gather additional troops, and one of his generals entered Mesopotamia, coming probably from Syria, with reinforcements. Mithradates turned southward to Seleucia and defeated him. At Seleucia the Parthian monarch received a deputation which brought word of friendship from some city in the land of Ashur,[1] for that territory must have been fully aware of the turn affairs had taken after the defeat of the general of Demetrius. Mithradates entered the royal city of Seleucia late in June or early in July; he was recognized as king on or before July 8, 141 b.c. Before October 14 of that year Mithradates' sovereignty was acknowledged as far south as Uruk.[2] Naturally the inhabitants of Susa and the surrounding region felt uneasy, as is shown by a dedicatory inscription of 171 s.e. (141 b.c.) for the safety of a king and queen whose names are cautiously omitted.[3] Susa was the next logical point in the advance of the Great King.
Sometime between October and December, 141
- ↑ Moses Chor. i. 7 and ii. 4. 1 makes Assyria subject to Mithradates.
- ↑ The double-dated tablet in Otto Schroeder, Kontrakte der Seleukidenzeit aus Warka ("Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler," XV [Leipzig, 1916]), No. 37, proves no more than that Uruk then acknowledged Mithradates as king. Tarn in CAH, IX, 576 and 579 f., operating with the rēš šarrūti, "accession year," places the capture of Babylon before 1 Nisan, 141 b.c.; but "accession years" were never employed by the Seleucidae, and therefore documents would have been double-dated as soon as the sovereignty of Mithradates was acknowledged.
- ↑ F. Cumont, "Nouvelles inscriptions grecques de Suse," CR, 1932, pp. 278 f.
