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The Seleukid Empire, 281-222 BC. War within the Family.


Edited by Kyle Erickson
ISBN-13 9781910589717 ISBN-10 1910589713, hardback, vii 315pp, 2018,
 

The Seleukids, the easternmost of the Greekspeaking dynasties which succeeded Alexander the Great, were long portrayed by historians as inherently weak and doomed to decline after the passing of their remarkable first king, Seleukos (died 281 BC). And yet they succeeded in ruling much of the Near and Middle East for over two centuries, overcoming problems of a multi-ethnic empire.

In this book an international team of scholars argues that in the decades after Seleukos the empire developed flexible structures that successfully bound it together in the face of a series of catastrophes. The strength of the Seleukid realm lay not simply in its vast swathes of territory, but more in knowing how to tie the new, frequently non-Greek, nobility to the king through mutual recognition of sovereignty.

 

The Contributors
Altay Coskun, Monica D’Agostini, David Engels, Kyle Erickson, John R. Holton, Alex McAuley, Stephen Mitchell, Rolf Strootman, Richard Wenghofer, Nicholas L. Wright

 

Contents

Introduction by Kyle Erickson

1. Dispelling Seleukid phantoms: Macedonians in Western Asia Minor from Alexander to the Attalids - Stephen Mitchell

2. The House of Achaios: reconstructing an early client dynasty of Seleukid Anatolia - Alex McAuley

3. Asia Minor and the many shades of a civil war. Observations on Achaios the Younger and his claim to the kingdom of Anatolia - Monica D’Agostini

4. Seleukos, Zeus and the dynastic cult at Seleukeia in Pieria - Nicholas L. Wright

5. The ideology of Seleukid joint kingship: the case of Seleukos, son of Antiochos I - John Russell Holton

6. The coming of the Parthians: crisis and resilience in the reign of Seleukos II - Rolf Strootman

7. Rethinking the relationship between Hellenistic Baktria and the Seleukid Empire - Richard Wenghofer

8 . Iranian identity and Seleukid allegiance: Vahbarz, the Frataraka and early Arsakid coinage - David Engels

9. The War of Brothers, the Third Syrian War, and the Battle of Ankyra (246–241 BC): a re-appraisal - Altay Coskun

10. Antiochos Soter and the Third Syrian War - Kyle Erickson

Bibliography

Index