Hi there. You're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast interview episode on the Salucod Empire with Dr. Kyle Erickson.

Hello everyone. Today with me I have Dr. Kyle Erickson, Assistant Dean of Humanities and Performing Arts at the University of Wales, Trinity St. David.

Dr. Erickson is a specialist in the Hellenistic period, particularly

the Seleucid Empire, with a focus on numismatics, divine iconography, and the relationship they play

in Hellenistic kingship. Recently, Dr. Erickson has published a number of papers and works,

such as the early Seleucids, their gods, and their coins, and served as the editor and contributor

for the Salucod Empire, 281, and their coins, and served as the editor and contributor for the

Salucid Empire, 281 to 222 BC, War Within the Family. First off, I'd like to say thank you for

taking the time to be on the show. So, Dr. Erickson, would you like to give a bit of a background

for your career and how you became so interested in the Salucod Empire and the Hellenistic

period in general?

Yep. So I came out of, as an undergraduate, I was always interested in Alexander. And most

universities, when they do Greek history, they don't cover the Hellenistic period at all. That's

changing slightly in the last 20 years.

But it's a difficult period to teach, as I've discovered throughout my career.

So when I look to do my master's in my PhD, I was trying to look at the things that came after and out in the center.

And how do you talk about them and who's talking about them?

And your choices really are the intended, the, the tolerance, and the solucids.

And when I started, very few people talking about the solucids, which made it far more interesting.

So the fact that they've got a big empire with some difficult source material makes it really

interesting to look at the nuances and the fact

that the English-speaking scholarship hasn't included them for the last 50 years or so.

...