Antiochus I Soter

Antiochus I Soter (born 324 bc—died 262/261) was the king of the Seleucid kingdom of Syria, who ruled about 292–281 bc in the east and 281–261 over the whole kingdom. Under great external pressures, he consolidated his kingdom and encouraged the founding of cities.

Antiochus was the son of Seleucus I, founder of the Seleucid kingdom, and his Sogdian queen, Apama. When an invasion of nomads threatened the eastern possessions of his father’s realm (between the Caspian and Aral seas and the Indian Ocean), Antiochus was appointed king (292). He restored some of the damage caused by the invaders and rebuilt three cities. Because his father still had interest in expanding the eastern trade, Antiochus dispatched a noted geographer and general to explore the environs of the Caspian Sea.

After his father’s assassination in 281, Antiochus succeeded to the entire realm, but he was immediately beset by revolts in Syria (probably instigated by Egypt), by independence movements in northern Anatolia, and by a war led by Antigonus II Gonatas, ruler of the Greek cities and Macedonia. In 279, after the Gauls invaded Greece and almost ruined Antigonus, he and Antiochus signed a pact promising not to interfere with one another’s territory. The next year, however, 20,000 Gauls crossed into Asia Minor, and the independent states in the northern part recruited them to harass Antiochus. He was preoccupied with the pacification of Syria until 275, when, utilizing Indian elephants brought from the east, he defeated the Gauls, who were afterward settled by their allies in Phrygia to make it a buffer state. The Ionian city-states that Antiochus had spared from the Gauls’ ravages hailed him as a god and named him Soter (“Saviour”). In 275 the alliance with Antigonus, now fully in possession of Macedonia, was cemented by marriage to Antiochus’ half sister.

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Following the Gallic incursions in Greece, Antiochus encouraged Greek immigration to his realm and established many new cities in Asia Minor to serve as counterweights to the Gauls. He built other cities in Iran to forestall the Parthian threat to his eastern frontier, and he probably fostered a revival of Babylonian culture and religion to counteract Persian influence. At Babylon he rebuilt the ancient Esagila shrine, although he moved the city’s populace to a great Seleucid city a short distance away on the Tigris River.

The aggressions of Ptolemy II of Egypt caused continuous friction with Antiochus. In 279 he lost Miletus, in southwestern Asia Minor, and in 276 the Egyptians invaded northern Syria. But Antiochus defeated his opponent, repelled him, and secured an alliance with the Egyptian ruler’s half brother who ruled Cyrene. After Ptolemy married the energetic Arsinoe II, however, the war turned against the Seleucids, and about 273–272, Phoenicia and the coast of Asia Minor were lost to Egypt.

The continuous troubles in the west caused Seleucid control in the far eastern part of the empire to weaken. In 280 Antiochus made his eldest son king in the east, but he proved incompetent. Between 266 and 261 Antiochus was drawn into a war with Pergamum, and in 262 he suffered a defeat and lost additional territory. Soon afterward he died, leaving his son Antiochus II as successor.