Arsameia
Arsameia, located at the foot of the Mount Nemrut, is one of those magical places in Turkey that hide in the shadow of a famous tourist attraction located nearby. While the peak of Mount Nemrut regularly fills with an international crowd, especially at sunrise and sunset times, the ruins of ancient Arsameia silently wait for someone to drop by. Undoubtedly, this is for the benefit of those lucky people who decide to visit Arsameia, because they will be able to calmly and peacefully contemplate its wonderful reliefs, explore the tunnels and admire the picturesque views from the Acropolis of this summer capital of the Commagene Kingdom.
It is worth remembering that the full name of the place discussed here is Arsameia on the Nymphaios, as it distinguishes this location from the other Arsameias - on the Euphrates, now known as Gerger. Both Arsameias owe their name to King Arsames from Armenia. He reached for power around 260 BCE, in the turbulent period of the Syrian Wars. They were fought between the Seleucid Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt ruled by Ptolemies, that is between the states that were the heirs of the vast but short-lived empire of Alexander the Great. The Syrian Wars took place in the Coele-Syria, covering the territories of Syria and southern Anatolia, in the third and second centuries BCE. This long-lasting conflict was a huge burden on both sides, depleted their human and material resources, and enabled local rulers to make successful attempts to gain control over fragments of the theatre of war. One of them was Arsames, who founded the Kingdom of Commagene. Of course, all these local disputes ultimately led to the conquest and division of contentious areas between Rome and Parthia.
The figure of Arsames, the founder of both Arsameias, is shrouded in mystery. We get to know him thanks to the inscriptions discovered in Arsameia on the Nymphaios. Most probably, he can be identified with the king of Armenia, described by the Greek author Polyaenus, who supported Antiochus Hierax - the younger brother of King Seleucus II Callinicus. Antiochus rebelled against him, won the battle near Ankara, but eventually lost the war for power, and fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by the robbers. The construction of Arsameia's fortress by Arsames would be justified in this light by the ongoing military activities against Seleucus.
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