autonomy and
exemption from tribute were formally accorded to the Jews (612);
and soon afterwards the head of the Maccabaean house, Simon son of
Mattathias, was even formally acknowledged by the nation as well as by
the Syrian great-king as high priest and prince of Israel (615).(39)

The Parthian Empire

Of still more importance in the sequel than this insurrection of
the Israelites was the contemporary movement--probably originating
from the same cause--in the eastern provinces, where Antiochus Epiphanes
emptied the temples of the Persian gods just as he had emptied that at
Jerusalem, and doubtless accorded no better treatment there to the
adherents of Ahuramazda and Mithra than here to those of Jehovah.
Just as in Judaea--only with a wider range and ampler proportions--
the result was a reaction on the part of the native manners and
the native religion against Hellenism and the Hellenic gods; the
promoters of this movement were the Parthians, and out of it arose
the great Parthian empire. The "Parthwa," or Parthians, who are early
met with as one of the numerous peoples merged in the great Persian
empire, at first in the modern Khorasan to the south-east of the
Caspian sea, appear after 500 under the Scythian, i. e. Turanian,
princely race of the Arsacids as an independent state; which,
however, only emerged from its obscurity about a century afterwards.
The sixth Arsaces, Mithradates I (579?-618?), was the real founder
of the Parthian as a great power. To him succumbed the Bactrian
empire, in itself far more powerful, but already shaken to the very
foundation partly by hostilities with the hordes of Scythian horsemen
from Turan and with the states of the Indus, partly by internal
disorders. He achieved almost equal successes in the countries
to the west of the great desert. The Syrian empire was just then
in the utmost disorganization, partly through the failure of the
Hellenizing attempts of Antiochus Epiphanes, partly through the
troubles as to the succession that occurred after his death; and
the provinces of the interior were in full course of breaking off
from Antioch and the region of the coast. In Commagene for instance,
the most northerly province of Syria on the Cappadocian frontier,
the satrap Ptolemaeus asserted his independence, as did also on
the opposite bank of the Euphrates the prince of Edessa in northern
Mesopotamia or the province of Osrhoene, and the satrap Timarchus in
the important pro