The title King of Syria appeared in the second century BC in referring to the Seleucid kings who ruled the entirety of the region of Syria. It was also used to refer to Aramean kings in the Greek translations of the Old Testament, mainly indicating the kings of Aram-Damascus. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the region came under the rule of France, the United Kingdom and Prince Faisal of Hejaz, who was proclaimed King of Syria on 8 March 1920. Faisal's reign lasted a few months before he was overthrown by France and the title fell out of use.
Background
The term Syria was first applied by Herodotus in the 5th century BC to indicate a region generally extending between Anatolia and Egypt.[1][2] With the advent of the Hellenistic period, Greeks and their Seleucid dynasty used the term "Syria" to designate the region between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates.[3] The usage of the name in referring to the region during the Iron Age (ended 586 BC) is a modern practice.[1][4]
List of monarchs
Seleucid dynasty
According to Polybius, King Antigonus I Monophthalmus established the Syrian kingdom which included Coele-Syria.[5] The Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great defeated the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the Battle of Panium (200 BC); he annexed the Syrian lands controlled by Egypt (Coele-Syria) and united them with his Syrian lands, thus gaining control of the entirety of Syria.[6] Starting from the 2nd century BC, ancient writers, such as Polybius and Posidonius, began referring to the Seleucid ruler as the king of Syria.[7][8] The evidence for this title's usage by the kings is provided by the inscription of Antigonus son of Menophilus, who described himself as the "admiral of Alexander, king of Syria" (Alexander refers either to Alexander I Balas or Alexander II Zabinas).[8]
Non-dynastic
Diodotus Tryphon, who opposed Demetrius II by raising Antiochus VI to the throne, killed his protege and declared himself king ruling until 138 when the Seleucids unified Syria again.[27]
In the first translation of the Old Testament into Greek written during the third century BC (called the Septuagint),[79] Aram and Arameans were often translated as Syria and the Syrians;[80][81] hence, the king was referred to as the king of Syria,[82] and this was carried on by many English translations.[80] Aram in the Hebrew Old Testament and Syria in the translation indicated the kingdom of Aram-Damascus most of the times.[80] Occasionally, other Aramean regions were also referred to as Syria.[80] In the view of W. Edward Glenny, the rendering of Aram by Syria might be explained by an anti-Syrian bias, since at the time of the translation, Syria belonged to the Seleucids, the Jews' main enemy; Aram-Damascus was the Jews' enemy during its Iron Age prime in the 9th century BC.[83]
^Antiochus son of Antiochus III was made co-king in 209 BC and died in 193 BC.[11]
^There is no reason to believe that Laodice III fell from grace as she survived her husband and was honoured throughout his and his successors reigns.[12] Seleucid monarchs did not engage in polygamy and even the most hostile accounts, aside from the propagandistic work of Polybius, do not accuse Antiochus III with the act.[12]Paul J. Kosmin suggests a solution for the problem of Antiochus' second wife; according to Polybius, Euboea was a name given by Antiochus to his second wife and it is the name of her island.[12] Hence, in the view of Kosmin, by marrying this girl, Antiochus signified that he was marrying the island which the girl became its symbol.[12]
^Antiochus was a child of 4 or 5 years when he ascended the throne.[16] Heliodorus might have killed Seleucus IV,[15] before being removed by Antiochus IV who kept his nephew as co-king before killing him in 170 BC.[17]
^Fritz Heichelheim proposed three possibilities: Antiochus was Demetrius I's son Antigonus who assumed the dynastic name Antiochus, a pretender, or Demetrius I's youngest son Antiochus VII.[24] Alfred Raymond Bellinger considered the suggestion of Antiochus VII the most credible.[25]
^Appian called Balas Alexandros Nothos (Alexander the bastard); this bastardy could have been the reason for the doubts ancient writers showed regarding Alexander's paternity.[29]
^Josephus placed Antiochus' murder after the end of Demetrius II's first reign and Diodorus Siculus placed the usurpation of Diodotus Tryphon in the consular year 138 BC.[33] However, the last coins struk in Antiochus' name date to the year142/141 BC indicating that he was murdered around that time.[33]
^Alexander fabricated a genealogy that presented him as the son of Alexander I Balas according to Poseidonius, or the adopted son of Antiochus VII according to Justin.[38]
^In 124/123 BC,[43] he married Tryphaena who was murdered in 111 BC by Antiochus IX.[44][45] By 103 BC, he married Tryphaena's sister Cleopatra Selene.[46]
^His reign might have actually ended in 89/88 BC.[54]
^Philip's death date is unknown but traditionally assumed to be the year 84 or 83 BC.[57] Although there is a possibility that he ruled until 75 BC.[58]
^In 2002, numismatist Brian Kritt announced the discovery and decipherment of a coin bearing the portrait of Cleopatra Selene and a co-ruler;[64][65] Kritt read the name of the ruler as Seleucus Philometor and, based on the epithet "Philometor", meaning mother loving, identified him with Cleopatra Selene's son, unnamed by Cicero.[66] Kritt gave the newly discovered ruler the regnal name Seleucus VII, and considered it very likely that he is identical with Kybiosaktes.[67] The reading of "Seleucus VII" was accepted by some scholars such as Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Michael Roy Burgess,[68][69] but Oliver D Hoover rejected Kritt's reading, noting that the coin was badly damaged and some letters were unreadable; Hoover read the king's name as Antiochus and identified him with Antiochus XIII.[65]
References
Citations
^ a bBryce 2009, p. 680.
^Herodotus 1862, p. 126.
^Pipes 1992, p. 13.
^Mumford 2013, p. 70.
^Mahaffy 2014, p. 493.
^Kosmin 2014, p. 122.
^Austin 2010, p. 652.
^ a bKosmin 2014, p. 112.
^Bunbury 1872, p. 719.
^Alten 2017, p. 27.
^ a bGera 1998, p. 283.
^ a b c d eKosmin 2014, p. 137.
^Vehlow 2013, p. 145.
^ a bOgden 2017, p. 241.
^ a b cGera 1998, p. 110.
^Cook 2004, p. 220.
^ a bGera 1998, p. 115.
^Georganas 2016, p. 106.
^Iossif & Lorber 2007, p. 68.
^Hazel 2002, p. 20.
^ a bHoover 2000, p. 107.
^Hazel 2002, p. 73.
^ a b c d e f gChrubasik 2016, p. XXIV.
^Heichelheim 1944, p. 364.
^Bellinger 1945, p. 59.
^Bellinger 1945, p. 58.
^ a b c d eKosmin 2014, p. 22.
^Chrubasik 2016, p. 162.
^Wright 2011, p. 43.
^Ogden 1999, pp. 45–46.
^Atkinson 2016, p. 29.
^ a bHazel 2002, p. 21.
^ a bAtkinson 2016, p. 41.
^Atkinson 2016, p. 43.
^Hoover 2000, p. 108.
^ a bAtkinson 2012, p. 114.
^Houghton 1993, pp. 88.
^ a bShayegan 2003, p. 96.
^Kosmin 2014, p. 23.
^Burstein 2007, p. 78.
^Schürer 2014, p. 133.
^McAuley 2017, p. 90.
^Brijder 2014, p. 60.
^Whitehorne 2002, p. 165.
^ a bDowney 2015, p. 129.
^Whitehorne 2002, p. 166.
^Atkinson 2012, p. 114, 115.
^Whitehorne 2002, p. 165, 167.
^Whitehorne 2002, p. 167.
^Kosmin 2014, p. 243.
^Hoover 2007, pp. 284, 289.
^ a bDowney 2015, p. 133.
^Hoover 2007, pp. 288.
^Hoover 2007, pp. 294.
^Whitehorne 2002, p. 168.
^ a bHoughton 1987, pp. 79.
^ a bHoover 2007, p. 296.
^Hoover 2007, p. 298.
^Hoover 2007, pp. 298, 299.
^Llewellyn-Jones 2013, p. 1572.
^Burgess 2004, p. 20, 21.
^Bellinger 1949, p. 79.
^Burgess 2004, p. 23, 24.
^Kritt 2002, p. 25.
^ a bHoover 2005, p. 95.
^Kritt 2002, p. 27.
^Kritt 2002, p. 28.
^Llewellyn-Jones 2013, p. 1573.
^Burgess 2004, p. 20.
^Kritt 2002, p. 27, 28.
^Hoover 2007, p. 297.
^ a b c dBurgess 2004, p. 24.
^ a bHoover 2007, p. 299.
^Whitehorne 2002, p. 209.
^Spawforth 2006, p. 6.
^Moubayed 2012, p. 20.
^Schafer 2013, p. 245.
^Salibi 2006, p. 68.
^Flesher & Chilton 2011, p. 339.
^ a b c dGreene 1993, p. 44.
^McClintock & Strong 1867, p. 353.
^Clarke 1851, p. 843.
^Glenny 2009, p. 152.
^Maxwell Miller & Hayes 1986, p. 214.
^Lipiński 2000, p. 369.
^ a bGalvin 2011, p. 90.
^ a bBryce 2012, p. 178.
^ a b cNelson 2014, p. 109.
^Dever 2012, p. 363.
^Suriano 2007, p. 174.
^Kah-Jin Kuan 2016, p. 125.
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