The belief that Mithradates extended his power as far south and east as Seistan, part of Aria, and Gedrosia rests solely on the identification of the Hydaspes of Orosius with the modern Porali.[1]
The hasty departure of Antiochus IV Epiphanes from Palestine for the far eastern portion of the empire suggests an advance by the Parthians.[2] True, Palestine was unsettled—not an unusual condition for that region—but such an event as the invasion of the eastern lands by Mithradates at this time would have loomed as far more important in the eyes of the Seleucid ruler. In 165 b.c. Antiochus crossed the Euphrates[3] and marched into Armenia, where the king, Artaxias, was captured and forced to acknowledge the supremacy of the Seleucid ruler.[4] Thence Antiochus apparently returned to the great road,
- ↑ On this matter see pp. 56 f. There are other possibilities than the Porali. The southern and eastern conquests are doubtfully accepted by Tarn in CAH, IX, 579. The elephant on the coins of Mithradates is not evidence for Indian conquests; cf. the coins of Phraates II, Artabanus "II" (my III), and Mithradates III in Wroth, Parthia, p. 262, also G. H. Abbott, The Elephant on Coins (Sydney, 1919), p. 6. The Parthians apparently made little use of this animal; Tac. Ann. xv. 15 and Dio Cass, lxii. 21. 4 are the only literary mentions. This is peculiar, since both the Seleucidae and the Sasanidae made much of their elephants.
- ↑ Cf. Tac. Hist. v. 8.
- ↑ Josephus Ant. xii. 295–97. Cf. IV Maccabees 18:5 and Walther Kolbe, "Beiträge zur syrischen und jüdischen Geschichte" ("Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten Testament," XXXV [Stuttgart, 1926]), pp. 106 and 155–59.
- ↑ Appian Syr. 45 and 66; Diod. Sic. xxxi. 17a (ed. Dindorf, 1868).
