Seleukid3

HEIGHT OF SELEUKID POWER

246 – 225 Seleukos II Pogōn Kallinikos ("The Bearded Beautiful Victor"), Fourth Seleukid King

He came to the throne in 246, following the murder of his father. On his accession he was in Ephesus, while his younger half-brother who was in Syria claimed the throne; the Egyptians invaded in support of the younger brother, seizing Cilicia and Babylonia (Third Syrian War / Laodicean War). However, the brother was assassinated and the Egyptians were forced to turn back, after ravaging Babylonia, by unrest at home. Seleukos II re-conquered Babylonia and established himself as King by 245, but in the chaos he had lost much of the east to the Parthians and Anatolia to another rebellious brother. The rebellion in Anatolia was put down, with help from Pergamon, which, however, took much of Western Anatolia for itself.

He married Laodikē II, sister of Andromachos and aunt of Achaios, a Seleucid General who made himself King of Anatolia after 222. He took as a concubine (first) Mysta. He took as a concubine (second) Nysa. He had issue:

225 – 222 Seleukos III Keraunos Sōtēr ("The Saviour Thunderbolt"), Fifth Seleukid King.

Born Alexandros, he changed his name on succeeding to the throne in 225. He was weak and sickly and thus struggled to retain the esteem of the army. He was poisoned in 222 during an expedition to recapture Western Anatolia from the Kingdom of Pergamon and was succeeded by his brother. His general, and maternal cousin, Achaios successfully continued the expedition, setting himself up as the independent King of Anatolia.

222 – 186 Antiochos III Megas ("The Great"), Sixth Seleukid King.

Born between 243 and 241, he succeeded to the throne after his brother’s death on campaign in Anatolia. He led a number of highly successful campaigns; conquering Seleukia Piera (the long-lost western capital of the realm) and Tyre from the Egyptians (The Fourth Syrian War: 219-217), re-conquering Central Anatolia from the rogue general Achaeus (216-213), and leading a great expedition into the east to reassert his power over Media, Persia, Parthia and Bactria (212-205). This expedition consciously paralled the eastern campaign of Alexander the Great and culminated in a two-year siege of the Bactrian capital. On his return Antiochos was hailed as “Megas” (the Great), just like Alexander. In 211 he took Judaea from the Egyptians, and in 202 he took Coele-Syria, also, and would have invaded Egypt itself, but for Roman diplomatic intervention (The Fifth Syrian War). He reoriented himself towards Western Anatolia and in 196 went a step further and invaded Europe. Much of Greece, which had recently come under Roman control, hailed him as their saviour. He received vague threats from the Romans and went to war with them in 192, invading Macedon and Greece, only to be defeated on land by the Romans under Manius Acilius Glabrio at Thermopylae in 191. He was then defeated at sea by the Romans under Livius and the Rhodians, only later winning a naval battle near Ephesus. In 190, the Romans under Publius Cornelius Scipio invaded Anatolia and decisively defeated Antiochos III at Magnesia. He finally received peace in 188, losing not only Europe, but all of Anatolia.

In 199, he married (first) his cousin, Laodikē III, daughter of Mithridatēs, King of Pontus (see PONTUS). In 191 he married (second) Euboia, a Chalcidian girl, the daughter of a Kleoptolemos, in the middle of his invasion of Greece. He died in 187, after plundering a Temple of Bel near Susa, but had issue:

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