Banditry and Local Safety in Parthian Babylonia

Babylonia, the lower Mesopotamian region of present-day Iraq, appears in the late first-century account of the Jewish historian Josephus through the story of one armed group. Brothers Asineus and Anileus left a weaving apprenticeship, recruited poor followers, and demanded livestock from herders in exchange for protection. After defeating a provincial governor’s force, they won recognition from Artabanus II, a king of the Arsacid dynasty that ruled the Parthian Empire. Their rise shows how a local following could provide security while also making surrounding families vulnerable to its demands.

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From apprenticeship to river refuge

Josephus places the brothers in Neerda, a Babylonian city. He says their father had died and they were apprenticed to a weaver who made curtains. After their master beat them for arriving late, they took weapons from his house and fled to a district called the Parting of the Rivers. Josephus describes pasture for cattle and provisions stored for winter there. Richard Fowler identifies the area as wetland terrain, drawing on Josephus’s later reference to its lakes. The low-lying channels offered a refuge where the brothers could gather supplies and followers. Josephus says young men from the poorest class joined them, and the group built a fortified stronghold.

Livestock for protection

The brothers demanded livestock from local herders to support their armed band and offered to protect the flocks from other enemies. Josephus says they threatened to kill the animals of any herder who refused. A shepherd therefore faced a choice imposed by the armed group: hand over part of the flock or risk having animals killed. Protection and coercion came from the same men. By tying their force to local grazing and stored provisions, the brothers could sustain their followers and claim power over the surrounding countryside.

A local force gains royal recognition

The governor of Babylonia assembled Parthian and Babylonian troops to dislodge the brothers. He attacked on the Sabbath, the Jewish weekly rest day, expecting their followers to refrain from fighting. Josephus says Asineus decided that his men should defend themselves, and they defeated the governor’s force. Artabanus invited the brothers to court. Josephus says the king sent a trusted guard to offer safe passage and gave his “right hand” as a personal pledge of safety; when Asineus hesitated, Artabanus swore no harm would come to them. Josephus explains that the king wanted to use the brothers’ military strength to check provincial governors who were ready to rebel. He entrusted Asineus with control of Babylonia, charging him with keeping the region free of robbers. Parthian generals sent to the area began to seek Asineus’s favor. Josephus says the brothers held power in Mesopotamia for fifteen years.

The grant gave the brothers an acknowledged position while their authority remained grounded in the armed following they had built. For Artabanus, recognizing their local power offered a way to restrain rebellious governors and secure Babylonia through a regional ally. Fowler notes that historians usually place the reported fifteen-year period from roughly the early 20s to the mid-30s CE. The king’s pledge and grant connect to wider questions of law and agreements in the Parthian Empire.

When protection collapsed into raiding

Josephus makes a dispute over religious practice the turning point in the brothers’ story. Anileus married the widow of a Parthian officer killed in battle. She kept images of her family’s gods and continued worshipping them in the household. Josephus frames the followers’ objections as a defense of Jewish law. When Anileus killed one critic, Asineus tolerated the breach for a time but later asked his brother to send the woman away. She poisoned Asineus, leaving Anileus in sole command.

Anileus then raided villages belonging to Mithridates, a son-in-law of Artabanus, and carried off money, enslaved people, and livestock. In a night attack, he captured Mithridates and sent him home on an ass in a deliberate humiliation. Josephus says Anileus spared him because killing Artabanus’s son-in-law might bring royal slaughter on Jews in Babylonia. Mithridates returned with a larger force after his wife urged him to avenge the insult. Josephus says Anileus’s men had marched across dry ground and were so thirsty that they could not handle their weapons effectively when the attack came. After their defeat, Anileus recruited a new following and continued raiding Babylonian villages.

The Babylonians approached the Jews of Neerda, seeking Anileus, and then opened talks with him. In Josephus’s account, the negotiations let them learn where his band was camped. They attacked the men while they slept and killed Anileus and his followers. The sequence shows how a leader’s death and the collapse of his armed force changed who could threaten local households.

Flight and communal violence

Josephus says that after Anileus’s band was destroyed, Babylonians attacked Jewish communities in the region. Some people moved to Seleucia-Tigris, a major city on the Tigris, where Greek, Syrian, and Jewish residents lived. He says the first Jewish refugees lived there for five years. In the sixth year, illness in Babylonia sent more people to the city. Josephus then describes the Greek and Syrian residents as rivals: Greeks dominated the Syrians, and during a revolt the Jews supported the Syrians, who prevailed. The Greeks later reconciled with the Syrians to break that alliance, and the two groups attacked the Jews in a massacre. Those who escaped went first to nearby Ctesiphon, where the Parthian king spent the winter; many later assembled for safety in the fortified cities of Neerda and Nisibis. This sequence links the brothers’ local struggle to the violence and displacement affecting Jewish communities.

Fowler notes the episode’s vivid, novelistic character and its strong Jewish focus. He reports that historians generally date the Seleucia massacre to around 42 CE, distinct from the earlier period of the brothers’ authority. Movement between Neerda, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Nisibis also connects the story to travel between settlements. The episode shows how local security shifted as armed leaders, provincial governors, royal power, and urban communities came into conflict. For the wider setting, see daily life under Arsacid rule.