164); the nobles contended for the regency; a pretender to the crown started up in the person of Demetrius, son of Seleucus IV; Rome put in a claim to administer the government; and amid the troubles thus caused the i'arthians, under Mithridates I, overran the eastern prov- inces (B.C. 164), conquered INIedia, Persia, Susiana, Baby- liinia, etc., and advanced their frontier to the Euphrates. It was in vain that Demetrius II (Nicator) made an attempt (B.C. 142) to recover the lost territory; his boldness cost him his liberty; while a similar attempt on the part of his successor, Antiochus VII (Sidetes), cost that monarch his life (B.C. VIS). Meanwhile, in the shorn Syrian kingdom, disorders of every kind were on the increase; Commagene revolted and established her independence; civil wars, murders, mutinies of the troops, rapidly succeeded one another; the despised Jews were called in by both sides in the various struggles; and Syria, in the space of about ninety years, from B.C. 154 to B.C. 64, had no fewer than ten sovereigns. All the wealth of the country had been by this time dissi- pated— much had flowed Romewards in the shape of bribes; more, probably, had been spent on the wars; and still more had been wasted by the kings in luxury of every kind. Under these circumstances, the Romans showed no eagerness to occupy the exhausted region, which passed under the power of Tigranes, king of Armenia, in B.C. 8.3, and was not made a province of the Roman Empire till after Pompey's complete defeat of Mithridates and his allv Tigranes in B.C. 64.
The chronology of this period has been well worked out by Clinton {Fast. Hell, iii, 308-346), from whom the following table of the kings, with the dates of their ac- cession, is taken :
Kingcs.
Length of Reign.
DHte of Accession.
32 years.
19 " 15 "
20 " 3 "
36 " 12 "
11 "
2 "
12 " 5 " 9 " 9 "
3 "
13 " 18 "
12 "
14 "
4 "
Oct. 312 Jau. 280 Jan. 261 Jan. 240 Ang. 226 Aug. 223 Oct. 187 Ang. 175 Dec. 164 Nov. 162 Aug. 150 Nov. 146 Feb. 137 Feb. 128 Aug. 125 113
95
S3 69
11. Alexander Bala
12. Demeti'ius Nicator (1st reign). .
14. Demetrius Nicator (2d reign)..
17. Antiochus Eusebes and Phi-) lippus J
4. As Syria holds an important place, not only in the Old Test., but in the New, some account of its condition under the Romans must now be given. That condition was somewhat peculiar. While the country generally was formed into a Roman province, under governors who were at first proprajtors or qutestors, then proconsuls, and finally legates, there were exempted from the direct rule of the governor, in the first place, a number of " free cities," which retained the administration of their own affairs, subject to a tribute levied according to the Roman principles of taxation ; and, secondly, a number of tracts which were assigned to petty princes, commonly natives, to be ruled at their pleasure, subject to the same obliga- tions with the free cities as to taxation (Appian, Si/r: 50). The free cities were Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, Epi- phaneia, Tripolis, Sidon, and Tyre; the principalities, Commagene, Chalcis ad Belum (near Baalbek), Arethu- sa, Abila or Abilene, Palmyra, and Damascus, The principalities were sometimes called kingdoms, some- times tetrarchies. Thev were established where it was
thought that the natives were so inveterately wedded to their own customs, and so well disposed for revolt, that it was necessary to consult their feelings, to flatter the national vanity, and to give them the semblance without the substance of freedom, (a.) Commagene was a kingdom (ref/mim). It had broken off from S}'ria during the later troubles, and become a separate state under the government of a branch of the Seleucidre, who affected the names of Antiochus and Mithridates. The Romans allowed this condition of things to continue till A.D. 17, when, upon the death of Antiochus III, they made Commagene into a province ; in which condition it continued till A.D. 38, when Caligula gave the crown to Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), the son of Antiochus III. Antiochus IV continued king till A.D. 72, when he was deposed by Vespasian, and Commagene was finally ab- sorbed into the empire. He had a son, called also An- tiochus and Epiphanes, who was betrothed to Drusilla, the sister of '• king Agrippa," and afterwards the wife of Felix, the procurator of Judiea. (6.) Chalcis "ad Belum" was not the city so called near Aleppo, which gave name to the district of Chalcidice, but a town of less importance near Heliopolis (Baalbek), whence probably the suflix " ad Belum." It is mentioned in this connection by Strabo (xvi, 2, 10), and Josephus says that it was un- der Lebanon (Ant. xiv, 7, 4), so that there cannot be much doubt as to its position. It must have been in the "Hollow Syria" — the modern Buka'a — to the soutli of Baalbek (Josephus, IVu?; i, 9, 2), and therefore prob- ably at Anjar, where there are large ruins (Robinson, Bibl. Bes. iii, 496, 497). This, too, was generally, or per- haps always, a "kingdom." Pompey found it under a certain Ptolemj-, " the son of Mennseus," and allowed him to retain possession of it, together with certain adjacent districts. From him it passed to his son, Lysanias, who was put to death by Antony at the instigation of Cleo- patra (about B.C. 34), after which we find its revenues farmed by Lysanias's steward, Zenodorus, the royalty being in abeyance (Josephus, Ant. xv, 10, 1). In B.C. 22 Chalcis was added by Augustus to the dominions of Herod the Great, at whose death it probably passed to his son Philip {ibid, xvii, 11, 4). Philip died A.D. 34; and then we lose sight of Chalcis, until Claudius, in his first year (A.D. 41), bestowed it on a Herod, the brother of Herod Agrippa I, still as a " kingdom." From this Herod it passed (A.D. 49) to his nephew, Herod Agrippa II, who held it only three or four years, being promoted from it to a better government {ibid, xx, 7, 1). Chalcis then fell to Agrippa's cousin, Aristobulus, son of the first Herodian king, under whom it remained till A.D. 73 (Josephus, War. vii, 7, 1). About this time, or soon after, it ceased to be a distinct government, being finally absorbed into the Roman province of Syria, (c.) Arethusa (now Restun) was for a time separated from Syria, and governed by phylarchs. The city lay on the right bank of the Orontes, between Hamah and Hums, rather nearer to the former. In the government were included the Emiseni, or people of Hums (Emesa), so that we may regard it as comprising the Orontes valley from the Jebel Erbayn, at least as high as the Bahr el-Kades, or Baheiret-Hums, the lake of Hums. Only two governors are known — Sampsiceramus. and Jamblichus, his son (Strabo, xvi, 2, 10). Probably this principality was one of the first absorbed. (</.) Abilene, so called from its capital Abila, was a " tetrarchy." It was situated to the east of Antilibanus, on the route between Baalbek and Datnascus (Itin. A nt.). Ruins and inscriptions mark the site of the capital (Robinson, Bibl. Res. iii, 479-482), which was at the village called el-Silk, on the river Barada, just where it breaks forth from the mountains. The limits of the territory are uncertain. We first hear of this tetrarchy in Luke's gospel (iii, 1), where it is said to have been in the possession of a certain Lysanias at the commencement of John's ministry, which was prob- ably A.D. 25. Of this Lysanias nothing more is known; he certainly cannot be the Lysanias who once held Chal- cis, since that Lysanias died above sixtj' years previous-