Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East - Группа авторов - Страница 27

At the same time as he was putting an end to the vassal principalities to the west of the Euphrates, Trajan was initiating a policy of aggression to the east of the river. On the pretext that the Parthians were intervening in Armenian affairs, which violated the compromise established back in the time of Nero, Trajan launched an expedition against the Parthians in 114 ce, which allowed him to gain the allegiance of various princes on the other side of the river (Abgar VII of Edessa, the Arab dynasts of Upper Mesopotamia, the princes of Hatra), burn the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, and attain the banks of the Persian Gulf where he rekindled a traditional friendship with the king of Characene-Mesene, Attambelos V. He created three new provinces: Assyria, Armenia, and Mesopotamia, and gave a new king to the Parthians, considered henceforth as a client state. One might have hoped to have seen a renewal of the political unity between Syria and Mesopotamia that was typical under the first Seleucids. But uprisings in several Mesopotamian cities and then the death of Trajan convinced his successor Hadrian to abandon the new conquests (118 ce). The three provinces were in effect eliminated, but Rome conserved her friendships beyond the river, and even some supporters. A meeting on the Euphrates between Hadrian and the Parthian king Chosroes I brought the conflict to a definitive close in 123 ce.

When two young princes, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, rose to the head of the empire in 161 ce, the Parthian king Vologases IV took advantage of the situation and put a Parthian prince on the Armenian throne, which provoked a reaction from the governor of Cappadocia. The Roman retaliation was poorly prepared and ended in disaster and Cappadocia as well as North Syria were invaded by the Parthians. Friendly to Rome, the prince of Edessa, Ma’nu VIII, was pushed out by a rival supported by the Parthians in 162 ce. Leadership of the campaign, decided as soon as the Armenian affair blew up, was entrusted to Lucius Verus who took his time coming to Syria. Not only was Ma’nu reinstated in Edessa, but Rome also annexed a strip of territory along the Euphrates, including the important city of Dura-Europos, which finally became part of the empire in 165 ce; other territories further north, such as Nisibis, were probably acquired during this period. But the Roman army could not pursue its expedition after 165 ce because an epidemic of the plague hit. The prestige that Avidius Cassius, legate of the third legion Gallica and native of Cyrrhus in North Syria, had gained from his victories led him to believe that he could declare himself emperor upon hearing a false report of Marcus Aurelius’s death in 175 ce. Avidius Cassius suffered a defeat almost immediately and was killed.

The conquest beyond the Euphrates was completed some twenty years later by Septimus Severus. On the pretext that several client princes had supported the governor of Syria, Pescennius Niger, his rival for the imperial throne in 193 ce, Severus undertook in 195 ce a campaign against Edessa and its neighboring principalities. Starting in 195 ce, he annexed a large part of the principality of Edessa which, together with others (Batnai, Anthemousia), formed the new province of Osrhoene. Abgar VIII kept his title and his ownership of Edessa and its surroundings. A new campaign in 198 ce led Severus to Ctesiphon (in January of 198 ce) and to Hatra, which resisted but nevertheless entered into an alliance with Rome. A Mesopotamian province was thus created to the east of Osrhoene, with Nisibis as its capital, and legions were stationed at Rhesaina and then Singara. Simultaneously, Severus cut Syria into two provinces, Coele Syria to the north and Syria Phoenice to the south, most likely in a move to diminish the power of the provincial governor.

After Edessa was annexed and promoted to the rank of Roman colony (213 ce), Caracalla campaigned (215–217 ce) in Adiabene and Babylon. Caracalla’s assassination was followed by a vigorous Parthian counter-offensive, which crushed Caracalla’s successor Macrinus at the gates of Nisibis; Macrinus agreed to pay 50 millions of deniers for the Parthians to leave the area.