Greek Imperialism

by William Scott Ferguson

Of the Greek cities which Seleucus planted in his realm, fifty-nine are named by Appian.[108] They lay especially in Syria, in the district between the Euphrates and the sea which he sought to make a second Macedonia. His son Antiochus, to whom he gave the administration of the eastern satrapies in 293 B.C., was particularly active in developing cities on the Greek model in that region; and to him and his son Antiochus Theos belongs the honor of establishing the urban habits of Hellenic life in the interior of Asia Minor. In the arm of their realm which reached through this peninsula to the rear of the Greek strip on the Anatolian coast, new cities sprang up under their auspices by the score. Nor did the movement come to an end with the reign of the second Antiochus in 246 B.C., though it probably weakened at that time. Over two generations later, in the reign of Antiochus IV, it was again resumed actively and directed especially into Palestine, which had been newly added to the realm.

The most striking feature in the internal policy of the Seleucids is the attempted transfer into Asia of the urban form of life theretofore characteristic of Hellas. Evidently, these monarchs believed with Aristotle, Alexander, and, we may add, Polybius, and, indeed, all Greeks, that men who did not live in cities were uncivilized men. Evidently, too, they thought it wise and possible to civilize their dominions.

It is not easy to form a definite impression of the political situation in the Seleucid realm when the Macedonians first took possession, but cities in the Greek sense seem to have been entirely absent. This does not mean that towns were lacking altogether, since, even if we disregard administrative centres like Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, Persepolis, we may use the term "town" properly of places like Bambyce in Syria, fourteen miles west of the Euphrates. There, in a fertile, well-watered valley, stood a famous temple of Atargatis, the Syrian goddess. It was a wonderful establishment, as readers of Lucian know, with its wide approaches, its obelisk-like phalli, its sacred fish-pond, its shocking rites. At its head were emasculated priests, who not only conducted the ceremonies and directed a far-reaching proselytism, but also governed the community of temple slaves (hieroduli) who tilled the land of the neighborhood for their own support and that of the church. This clerical form of local organization had been carefully fostered by the Persians. We all know how in reorganizing Judæa they put the common people, who were there simply to pay tithes, under the control of the high priest, elders, and Levites, and made the so-called law of Moses the civil law of the land. They proceeded in similar fashion throughout Asia Minor. There Seleucus found scores of towns, big and little, to which the description, given by Strabo[109] of the sacred city of Ma at Comana in Cappadocia, is applicable: "In itself it is," he says, "a notable city, but most of its inhabitants are god-possessed, or temple slaves. They are all of Cataonian stock and are subject generally to the authority of the king, but are under the immediate control of the priest. He is lord at once of the temple and of the temple slaves, of whom there were more than six thousand, including men and women, at the time of my visit. Attached to the temple is much land, of which the priest enjoys the revenues, and there is no one in Cappadocia of higher dignity than he except the king." Similar to this was the temple of Zeus at Venasa with its three thousand temple slaves and its land which yielded to its priest an annual income of twenty thousand dollars (fifteen talents); the temple of Zeus Asbamæus near Tyana, of Apollo in Cataonia, Mater Zizimene near Iconium, and Artemis Perasia in Castabala. Similar, too, was the temple of Ma in Pontic Comana with its swarming mart, its wide acres, and its six thousand temple slaves, of whom the young women, here as elsewhere, were sacred prostitutes; the temple of Anaitis in Zela, of Men in Cabira, of Selene in Iberia, of the Great Mother at Pessinus, of Zeus at Olba, and of other gods in other places scattered through Phrygia, Pisidia, and Lydia, as well as Palestine, Syria, and Babylonia. The Seleucids must have found the body of their empire thickly studded with religious communities, each subject to its own code of divine law, each dominated by a masterful and long-petted theocracy. Under this baleful rule the whole country had settled gradually down during the Persian time in progressive political and economic stagnation.

Apart from the mountains and the deserts, where tribal and nomadic liberty reigned,—a constant menace to central government,—the peoples of Asia lived in villages when the Macedonians came. Many of these villages, villagers and all, were owned by princelings and noblemen, who, if natives, had been undisturbed by the Persians, if Iranians, had come into their possessions by reason of royal grants. All through Syria and Asia Minor may be seen to-day the ruins of "square towers" (tetrapyrgiæ) and manorial castles such as these grandees built and fortified for defense against their neighbors and, if need be, against the royal authority itself.[110] Those who built them had apparently had little loyalty to the Persian king, but also little inclination to obey his successor. They were, accordingly, ejected right and left. Of the estates thus obtained, the Macedonian kings could dispose at their pleasure. They formed again part of the royal domain, which stretched in all directions at the edges of the deserts and the mountains, among the temple lands, the feudal fiefs, and administrative cities—a veritable archipelago of landed property, tilled for the crown by myriads of royal serfs. Here was the ὑλη the material, of which the Seleucids founded many of their city-states.

The handle for reorganization which the priestly towns offered to the new government was often the non-ecclesiastical part of the population. That the temple was regularly the centre of local trade and the scene of a recurrent bazaar tempted to its proximity money-changers and the like. When the Greek immigration began this element was naturally strengthened. It was, therefore, possible for the Seleucids to give it an urban organization—a general assembly, a council, and magistrates; and in this way to create a new city-state.

According to invariable Greek practice, however, such a city controlled—with certain limitations—its own shrines. The great temples of Apollo at Delphi and Delos, for example, were governed by the citizens of those towns. Hence the natural policy for the Seleucids, and the one which they in fact followed wherever practicable, was to subordinate the high priests and clergy to the adjacent urban authorities, thus solving the ecclesiastical question in a way convenient for themselves and agreeable to European feeling. Where this did not prove practicable, they often despoiled the temple of its lands for the benefit of their followers. Thus the village of Bætocæce was taken from the local temple of Zeus and given to a certain Demetrius, and the sacred land of Zeus of Æzani was divided into lots, which were assigned to cleruchs, subjected to a tax, and attached to the financial jurisdiction of an adjoining city.[111] It is simply another aspect of the same general policy when king after king sought to lay "impious" hands upon the treasures stored up in the temples of Bel, Anaitis, Atargatis, and Jehovah.

The secularization of religious properties was a very difficult matter, and it was not pushed at all times with equal vigor by the Seleucids. When the monarchs were embarrassed by foreign or domestic troubles, they had to conciliate the priests even to the point of undoing what they had already done. How easily a reaction might occur we can perceive from the case recorded in the splendid inscription which Mr. Butler has recently found cut on the inner wall of the great temple of Artemis at Sardis.[112] A certain Mnesimachus, presumably a Macedonian officer or adventurer, had got a huge fief from King Antigonus. It consisted of the village of Tobalmura in the Sardian plain and its appurtenances, the villages of Tandu and Combdilipia. On these he had to pay annual dues of £50 to the proper chiliarchy, or subdivision of the satrapy. Near by, in Cinara was a kleros, or lot, on which he paid £3 yearly. The fief consisted, in addition, of the village of Periasasostra, of which the annual dues, payable to another chiliarchy, were £57. Close by, in Nagrioa was again a kleros, on which he paid £3 7s. yearly. The fief consisted, moreover, of the village of Ilu in the territory of the well-known city of Attuda, of which the dues, paid annually to the city of course, were £3 5s. The manor (aule) of the fief was in the village of Tobalmura, and together with certain lodges held by bailiffs and certain gardens and parks tilled by manorial serfs in Tobalmura and Periasasostra, it had once been assigned to Pytheus and Adrastus, likewise Macedonians; but later on it had seemingly come into the possession of Mnesimachus. The happy holder of this great estate enjoyed, doubtless, the total net yield of the manor and the lots, and, in addition, as the possessor of the manor and lots, rights to exact services in money, kind, and labor from the villeins of the villages. Had he been so minded he might have settled down in Lydia and become a baron like the Iranian nobles whom the Macedonians dispossessed; and, doubtless, many Macedonians and Greeks established themselves in Asia in this fashion. Mnesimachus, however, wanted money rather than "rights"; and, turning to the temple of Artemis in Sardis, he secured a loan of £1325 from the temple treasurers. The inscription cut on the temple wall records the sale to Artemis, with right to repurchase, of Mnesimachus's interest in the fief. His inability to repay his loan resulted in the aggrandizement of the temple.

Incidents of this sort were, doubtless, of frequent occurrence and show what the Seleucids had to guard against. Their land policy seems to have been prudent and far-sighted. They were bound to deal cautiously with their gigantic domain, since from it came the most valuable and stable portion of their revenues. On the other hand, they found a limit set to the quantity which they could profitably retain by the fact that, unlike the Ptolemies, they inherited from the Persians a public service adequate, not to administer, but simply to supervise administration. They did indeed increase the number of their satrapies, without, perhaps, diminishing the number of chiliarchies or hyparchies into which each satrapy was divided, and they seem to have paralleled the general service by a distinct fiscal service and by a distinct priestly service; but, none the less, they had to leave the details of fiscal, judicial, and religious administration to the villages. Though we are singularly ill-informed as to how they organized the villages, it is conceivable that they picked out certain persons, like the elders in the Egyptian villages, and held them responsible for the taxes of the villagers and for their general good behavior. These men would be rather hostages than officials, and would be nominees of the central government rather than of the villages. But we really know nothing of the facts, except that the villagers had some means by which they paid their taxes collectively.

One way by which the Seleucids could relieve themselves of the troubles of local administration and at the same time strengthen their hold upon the country was to make grants of whole blocks or complexes of their land, villages and villagers and all, to Macedonian and Greek feudatories, like Mnesimachus, who of course became responsible for the dues owing to the crown. But the evils of this system had been discovered by the Persian kings when they found their vassals more unruly than the villages. Hence the Seleucids refused to give a clear title to those to whom they made grants of portions of the royal domain, and in the case of Mnesimachus the temple of Artemis, to which he sold his rights, had to secure itself in the contract against the loss which it might sustain should the king recall his grant. On the other hand, when the king sold outright parts of the domain, as he frequently did, particularly in times of financial distress, and the lands and villages sold became with their peasants private property, he required that they should be added to the territory of some city-state, it being a privilege highly cherished by the purchasers that they should be given the liberty of deciding to which city their property should belong. The Seleucid policy that land should belong either to a city-state or to the crown was admirably calculated to destroy priestly and feudal sovereignties, and it was taken over by the Roman emperors, into whose patrimony in Asia Minor passed many temple lands which had either escaped secularization under their predecessors or had been regained by the priests during the later, weaker days of the Seleucid dynasty.[113]