Characene (Mesene)

The Seleucid kingdom, prevented from retaking the Parthian lands it once controlled, begins to rapidly disintegrate.

The defeat of Antiochus has finally ended Seleucid dominion over the countries east of the Euphrates River, and marks the beginning of small principalities in both the north and south of Mesopotamia.

In Mesene (also called Characene, Persian Meshan), a Seleucid satrap with an Iranian name, Hyspaosines (also called Aspasine, or Spasines, who reigns from 127 BCE to about 121 BCE, refortifies Antiochia, a town originally founded by Alexander the Great near the junction of the Eulaeus (Karun) and Tigris rivers, and calls it Spasinou Charax (“Fort of Spasines”).

Hyspaosines' troops had moved north and occupied Babylon and Seleucia probably sometime in 127, when the Parthians were fighting nomadic invaders in the eastern part of their territory.

His rule there must have been short, however, for the Parthian governor of Babylon and the north, Himerus, was back in Seleucia and Babylon by 126.

Himerus cannot have been a rebel, since he strikes coins in the name of the Parthian rulers Phraates II and Artabanus II, both of whom had been killed in fighting in eastern Iran.

Himerus abuses his power and is said to have oppressed the cities of Mesopotamia, plundering them and killing their inhabitants.

Cuneiform documents from Babylon stop after this date, indicating that the city does not survive the depredations of Himerus.

He vanishes, however, and Parthian sovereignty is restored by the ninth Arsacid king, Mithridates II, who comes to the throne about 124; he is the son of Artabanus II, who had been slain fighting the Sakas.

Mithridates recovers all Mesopotamia and …

…conquers Characene, overstriking coins of Hyspaosines and driving him from his capital in 122 or 121.

Trajan continues southward to the Persian Gulf, receiving the submission of Athambelus, the ruler of Charax, whence he declares Babylon a new province of the Empire, sends the Senate a laureled letter declaring the war to be at a close and bemoaning that he is too old to go on any further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great.

A province of Assyria is also proclaimed, apparently covering the territory of Adiabene, as well as some measures seem to have been considered about the fiscal administration of the Indian trade.

However, as Trajan leaves the Persian Gulf for Babylon—where he intends to offer sacrifice to Alexander in the house where he had died in 323 BCE—a sudden outburst of Parthian resistance, led by a nephew of the Parthian king, Sanatruces, imperils Roman positions in Mesopotamia and Armenia, something Trajan seeks to deal with by forsaking direct Roman rule in Parthia proper, at least partially.

The emperor, after defeating a Parthian army in a battle where Sanatruces is killed and retaking Seleucia in 116, formally deposes the Parthian king Osroes I later in the year.

Parthamaspates, a pro-Roman son of Osroes who has spent much of his life in Roman exile, has accompanied Trajan on the latter's campaign to conquer Parthia.

Trajan had originally planned to annex Parthia as part of the Roman Empire, but ultimately decides instead to place Parthamaspates on his father's throne as a Roman client, doing so in 116.

That done, he retreats north in order to retain what he can of the new provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia.

It is at this point that Trajan's health starts to fail him.

The fortress city of Hatra, on the Tigris in his rear, continues to hold out against repeated Roman assaults.

He is personally present at the siege and it is possible that he suffered a heat stroke while in the blazing heat.

Shortly afterwards, the Jews inside the Roman Empire rise up in rebellion once more, as do the people of Mesopotamia.

Trajan is forced to withdraw his army in order to put down the revolts.

Trajan sees it as simply a temporary setback, but he is destined never to command an army in the field again, turning his Eastern armies over to the high ranking legate and governor of Judaea, Lucius Quietus, who in early 116 had been in charge of the Roman division that had recovered Nisibis and Edessa from the rebels.

Trajan reconquers Nisibis (Nusaybin in Turkey), …

…Edessa, the capital of Osroene, a small Roman client state between Asia Minor and Syria, …

…Seleucia on the Tigris (Iraq), each of which houses large Jewish communities.

Osroes, following Roman withdrawal from the area, easily defeats Parthamaspates and reclaims the Parthian throne.

Trajan grows ill early in 117 and sets out to sail back to Italy.

His health declines throughout the spring and summer of the year, something publicly acknowledged by the fact that a bronze bust displayed at the time in the public baths of Ancyra show him clearly aged and emaciated.

By the time he reaches Selinus in Cilicia, which is afterwards called Trajanopolis, he suddenly dies from edema on August 9.

Some say that he had adopted Hadrian as his successor, but others that it was his wife Pompeia Plotina who hired someone to impersonate him after he had died.