[SPEAKER_00]: This show is a hopeful media podcast production.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the history of Persia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Trevor Cully and this is episode one fifty one two Syria two war.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back to the salukids back to the narrative and kind of back to chronological historical events in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last four episodes spread out as they were are a sort of mini-series on the Greek Orphic Mysteries and eventually their relationship with the developing Zoroastrian sect of servanism.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Orphics and Servanites will return, but for now, we can safely set aside all of that and jump back into one event that comes after another
[SPEAKER_00]: kings and wars for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's recap.
[SPEAKER_00]: We left off our narrative with the death of Antiochus the first so tear.
[SPEAKER_00]: His reign sure was something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, he's the first long-lasting monarch we've had in a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe since Xerxes and Artis Xerxes the first, where I can't really say that his tenure was defined by disaster or success.
[SPEAKER_00]: Antiochist Soterre inherited an empire at the height of its power, but still forming and defining its foundations.
[SPEAKER_00]: He abandoned his father's gains in Europe to consolidate power in Asia, but in seizing control of the far larger and wealthier upper satrapies, he gave a series of strategically critical petty kings in Anatolia
[SPEAKER_00]: time to slip from his grasp.
[SPEAKER_00]: A poorly documented war with tollomy the second Philadelphia's, the first Syrian war, led to some minor shifts in the borders between Egyptian territory and southern Anatolia and northern Syria, but frankly neither side made any notable gains.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the tidal wave of gallic invasions swept through grease and thrasse, they came for the salukins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Tyacus became so tear.
[SPEAKER_00]: The savior of Anatolia, when he successfully defeated the pillaging armies and carved out a new Galation province in the center of the peninsula.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in two sixty-six BCE, Crown Prince and co-king Silucus attempted to assassinate his father, only to fail and face execution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leading the younger son, another Antiochist, to assume the role of heir apparent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly before his death, so tear lost even more territory with the rebellion and de facto independence of the Anatolian city state of Purgamon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, whether in battle or in bed, Antiochus's so-tare died in two-sixty-one BCE.
[SPEAKER_00]: Antiochus II became the new Vasileus.
[SPEAKER_00]: King Antiochus II assumed soul-power over the Salukid Empire on June II, two-sixty-one BCE, or thereabouts based on Babylonian records of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he first settled into his new role, he must have thought he was starting off in a fairly good position, all things considered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, the empire was imperfect, and he was only in the big chair because of his older brothers attempted patch recide, but given the circumstances,
[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like a good situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike many second sons who inherited ultimate power in antiquity, Antiochus II was an adult in his mid-twenties, and he had a few years of practical experience as co-king under his belt.
[SPEAKER_00]: He already had children, including a son who was probably just starting to get clear of the most dangerous period of childhood disease.
[SPEAKER_00]: For all the turmoil in Anatolia over the preceding decades, there was no ongoing conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were on good terms with the antagonists over in Macedon.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Eastern Frontiers were quiet, and it certainly didn't look like Talimie Philadelphia's
[SPEAKER_00]: would turn his focus back to Syria any time soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just about as stable as the Empire had been at any point, since Alexander the Greats invasion, seventy years earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this was partly due to the ongoing hostilities between Macedon and Egypt in the Cremonadean War.
[SPEAKER_00]: In two sixty five and takeiness the second to go not us gained the upper hand in the conflict and by two sixty one he was just hammering on the tolemaic allies and Greece.
[SPEAKER_00]: The already limited Egyptian land presence in Europe was gone and tolemaic naval dominance in the agency had been broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pro-Tolami Athenians were under siege, and by most accounts, the Tolomeg forces were finally destroyed, just as Antiochist II came to power.
[SPEAKER_00]: with a naval battle near the island of coast.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, as John D. Granger suggests, in his book, The Rise of the Saluca Empire, the Cremontedian War very plausibly might have ended so that Talami could redirect his remaining strength to the east.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Hellenistic tradition, and for most of Western world history, for that matter, treaties were not made between states.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were made between monarchs and when a signatory king died, his treaties were nullified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Often, this just led to dignitaries going between courts and renewing any agreements on behalf of the new king.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes, this was an opportunity to abandon an existing peace agreement.
[SPEAKER_00]: and both the new Antiochis and Tolemie Philadelphia started making moves in that direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you remember all the way back at the end of Antiochis the first reign, he was starting to make some subtle gains against Tolemie in Anatolia with carefully orchestrated military deployments and agreements with individual city states.
[SPEAKER_00]: but by oath neither of them were really supposed to wage war against the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the one good thing, at least from his own perspective, that entire case the second did not inherit, was an empire ready for full-scale war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their standing forces were spread out across various trouble spots, and it took a long time to gather a full royal army from Central Asia all the way to the Levant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But starting that process seems to have been one of Antiochist's first royal decrees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Philadelphia, as much as he may have wanted to end the Syrian dispute quickly, was too busy with the Kremlin war to act directly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he just focused on policies and appointments that could solidify Egyptian control
[SPEAKER_00]: over their occupied territories.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although it is partly a consequence of survivorship bias in our sources, we do see a serious increase in Tolamac consolidation of power in the disputed lands right at the start of Antiochist II's reign.
[SPEAKER_00]: New laws were issued to govern daily life, agricultural properties and slavery and trade in Tolamac, Syria.
[SPEAKER_00]: New Garrison cities were established to encourage pro-Tolomeic immigration to Solicia, like the new city of Arsinowe.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Lissia, the commander of the local Tolomeic military, Pandaros, was celebrated with a statue and additional titles for his contributions to the local city.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most notably, Philadelphia stationed his immediate family members in powerful positions within Anatolia as soon as Antiochist Sotair died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two of the king's step-sunds were sent in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolemy epigenose to Ephesus, and tolemy lissimiku to tell mesos in Lissia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Technically, both were lissimikids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sons of the recently deceased queen are sent away the second, and the late great deodalcus, lissimicus, but epigenose.
[SPEAKER_00]: whose epithet literally just means the sun, as in male offspring, got his nickname by virtue of being the most important of the stepsons that Philadelphia's legally adopted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tallamy Epigenos was not just a prince sent to govern an important island.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was co-king
[SPEAKER_00]: second only to Philadelphia's himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now we have two sides somewhat evenly matched in their preparation for war.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Tolemies were closer and already on a war footing, but drained from the recent conflict in Europe.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Salukids were spread out and needed time to gather their forces, but hadn't exhausted their resources in recent years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, Tulumi Epigenose went and mucked up the whole situation for everyone involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Practically, as soon as he was out from under his stepfather's immediate supervision, Epigenose made contact with Tumarkis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Tulumi, Caj General, in command of everyone's favorite Ionian city, state, milledus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got another Mylesian revolt in Ionia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tamarkis declared himself an independent tyrant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Miletus seceded from the Tolemak Empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a pig in us went into open revolt in late two sixty or two fifty nine B.C.E.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not particularly well documented as rebellions go, and we don't really know what their goal was.
[SPEAKER_00]: From how events played out, I would guess that a Piganos wanted to seize power in Egypt, and offered to Marcus an independent kingdom, or at least an autonomous province, in exchange for his support.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's at least the impression I get from what they did next.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a few isolated excerpts from what followed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently there was a battle where Tamarkis sailed somewhere and burned his ships at anchor to force his own ground troops to fight to the death or victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: and cutting off their own retreat gave them the confidence and or desperation to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just not entirely clear who they were fighting at the time, because we get one sentence about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Possibly the Tolemic Garrison it's Samos, because apparently my lesion forces defeated and killed the local Garrison commander there, which led to Marcus dressing up in his rivals Macedonian Finery, and sailing into the harbor under false pretenses to seize the city from within.
[SPEAKER_00]: These stories are, of course, in separate sources.
[SPEAKER_00]: The impression I get from those surviving accounts is that despite being a relatively minor figure, Tamarkis had a long lasting reputation for strategic success and innovation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That probably helped him out when Epigenos told the Mylesian tyrant to relocate his court to Ephesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is another reason that I think the plan was for Temarkus to become an autonomous dinast when the rebellion was done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within the span of a year, the two rebels had given Temarkus effective control over three of the most important centers of power in southern Ionia, a strong basis for a little kingdom of his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: in Ionia, a strong basis for a kingdom of his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one thing that Epigonus did not count on was to Marcus deciding that since he already had his kingdom, he didn't really need to be involved in Tolomeic infighting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he killed the Crown Prince and went back to his palace at Miletus as the new tyrant ruler of Somos, Ephesus, and Miletus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This did not work out for Telemarkis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of the major powers surrounding him swooped in to deal with this breakaway state-lit before it got out of hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: In two fifty-eight Antiochis, the second besieged Melidus' walls while his allies from Rhodes assaulted the Ephesian fleet guarding the harbor.
[SPEAKER_00]: At night, the rodians made a major push toward the city, very poorly attempting to attack the sea wall directly, but drawing the attention of not only the ships from Ephesus, but telemarkas' soldiers on the battlements.
[SPEAKER_00]: While everyone was distracted, Antiochus sent a contingent of his army
[SPEAKER_00]: out into the dark to circle back and attack a now undefended stretch of the walls, allowing the saluted forces to breach my leadesses defenses and take the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: They captured and killed telemarkas himself in the process.
[SPEAKER_00]: Evidently, the actual people of my leadists were not all that supportive of their tyrant to begin with.
[SPEAKER_00]: because they deified Antiochists in celebration for their liberation.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't the coy giving divine titles like Sotare that we've seen with other kings, or a traditional religious system like we see in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: The myelicians went right to declaring their new monarch, Antiochists, Thayos, Antiochists, the God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite his newfound divinity, Antiochus did not directly press his advantage here, and with the rebel fleet broken, and both of its primary leaders dead, Tollamy Philadelphus made preparation to reoccupy the rebel islands.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, the stage was set, because Antiochus had just seized a very important city that had gone to the Tollamies in the last piece treaty.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had intervened in Tolomeic internal affairs without cause.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maletus was just important and vulnerable at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the slukeds took it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And with that, the second Syrian war was off to the races.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first direct combat with tolamic forces was actually something of a proxy battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: After reclaiming Samos, the Egyptian Navy went to take Ephesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rhodes led the League of Islanders, at this time a coalition of a Gian Islands that had turned against tolamic dominance over the course of the Kermanadean War.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, attempting to prevent Philadelphia's from reclaiming more territory in the Aegean, they sailed out to meet Cremonides.
[SPEAKER_00]: The great Tolematic Amdraul at Ephesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: His rodian counterpart, Agatha Stratus, sailed out in a single ship, right to the Tolematic line, and then turned around, giving the impression of disorganization and retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a famed withdrawal.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as he returns to his larger force, a gathestrautus ordered the Rodian Navy to row at top speed in a tight formation directly at the Tallumeic ships, just as they were making preparations to land on the island, to land on the coast.
[SPEAKER_00]: The initial confrontation was a disaster for the Taliban.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were caught completely unprepared for the attack and driven away after suffering heavy losses.
[SPEAKER_00]: With No Rebellion and No Tolomeic oversight, Selucid forces made quick work of reclaiming Ephesus and Samos in the following years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, with the Tolomeic Navy effectively out of the fight entirely after significant losses at both Ephesus and Coss, Antiochis was able to rally his forces stationed in Anatolia and invade the regions of Pemphilia and Celicia.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where we get into some historical confusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're still in this early Hellenistic age, where our sources are scattered, fragmentary, and do not usually provide firm dates.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that Antiochus, Thayos, and Antigonus Ganadas allied against Philadelphia.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we don't know is what Antigonus actually did to support the war effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: One distinct possibility is that he popularly held timeline of events in Greece is inaccurate, and that hostilities in Southern Greece lasted for several years after the Antigonid Army captured Athens.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that version of events, the Talaeic Navy wasn't knocked out by the fight at Ephesus, but rather forced to redirect its efforts to Greece until the Battle of Kos that I mentioned earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that view of events, the antagonists shattered the Tala-mayek fleet in two, fifty, five, not two, sixty, one.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, the basic outline of events is the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rodians forced the tolamies to withdraw from the Anatolian coast, and the antagonists dealt enough damage that the Egyptian Navy was rendered useless in the Mediterranean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Events had progressed so quickly that the salukids were not really prepared for all out war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Local forces had been standing ready to invade or defend the border with Taldome in Anatolia for decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although soldiers really had to do was leave their fortresses and march south.
[SPEAKER_00]: without a fleet to bring supplies and reinforcements from Egypt, many Tolomek frontier garrisons would have been easy pickings.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, despite suffering significant setbacks, Tolomek Philadelphia had two advantages in this fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Egypt was, as always, ludicrously wealthy thanks to its immense agricultural base, mineral wealth and easy access to trade in the Red Sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Egyptian population, and by extension, the bulk of their army, was also much closer to Syria than most of the Salukid manpower.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in two fifty-seven, Tawlami launched an invasion from the south.
[SPEAKER_00]: As with everything else in the second Syrian war, we know very little about what exactly happened in either theater of the conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from repelling some sort of saluted incursion, we know nothing about the Tolemic offensive in Syria.
[SPEAKER_00]: The general consensus is that they gained some ground, but there were no major transfers of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: A buried horde of Tolemic coins from this period suggests that the Egyptian army encroached on the saluted capital district near Antioch
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's not much else to indicate significant fighting in that region.
[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, while the Salukids gained ground in Pemphelia and Celicia, neither of those regions was fully recaptured.
[SPEAKER_00]: combat in Solicia apparently shifted back and forth the most, with archaeological evidence of the Salukids invading Tolomeic territory, and of the Tolomeas pushing into the Salukid held parts of the same country.
[SPEAKER_00]: One battle, if we can call it that we know about, came when Antiochist hired Galation mercenaries to support his local troops and mount an invasion of Lissia.
[SPEAKER_00]: which was defeated by the Egyptian General Nioctalamus near the city of Tlus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Greece, Philadelphia sent money and arms to support Rebellion in Corinth and Calcus against the Antignaids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Effectively threatening to reopen the Kremlin war, if Antignais gonades did not withdraw his support for Antiochus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ganatus was forced to make peace with Tala'mi into fifty-four, and the war came to an end one year later, with a new peace treaty between Philadelphia and Antiochis Thayos.
[SPEAKER_00]: The geographic details of this piece are hazy at best.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are mostly left to rely on inscriptions from various towns in Anatolia to see which kings and nobles they reference in monuments, or archives in Egypt to see which local leaders got their orders from the Tollemaic administration.
[SPEAKER_00]: In general, the Syrian border does not seem to have shifted very much if at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite Selucan military success, Philadelphia actually gained land in Celicia, but that came at a cost.
[SPEAKER_00]: Egyptian forces withdrew entirely from the western coast of the peninsula, greatly simplifying the lines between the disputed territories along more traditional provincial borders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Formally, this seems to have made Antiochus the victor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He at least got more of what he wanted in the geopolitical sense, but it was a bitter situation for him personally.
[SPEAKER_00]: unrelated to the conflict, Antiochus's mother, Stradeneke, died shortly before the end of hostilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, to top it off, the Selugid King was forced to divorce his wife, Laudeke, and disinherit his children, including Selugus, his son, and heir apparent.
[SPEAKER_00]: In an amusing little aside, Pliny the Elder recorded a story that one of the old Queen Mother's last official acts involved a controversial painting of her, apparently an artist named Tessacles depicted her in a compromising position with a local fisherman, causing no small amount of controversy in Ephesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: but Stradineke ordered it not to be taken down because of, quote, the likeness of the two figures being admirably expressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tessicly's had already fled town out of fear, but apparently, old Queen Stradineke, who had lost most of her hair to some sort of disease at this point, found the depiction of her own nudity quite flattering.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, back to politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Traditionally speaking, the superior king, or the victor in a war, got the favorable end of a marriage pact.
[SPEAKER_00]: Generally, that meant marrying a princess from the other side, and that is what happened in the second Syrian war.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Philadelphia still had a pretty strong negotiating position.
[SPEAKER_00]: He offered peace and would seal the deal by wetting his daughter Baranique to Antiochus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Antiochus' position as the political victor was further reinforced by a massive war indemnity disguised as Baranique's dowry, to the point that she was remembered by history as Baranique the dowry bringer.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, this Egyptian princess and her future children could not be secondary figures in the Salukid Court.
[SPEAKER_00]: For this piece to be worthwhile, Baranique's sons needed to be first in line for the succession.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, by treaty, Antiochus was required to divorce Laudique, which also effectively downgraded Salukus in the order of inheritance.
[SPEAKER_00]: to the King's credit, he handled this about as well as he could.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very clear that this was all politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Antiochist made Laudique immensely wealthy and powerful in her own right.
[SPEAKER_00]: A position we do not often see from the Greco Macedonian noble women of this era.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was given exclusive rights to extensive tracts of land and massive estates in Anatolia.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she retained all of the privileges associated with being a royal landlord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only the king himself could contradict her financial or real estate dealings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the implication is that Antiochis himself had no intention of doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Antiochis, the god, only occasionally even tried to hold up his end of the treaty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Baranique would not carry a pregnancy to term for years after the end of the Second Syrian War.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the meantime, Antioch has just went back to living with Laudique and their two sons, obviously favoring the his ex-wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tommy Philadelphia spent the final years of his reign repeatedly begging and or demanding that entire kiss honor their agreement and actually act like Baranique's husband to little avail.
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode is pretty short, but I have no doubt that trying to cover more ground in one episode will spiral wildly out of control, because the next segment I have planned is foreign and not so foreign relations under Antiochist chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's just no way to cover half a dozen separate kingdoms, two rebellions, a saluca defensive in Europe, and the second Syrian war all in one episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that will have to wait.
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