In 318 b.c. Pithon, satrap of Media, seized the province of Parthia, did away with Philippus, and installed his brother Eudamus. The other satraps became alarmed and joined together under the strongest, Peucestas of Persis. The combined armies of Iran drove Pithon out of Parthia, and he retreated to his own province of Media.[1] After 316 b.c. the province apparently was joined to Bactria under the command of Stasanor.[2] By the middle of the third century the Seleucid empire was in difficulty. Antiochus II continued the war which his father had begun in Egypt about 276 b.c. When peace was made Antiochus put away his wife Laodice, who retired to Ephesus, and married Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II (253 b.c.). Although Antiochus had thus secured peace, his relations with Ptolemy were none too secure. About the time of the marriage Diodotus,[3] satrap of Bactria, revolted and assumed the title of king.[4]
- ↑ Diod. Sic. xix. 14; Justin xiii. 4. 23. Cf. Bevan, House of Sel., I, 42, 267 n. 6, and 294, and in CAH, VI, 417 and 477; Alfred von Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans (Tubingen, 1888), pp. 20 ff.
- ↑ Justin xli. 4. 1, as Bevan, House of Sel., I, 267 f. and notes, interprets him.
- ↑ Trog. Pomp, xli; cf. Justin xli. 4. 5. Trogus is proved correct by the coins; see Cambridge History of India, I, ed. E. J. Rapson, Pls. II 13 and III 9, which apparently O. Seel, editor of the Teubner text of Justin, did not know. My account of events in the Seleucid empire is drawn largely from Tarn in CAH, VII, chap, xxii, which agrees substantially with the earlier works of Bevan and Bouché-Leclerq.
- ↑ Justin xli. 4. 5.
