Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East - Группа авторов - Страница 23

Within the Seleucid kingdom, essentially reduced from this point on to Syria proper and its Cilician annexes, royal authority continued to decline. Since the middle of the third century, a dynasty of Iranian origin governed Commagene under the authority of the Seleucids, but around 163–162 BCE, its leader Ptolemy asserted his independence by proclaiming himself king, with a capital city of Samosata on the Euphrates, while Arsameia on the Nymphaios close to the royal necropolis of Mount Nemrud developed later. To the south, the Nabataeans of Petra continued to expand their kingdom to the north and toward the Mediterranean; they gradually occupied a large part of Transjordan, and before the end of the second century, they possessed solid bases in South Syria (Bosra) and were moving in the direction of Gaza, which they failed to take around 100 BCE.

The autonomy of new powers progressed rapidly to the detriment of the Seleucid royal authority. In Judaea, a long and violent crisis, known as the Maccabean Revolt, led to a de facto independence of the country. In 178 BCE, after Seleucus IV had instituted a new and stricter form of royal control over the temple finances in Syria, the high priest Onias opposed this reform. At the time of the king’s death in 175 BCE Onias was in Antioch to justify himself, but the new king, Antiochus IV, dismissed him and appointed his relative Jason instead. The latter obtained the right to create a Greek city (polis) in Jerusalem in exchange for a higher tribute. A few years later, in 171 BCE, Jason was replaced by Menelas and the tribute was increased again. A popular revolt broke out in Judaea, quickly organized by the Maccabees. The suppression of the revolt by the king was very harsh, although it never aimed to annihilate Judaism, contrary to the later assertions of the authors of the two books of the Maccabees. Faced with the resistance of the rebels (who retook the Temple in December of 165 BCE) and after the death of Antiochos IV (in October 164 BCE), negotiations between the Jewish rebels and the Seleucids took place, despite the continuation of the fighting. A new state gradually emerged first around Jerusalem (around 157–152 BCE) under the authority of Jonathan, brother and successor of Judah, and then soon after to include all of Judaea and beyond (Idumaea, Peraea in Transjordan, the Golan, South Lebanon). This new kingdom, led by an ethnarch and high priest who took a royal title around 104–103 BCE, asserted its independence, despite several attempts to recapture it by the Seleucids. This was no longer contested after the short-lived conquest of Jerusalem in 131 BCE by Antioch VII.

The Jews benefited, in their struggle for independence, from the accelerated weakening of the Seleucid royal authority following a dynastic quarrel that deeply affected the succession of Seleucus IV in 175 BCE. At that time, his legitimate heir Demetrius I was being held hostage in Rome. The brother of the deceased king, Antiochus (IV), took advantage of the situation and had himself named king, associated for a time with another under-aged nephew, Antiochus the Young. When Antiochus IV died prematurely in the autumn of 164 BCE, his son Antiochus V succeeded him under the tutelage of the minister Lysias. But Demetrius I escaped from Rome to claim his paternal inheritance (162 BCE) and eliminated Lysias and Antiochus V without a struggle. In 152 BCE, a certain Alexander Balas, calling himself the illegitimate son of Antiochus IV and supported by all those who wanted to weaken the Seleucids (Rome, Pergamon, the Lagids), proclaimed himself king, left for Ptolemais, and eliminated Demetrius I (winter 151/150 BCE). By marrying the daughter of Ptolemy VI, he reinserted the Lagids into Syrian affairs. Thus began an unending dynastic quarrel as the two sons of Demetrius I soon contested the authority of Alexander Balas. The details of the multiple unforeseen developments of this crisis are not important, but the royal authority was henceforth most often fragmented among several pretenders holding only a part of the country. Although Demetrius II (147–138 BCE, then 129–126/5 BCE) and Antiochus VII (138–129 BCE) managed to eliminate usurpers (Balas was defeated in 146 BCE, Diodorus Tryphon in 138 BCE, Alexander Zabinas in 123 BCE) and reign alone for a few years, after the death of Demetrius II, the power (or what was left of it) was constantly shared by at least two competitors, all descended from Demetrius II and Antiochus VII. The competitors eagerly made more and more concessions to the local cities or dynasts that might be willing to help them. Cities often gained their freedom in this way (which freed them from paying tribute), such as Tyre in 126 BCE, Sidon in 112–111 BCE, Seleucia in 108–107 BCE, Tripoli in 105–104 BCE, and Ascalon in 103 BCE. The local dynasts gained a de facto independence from this; thus Jonathan and his successors supported in turn Alexander Balas and then Demetrius I, then Demetrius II and Antiochus VII, etc., which allowed them to extend their domain in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee. This is how the Hasmoneans ― which is the dynastic name of the Maccabees that came to power ― ended up controlling almost all of Palestine, either by conquest or as a gift from the Seleucids. Taking advantage of the prevailing disorder, other principalities formed all around the periphery of Syria and even in its center. Consequently, the Greek or Arab “tyrants” were seen to establish themselves in Philadelphia in Transjordan and in Gerasa, in Byblos, in Lysias in the Apamena, in the mountains of the Lebanon (Chalcis ad Libanum, Abila, Arca), or in Aleppo-Beroea, while tribes such as the Emesenoi settled on the edges of the fertile zones, first in Arethusa on the Orontes river, before founding Emesa toward the middle of the first century BCE.