Hi there. You're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast. Episode 56, the Seleucid Empire,

a royal wedding, a backtrain revolt, and a Parthian invasion.

Over 25 episodes ago, we covered the reigns of the first two kings of the Seleucat

Empire, Seleuca is the first Nicator and his son Antiochus the first Sotere.

Despite some setbacks, the empire was easily one of the most powerful

states in the known world, only to be really challenged by its Egyptian rivals of the House of

Ptolemy. From 281 onwards, Antiochus continued his father's program of urbanization and

city building throughout the Near East and Central Asia, while successfully dealing with threats

like marauding

Celts in Asia Minor and Ptolemaic incursions into Syria. The last years of Antiochus's reign did not go

so smoothly, however, as a defeat inflicted by a subordinate official Eumenes of Pergamon contributed to

the king's death in 261 and left the situation of Asia Minor up in the air.

But it has been argued that the wind had long been taken out of Antiochus' sales when he was forced to execute his son and joint ruler, Salukas, sometime around the year 267.

The details are murky and virtually non-existent, but it is possible that Salukas was becoming impatient at the prospect

of ruling the empire on his own. He had been a joint king for well over 13 years, the longest

of any known Salucan monarch. Therefore, upon the king's death, it would be left to his youngest and

last surviving son Antiochus II to assume the diadem. It seems that this wasn't a universally

accepted move,

as there appears to be a disturbance in Babylonia around the same time as his coronation

involving someone named Seleucus. It could be an impostor pretending to be his dead brother

or merely a rebellious official. Like the rest of Antiochus's reign though, it's poorly documented

and unfortunately not much can be said

...