Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast.

Episode 88, The Pact of the Kings. kings. For nearly 80 years, the Hellenistic world has been dominated by the three great

powers, the Seleucid Empire, Antigna Macedonia, and Ptolemaic Egypt. Warfare was a near constant feature of the third century, but none of the successor

dynasties seemed to be able to gain a decisive edge over the others and reunite Alexander's

long-dead empire.

Yet in 2004, the situation had dramatically changed.

Ptolemy the fourth's unexpected demise, the political infighting among his ministers for control

of the boy king Ptolemy V, and the rebellion of the Egyptians in the Thebeid brought the

run's prosperous realm to its knees.

These calamities could not have come at a worse moment, for while the fortunes of the Ptolemies

were plummeting, the others

were at the peak of their strength. Philip V and Antiochus III were some of the most ambitious

warrior kings of the entire period, eager for the opportunity to destroy their long-hated rivals

and divide the spoils between themselves. When we last left Antiochus in the spring of 205, he had just completed his anabasis,

the campaigns launched throughout much of Western and Central Asia in order to assert his authority

over the long-neglected regions of his empire, earning him the self-styled epithet, Antiochus

the Great.

In a complete reversal of the situation from nearly 20 years before, the Seleucid household had replenished itself after Antiochus was left the last male heir of the family.

His wife, Queen Laudique III, had given birth to the crown prince Entaichus in 220, who by now entered the earliest

stages of manhood and was already made co-ruler in 211 shortly before his father departed

for the east. Between 218 and 211, she provided him with two other sons named Seleucus

and Mithridates, along with at least one daughter named Laudicay.

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