Abstract
The paper is devoted to the problems of socio-economic history of the Hellenistic Commagene in the fi rst century BC. Based on the scant information from the royal inscriptions of Antiochus I Theos (69‒34 BC), the author comes to the conclusion, that in Hellenistic Commagene, the king, in all probability, was the supreme land owner, who disposed of state lands quite freely. On these lands, peasants worked, united in communities (territorial-neighboring?), and paid taxes to the treasury. It is unlikely that the situation of the Commagene farmers of the inscriptions of Antiochus I can be compared with the situation of the Seleucid laoi ‒ a category of dependent population who sat on royal and private lands and resembled to a certain extent slaves. In general, the described system is very similar to the order of collecting rent-tax in great Armenia of the second century BC, judging by the inscriptions of Artashes I (189‒160 BC), which has a clear similarity to the way taxes were collected in Armenia of the Achaemenid era (late 5th century BC). An eloquent description of the Achaemenid practice of levying taxes on the territory of the satrapy of Eastern Armenia (which included Commagene) is preserved in the “Anabasis” of the Greek writer and historian Xenophon. In addition, it is clear that the economy of Hellenistic Commagene was dominated by a rural lifestyle, while agriculture on its territory was of an oasis nature, and the cities were poorly developed. In this sense, little has changed compared to the pre-Hellenistic era. In the inscriptions of Antiochus I there is also some information about the temple lands, primarily belonging to the sanctuaries of the royal and dynastic cults. The land was allocated to sanctuaries by the decision of the king, and the peasants who had previously sat on state lands were transferred to the category of so-called temple slaves (hierodules), who now served the priests of the royal and dynastic cults. The hierodules were not subject to any alienation, for example, they could not be sold. The author believes that the Commagenian hierodules were indeed slaves, but not of the antique, but rather of the more primitive, ancient eastern type. According to the author, the closest analogy to the practice of creating sanctuaries of the royal and dynastic cults in Commagene is the Hittite practice refl ected in the edict of Queen Asmunikal (14th –13th centuries BC) ‒ the creation of a “stone house” – a funeral temple in honor of the deceased king, and according to the edict, the royal lands with villages, livestock and handicrafts were transferred to him. Given that on the territory of Commagene at the beginning of the fi rst millennium BC there was a late Hittite kingdom of Kummukh and this analogy is not improbable. The author does not believe that it is necessary to speak about the autonomy of the Commagenian sanctuaries of the royal cult; in fact, they acted as branches of the royal economy. It was the same in Ancient Egypt. Thus, the example of Commagene shows that in some cases the Hellenistic state is a continuation of the Eastern forms of socio-economic and socio-political life, only slightly affected by Greek infl uence.
Keywords
Hellenism, Commagene, Antiochus I, inscriptions, royal lands, Achaemenids, Great Armenia, temple lands, Hittites, hierodules.
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