Fattah H., Caso F. A Brief History Of Iraq

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRAQ

SELEUCUS THE CITY BUILDER

eleucus was one of history’s more proliﬁ c imperial city builders

and/or expanders. His reasons for doing so no doubt were pri-

marily for security, but it also can be said that he wished to place a

Hellenic stamp upon his empire, which, after all, was based far away

from his home country. To that end, after defeating Antigonus at the

Battle of Ipsus and acquiring the satrapy of Syria into his growing

empire, he set about transferring his capital from Seleucia to Antioch.

Once in Syria, he formulated a plan for 10 cities, which Grainger has

characterized as “the central event in the urban history of Syria”

(Grainger, Cities 1990, 91). There were other Syrian cities, but these

10 were the most important.

Some of the cities were actually built prior to Seleucus’s time, but

Seleucus expanded them and Hellenized them to a certain extent.

(After the demise of the Seleucid Empire, they discarded in varying

degrees their Hellenistic traditions.) In addition to Antioch, Seleucus’s

cities are Seleucia-in-Pieria (this is distinguished from the prior

Seleucid capital, located in Babylonia, known by scholars as Seleucia-

on-the-Tigris), Apamea, Laodikea-ad-Mare, Kyrrhos, Chalkis, Beroia,

Seleukeia-Zeugma, the island city of Aradnos, and “its mainland suburb

Marathos” (Grainger, Cities 1990, 93). The ﬁ rst four were considered

major cities, while the second quartet were second-level cities. Of the

last two cities, Marathos was actually larger but in Seleucid times took

second status because of the strategic importance of Aradnos’s port.

Grainger points out that all of these cities were built or expanded upon

with an eye toward geographic placement so as to allow Seleucus and

presumably his successors to maintain control over Syria. Half the

cities of the group of 10 already existed—Apamea (Niya), Aradnos

(Arvad), Beroia (Halab), Chalkis (Quinnesrin), and Marathos (pos-

sibly called Marathus)—so that Seleucus built his strategic urban plan

around them. Though the cities he built were the larger of the group,

the ones that were already in place suggest the possibility that Persia

may have had an eye toward geographic expansion in Syria as well.

For the Macedonian Seleucus, Babylonia, and indeed all of

Mesopotamia, was a satrapy too far from the homeland to consider

maintaining as the capital province. In a way, this is ironic because not

only had he claimed Babylonia as his “inheritance” after the death of

Alexander, but he expanded his empire with hopes of reunifying most

of what Alexander had conquered. Yet, he chose not to keep his capi-

tal in the more central province.

FROM THE PERSIAN EMPIRE TO THE SASSANIANS

This acclimation and Babylonian acceptance of the Seleucids was made

easier by tradition: By the time of Alexander’s arrival in Mesopotamia,

the Babylonians opposed Persian suzerainty, and thus, the Macedonian

conquest of Babylonia was spared a protracted war. After Alexander’s

defeat of Darius, Babylon, as some historians believe, exercised an old

right to sue for its own peace, which saved the city from destruction

(Kuhrt in Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1987, 49). Apparently, a similar

procedure had been followed 200 years earlier, when Cyrus defeated

the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus. By the time Seleucus established

his rule in Babylonia, the Macedonians had already been ﬁ rmly in place

for eight years.

The empire had achieved its greatest territorial gains under Seleucus.

Over the next 220 years, in ﬁ ts and starts, it would lose territory and face

pressure from both the east and the west. In the east, the ﬁ rst satrapy to

revolt against Seleucid rule was Bactria in the 240s

B.C.E. Nearly simul-

taneous to this was the settlement of the Parni in Parthia, who would

eventually spell the end of the Seleucids. Some of the lost territory was

regained by Antiochus III the Great (r. 222–187

B.C.E.), especially in

the ﬁ nal decade of the third century

B.C.E., when Antiochus engaged

Example of Seleucid artwork—an odalisque or, perhaps, a goddess—now in the Louvre

Museum, Paris, France

(Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRAQ

in a series of wars that have come to be known as the Syrian Wars.

Essentially, these were the Diadochi Wars fought all over again with

the essential difference that the Seleucid Empire and Egypt were now

antagonists. In 200

B.C.E., Antiochus wrested Palestine from Egypt.

However, when he attempted to push westward into Europe, he came

up against Rome, which soundly defeated the Seleucids in 192–188

B.C.E., despite their assistance from Carthage. Rome further weakened

the Seleucid Empire by encouraging the Maccabean Revolt in Palestine

(165–152

B.C.E.). But it was the Parthians, not the Romans, who would

cause the Seleucid decline.

The Parthian Empire (ca. 125 B.C.E.–224 C.E.)

Parthia, located in what is now northeastern Iran, had been a satrapy

of the Persian Empire, but previous to that it had, like Achaemenid

Persia, been a vassal state of the Medes. Parthia was one of the satra-

pies that revolted from the Persian Empire—joining the Medes—upon

the ascension to the throne by Darius I. But the revolt was short lived;

Darius reconquered the region and brought it back under Persian

overlordship in 521

B.C.E. From then until the end of the empire, the

Parthians were loyal and valued members of the Persian army, gaining

fame as excellent horsemen. They fought the Greeks under Xerxes and

under Darius III fought against the Macedonians led by Alexander the

Great. Parthia surrendered to Alexander in 330

B.C.E. As part of his new

“Persian” policy (as the Macedonians thought), Alexander reappointed

Phrataphernes as satrap of Parthia even though Phrataphernes, as was

custom, had led the Parthian forces against the Macedonians. After the

death of Alexander, Parthia became a satrapy of the Seleucid Empire.

As forceful as these Parthians were, however, the catalysts of what was

to become the Parthian Empire were the Parni (also known as Aparni).

A seminomadic tribe that had moved south from the area east of the

Caspian Sea into Parthia during the time of Seleucid rule, the Parni,

under their leader, Arsaces (Arshak in Parthian, r. 247–?

B.C.E.), came

to power in Parthia in an elaborate way. War in the west in the mid-240s

B.C.E. provided the occasion for the satrapy, along with that of Bactria,

to revolt from Seleucid authority. In 238

B.C.E., when the Seleucids

were defeated by invading Celts at the Battle of Ancyra, Arsaces, as

ancient history scholar Malcolm A. R. Colledge notes, was able “to eject

[the Parthian satrap Andragoras] and occupy the province of Parthia”

(Colledge 1967, 25). Arsaces’ successor was his brother, also Arsaces

(also known as Arsaces Tiridates, r. ?–211

B.C.E.). Much like Caesar

FROM THE PERSIAN EMPIRE TO THE SASSANIANS

in Rome, the name Arsaces was used as a title by the ﬁ rst 19 kings of

Parthia, the majority of whom retained their personal names, and the

dynasty is referred to as the Arsacid. Arsaces II made a treaty with the

satrap of the neighboring and still rebellious province of Bactria, allow-

ing him to consolidate his authority and pursue expansion.

Parthian expansion was at the expense of the Seleucid Empire, as

Arsaces II and the next three of his successors methodically picked

off territory from the eastern satrapies. However, they were unable to

defeat Seleucid power outright, especially during the reign of Antiochus

the Great. During this period, Parthia was an autonomous state within

the Seleucid Empire. It was the sixth Parthian king whom historians

have credited with creating the Parthian Empire. Arsaces VI Mithridates

(also known as Mithridates I and Mithridates the Great, r. ca. 171–138

B.C.E.), the younger brother of his predecessor, Arsaces V Phraates, came

to power at a conspicuous time in history as “one by one the provinces

of Iran were lost to the Seleucids, and became a series of independent

monarchies” (Colledge 1967, 28). Nevertheless, Mithridates bode his

time for almost 11 years. In 160

B.C.E., the Parthians overran Tapiura

and Traxiane to the east, formerly Bactrian territory. He then turned

westward, and by 147

B.C.E., the Parthians occupied the ever-rebellious

kingdom of Media. A few years later, Mithridates took a step that sig-

naled Parthian independence from Seleucid rule: He became the ﬁ rst

Parthian king to issue coinage.

The record next becomes somewhat hazy, but Mithridates returned

east, “perhaps on account of an attack on his borders” (Colledge 1967,

29). After further eastern conquest, he turned westward again with the

intention of taking Babylonia as well as a few kingdoms, such as Elam

and Armenia. This he swiftly accomplished, in 141

B.C.E., but once

again had to repel an invasion in the east—this time from Bactria. The

Seleucid king, Demetrius II, took advantage of Mithridates’ preoccupa-

tion in the east to mount a counterattack to regain his lost territory.

But Mithridates defeated the Bactrians, turned west for the third time,

and defeated Demetrius, taking the Seleucid king prisoner. Demetrius

thereupon forsook his throne but reclaimed it ca. 129

B.C.E. and held it

for another four years after that. Nevertheless, the Seleucid Empire was

at a virtual end; the dynasty continued to rule until 64

B.C.E. but had

long since fallen back on Syria as its ﬁ nal domain, where it served as a

buffer state between the Parthian and the Roman Empires. Mithridates

died in 138

B.C.E., but the empire he founded continued to expand.

By 113

B.C.E., during the reign of Arsaces XI Mithridates (c. 124–87

B.C.E.), upper Mesopotamia fell under Parthian sovereignty. This was

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRAQ

the furthest west the Parthians would push. From then on, the focus of

the Parthian kings shifted from conquest to maintaining and governing

their possessions. This era, dating approximately from the accession of

Mithridates the Great to the throne of Parthia in 171

B.C.E. to 10 B.C.E.,

is known as the phil-Hellenistic period because many of the provinces

of the empire had retained their Greek qualities, especially language

and culture, and the Parthians utilized them, though individual regional

characteristics were preserved.

One characteristic of the Parthians that the kings themselves main-

tained was their nomadic urge. The kings built or occupied numer-

ous cities as their capitals, the most important being Ctesiphon on

the Tigris River, which they built from the ancient town of Opis. The

Parthian monarchs shufﬂ ed their courts between these capital cities,

though Babylon does not seem to have been one of them. Possibly as a

result of all that movement, comparatively few ofﬁ cial records from the

Parthian Empire have survived, but this may be due in part to Sassanian

hostility (Colledge 1967, 174). Dura Europos (Syria), Susa (Iran), and

Nisa (Turkmenistan) seem to be the main repositories of Parthian docu-

ments and inscriptions, further suggesting the decline of Babylon under

the Parthians. Despite such decline, Babylonia on the whole fared

well under Arsacid rule: “Minority languages of the Empire included

the living and defunct tongues of Babylonia still written in cuneiform

script until, at least, 6

B.C., and of course Hebrew” (Colledge 1967, 71).

Colledge also makes the point that Babylonian law also survived as it

“underlies the parchment contract of 121

A.D. from Dura” (Colledge

1967, 73), near the end of Parthian rule.

Art and Religion under the Parthians

Greek culture underlay the Parthian Empire; this is most evident in

surviving artwork and less so in architecture, the latter being more

diffuse in style. However, it took more than a century before classi-

cal Greek artistic styles began to inﬂ uence Parthian artists. A late date

for such inﬂ uence can be partially attributed to the degree of political

autonomy that Parthia enjoyed under the Seleucids. In addition, there

was a “new Hellenic style . . . [a] variation between oriental and Greek

style” (Colledge 1967, 143). One of the major Greek inﬂ uences was

the positioning of ﬁ gures in reliefs. Ancient Near East artists positioned

ﬁ gures in proﬁ le, usually in rows, and the Parthians were no exception.

When Greek inﬂ uence ﬁ nally arrived, spreading eastward—and the

Parthians are considered the ﬁ rst Eastern artists whose work was trans-

FROM THE PERSIAN EMPIRE TO THE SASSANIANS

formed by Hellenic culture—Parthian artists began positioning ﬁ gures

frontally. This new style fairly quickly became the norm for Parthian

artists. Frescoes, reliefs, and statuary survive from the later period of

the empire (especially in Dura) that show Parthian adaptation of Greek

inﬂ uence. Another aspect of Parthian art was that it was less imperial

than either Achaemenid or Sassanian art and in this sense resembled

Seleucid art.

A second and perhaps more important aspect of Parthian rule is

the inﬂ uence of imported religions in Babylonia and Mesopotamia.

During the empires of the Achaemenids and Seleucids, the ancient

religions managed to survive and, indeed, were actively promoted by

the dynasties. But during the Parthian period, the ancient religions of

Mesopotamia became extinct (though worship of Shamash continued),

replaced at ﬁ rst by Greek and Persian religions—the latter reintroduc-

ing and/or reinforcing Zoroastrianism—then by Jewish monotheism, to

which the royal family of the semiautonomous kingdom of Atiabene

(in Assyria) converted. Christianity also spread into Mesopotamia and

Babylonia during the ﬁ rst two centuries

C.E., especially the Gnostic

variety. Lastly, there is evidence in Dura Europos of Roman cults where

the legions had been stationed. The death of the old religions and cults

and the fact that the newer ones vied with each other and were never

able to gain deep-rooted stability across Mesopotamia made it easier for

Islam to supplant other religions in the region in later centuries. Lastly,

this inﬂ ux of new religious ideas in the last centuries

B.C.E. and the ﬁ rst

of the common era contributed to the further decline of Babylon, as its

god, Marduk, was abandoned.

The Fall of the Parthian Empire

The fall of the Parthian Empire was a process that was drawn out over

more than two centuries. In its latter decades, it was weakened by

dynastic struggles, which exacerbated problems both east and west

in an empire that was largely decentralized. In the west, the Parthian

problems were directly linked to the demise of the Seleucids, who the

Parthians, ironically, helped eradicate in conjunction with Rome.

After their defeat by the Parthians, the Seleucids retreated to Syria

where they maintained a rump empire. In the meantime, further west,

Rome was on the ascendant, having extinguished Carthage in the Third

Punic War, in 146

B.C.E. Thus, simultaneous with the expansion of

Parthian power in the ancient Near East was that of Rome in the west-

ern Mediterranean area. However, with Seleucid Syria in the middle

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRAQ

to buffer its territory from Rome, the Parthian Empire was seemingly

impregnable. To the east, China and Parthia had developed a cordial

relationship, including representatives of each kingdom traveling to

their counterparts. In fact, by the mid-ﬁ rst century

B.C.E., Parthia had

control of the Silk Route, from which its treasury derived a great deal

of wealth. Then it made a drastic strategic error.

In 69

B.C.E., Parthia entered into an alliance with Rome to attack

what was left of the Seleucid Empire. At a time when Parthia’s dynastic

struggles were sapping its energy, Parthia and Rome agreed upon the

Euphrates River as the western border of the Parthian Empire with

Seleucid Syria. However, in 63

B.C.E., the Roman general Pompey the

Great conquered the Seleucids once and for all, putting Roman legions

on the border of Parthian territory. The situation in the west remained

that way for almost 10 years until the Roman general Crassus invaded

the Parthian Empire in 53

B.C.E. The Roman incursion was turned back,

but the Romans continued intermittently to pursue their goal of east-

ern conquest over more than two centuries. Parthia’s wars with Rome

abated only during times of Roman political instability, such as the

civil wars between the partisans of Pompey and those of Julius Caesar

and the one that emerged after the assassination of Caesar, and the Pax

Romana.

After 150 years of intermittent warfare between the two empires,

most often fought over the strategically important territory of Armenia,

Roman emperor Trajan (r. 98–117

C.E.) invaded Parthia in 114 C.E.

The reasons for Trajan’s invasion of Parthia have been debated since

ancient times. Fame, the reason provided by Cassius Dio, is most often

put forth, but modern historians have also asserted that the war was

actually started for economic reasons. F. A. Lepper presented French

historian J. Guey’s opinion that “Trajan’s real objective in going to war

with Parthia was the securing of the overland trade-routes through

Mesopotamia” (Lepper 1948, 158). Whatever the reason, the Roman

pretext for war with Parthia was, as usual, a squabble over Armenia;

the Parthian emperor had deposed the Armenian king without permis-

sion from Rome. Trajan, a former general who led his legions, marched

into Armenia virtually unopposed. He then set about conquering upper

Mesopotamia and Babylonia. (It is said that when Trajan arrived in

Babylon, where he had gone to see the room where Alexander the Great

had died, he was disappointed on the pitiable ruin of the city.) In fact,

he marched his army to what is now the Persian Gulf.

In 116

C.E., Osroes launched a counterattack and regained some of

the territory, while rebellion against the Romans broke out in other

FROM THE PERSIAN EMPIRE TO THE SASSANIANS

provinces. Trajan, in turn, was able to recover Armenia and Mesopotamia,

though he lost Assyria. Babylonia was given to Parthamaspates (r. 116

C.E.), a Parthian prince, who served at Trajan’s behest. Thus, for a brief

time there were three kings of Parthia. After Trajan’s death in Anatolia

(Asia Minor) in 117

C.E., Hadrian (r. 117–138 C.E.), ascended to the

emperor’s throne in Rome. He returned Roman policy to one of peace-

ful coexistence with Parthia. He also returned the territory Trajan had

won to the Parthians.

During the next 50 years, Parthia was at peace with Rome, but its

dynastic struggles continued. Nevertheless, in 161

C.E., Vologases IV

(r. 148–192

C.E.) took advantage of a temporary dynastic problem in

Rome to seize Armenia (which had remained under Roman suzerainty).

Under co-emperors Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) and Lucius Verus

(r. 161–168), the Romans not only regained Armenia but invaded

Ctesiphon. And this time, when they took Mesopotamia, they kept it.

In 193

C.E., another Roman civil war emboldened yet another Parthian

monarch, Vologases V, who sought to recapture Mesopotamia. But

when the Roman succession question was settled with the accession

of Septimus Severus (r. 193–211

C.E.), Parthia’s days were numbered.

Severus sacked Ctesiphon in 198

C.E. and returned to Rome with a

legendary hoard of gold and silver. Parthia was impoverished and no

match for Rome, but it was not the successors of Septimus Severus

who put an end to Parthian rule. Just as Parthia had revolted against

Seleucid rule and in time overtook their master, so did the Iranian

petty king Ardashir I (r. 208–241

C.E.) attack the weakened Parthian

dynasty from his home base of Persis. The army of Ardashir fought

victoriously over the Parthians in 224

C.E. Thereupon, Ardashir eas-

ily took Ctesiphon and installed himself as king over what remained

of the Parthian Empire and those areas he had conquered beforehand.

The new empire became known as the Sassanian Empire, named for

the dynasty descended from the Zoroastrian priest Sasan, an ances-

tor of Ardashir. However, the Sassanians, themselves, “called their

empire Eranshahr, the kingdom of the Aryans; perhaps the Parthians

did likewise” (Colledge 1967, 57). Historians have also referred to the

Sassanian Empire as the Neo-Persian Empire.

The Sassanian, or Neo-Persian, Empire (224–651)

The Sassanians were the last native dynasty in Iran and the last Indo-

European overlords of Iraq. Upon taking control of the Parthian

Empire, the dynasty moved its capital from Istakhr, near Persepolis, to

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRAQ

Ctesiphon in order to take advantage of whatever structure and trap-

pings of empire remained. Unlike its predecessor, the Sassanian state

was a highly centralized bureaucracy based on a hierarchical system

of administration. This centralization accounted for greater stability

than under the Parthians throughout most of the empire’s history and

allowed it to resist ﬁ rst Roman, then Byzantine intrusions in the west.

Like their Parthian predecessors and the Achaemenids, the Sassanian

monarchs bore the title “king of kings.”

The Sassanians, in fact, felt a close kinship with the Achaemenids.

One of their more important decrees upon taking over in Ctesiphon

was the restoration of Zoroastrianism (also known as Mazdaism), which

became the state religion (Hourani 1991, 9). Zoroastrianism had been

the religion of at least the early Achaemenid kings. Under the Sassanians,

Zoroastrianism not only became the ofﬁ cial religion, but nonbelievers

were often persecuted. However, the Zoroastrianism of the Sassanians dif-

fered from that of the Achaemenids. In the religion’s earlier incarnation,

the god Ahuramazda (Wise Lord) was much like the Hebrew Yahweh,

the creator of all things. By the time of the Sassanians, indeed even during

the time of the Persian Empire, Ahuramazda was considered the creator

of all things good, while the origins of Angra Mainyu, the god of evil, had

been reinterpreted. In the reinterpretation, which bears a resemblance to

ancient Greek mythology, the two gods were twin sons of Zurvan, the

god of time; hence, the religion had ceased to be monotheistic.

Sassanian Expansion

The ﬁ rst Sassanian war with Rome began in 231 C.E., during the reign

of Ardashir. But it was under Ardashir’s son and successor, Shapur I (r.

241–272), that the Sassanians really began to ﬂ ex their military muscle.

Shapur’s most important victory in the West was fought at the Battle

of Edessa in 260, when he defeated and captured the Roman emperor

Valerian (r. 253–260). Rome’s ill fortune gradually reversed as the cen-

tury wound down so that long after Shapur I was dead, under Narseh

(r. 293–303), the Sassanians, in 298, signed a treaty with Rome that

restored much territory to the latter in northern Mesopotamia. The

Sassanians were also victorious in the East. They defeated the Kushans,

who controlled Gandara, which had been a satrapy of the Achaemenid

Persian Empire but was nevertheless Indian and not Persian. In doing

so, they looted the capital of Peshawar (in modern-day Pakistan).

Legend has it that one of the objects taken was Buddha’s begging bowl.

The tight governmental structure of the Sassanians meant not only that

FROM THE PERSIAN EMPIRE TO THE SASSANIANS

the plunder from Antioch and Peshawar went to the royal treasury but

that the provincial governors had to answer directly to the monarch. The

dynasty ﬁ nanced city- and road-building (whereas in the past, generals

or satraps would have done so), expanded agriculture, and even insti-

tuted a ﬁ nancial system. This tight control also accelerated the spread of

Pahlavi as the language of the empire, whereas the Parthians throughout

most of their imperial history had had no lingua franca until the emer-

gence of Parthian in the ﬁ nal century or so of the empire’s existence.

The Sassanian Empire was dominated in the fourth century by one

man, Shapur II (r. 309–379). Technically, he ruled from the moment

of his birth, though a regent actually governed the empire until 325.

Shapur II, like his namesake, was driven to expand the empire, and

like Shapur I, he did so by attacking Rome’s holdings in Mesopotamia

and Armenia in 337. This war went back and forth for the next 13

years and basically was fought to a standstill. But the war had a seri-

ous effect on Shapur’s domestic policy. By 337, the Roman Empire had

become Christianized, and with hostilities between the two empires

on the increase, the numerous Christians in the Sassanian Empire sud-

denly became suspect. An empire-wide policy of persecution and forced

conversion of Christians was put into place sometime after the begin-

ning of the new war with Rome, which lasted throughout the reign

of Shapur II, and even during the eight years when there was relative

peace between the two empires. The long and costly conﬂ ict with the

Roman and later the Byzantine Empire and a succession of short-lived

kings seriously weakened the Sassanian Empire and made it ripe for

takeover by Muslim Arabs to the south.

The year 634 marked the ﬁ rst clashes between Arabs and Sassanian

Persians in Iraq. After early defeats that resulted in the loss of the

fertile area along the Euphrates’ right bank, the Persians routed the

Arabs in the Battle of the Bridge. However, in 637, the Arabs attacked

again achieving a major victory that allowed them to seize and sack

Ctesiphon. By 638, they had conquered nearly all of Iraq, and the ﬁ nal

Sassanian king, Yazdgard III (r. 632–651) ﬂ ed to the ancestral home-

land. Three years later, the Arabs invaded Iran. When Yazdgard was

killed in 651, the Sassanian Empire ceased to exist. By then, however,

Iraq was already a province of the Muslim caliphate.

Trade in the Sassanian Empire

Although the Sassanian economy was based on agriculture, trade

played an important role in keeping the empire vital and extending