21st
May 2025
Next club meeting Monday 2nd
June - Club AGM and Display Competition
It’s that time of year again!
Time to elect your club committee for the
year – and time for volunteers to step forward to join the committee! Do
consider it, as your knowledge and energy are needed to help us run your club.
It’s also time to for your entries to the
annual display competition on please!
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist
Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
May 2025 Meeting
A talk given by Tim Everson - Things
Fall Apart: The Slow and Steady Decline of the Seleucid Empire
At the time of his death in 323 BC
Alexander the Great had created a vast empire, which encompassed Greece,
Macedonia, Thrace, much of Asia Minor, the Levant, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and an
area covering modern day Iran, Pakistan, and the “…stans” to the north
(Sogdiana and Bactria). Alexander left his empire to the strongest, and it was subsequently
divided between his generals Antigonus, Eumenes, Lysimachos, Seleucus and
Ptolemy.
The major coin of Alexander’s empire was
the silver Tetradrachm – shown below. A marked feature of the coin is the head
with a lion cloak and headdress (Alexander as Hercules) and a reverse of a
seated deity with Alexander inscribed vertically. This pattern of Tetradrachm
remains the norm for 200 years more, and also retains
its value throughout that period, although the heads vary somewhat and reverse
designs change but always keeping the ruler’s name.
Ptolemy takes Egypt, and his descendant’s
rule over a territory that remains largely unchanged until its incorporation into
the Roman empire in 30 BC.
Initially Seleucus held Babylonia,
Antigonus Lycia and Pamphylia (southern Turkey), Eumenes most of modern-day
Turkey. But Antigonus rapidly expanded his territory by diplomatic and military
means and within 6 years held all of Alexander’s Asian empire save for upper
Mesopotamia, which was held by Seleucus.
Opposed by a coalition of Ptolemy,
Seleucus, Cassander (of Macedonia) and Lysimachus (holding Thrace), Antigonus
was finally defeated at Ipsus in 304 BC, and his territory was reduced to
modern-day Turkey, Levant and Cyprus. Seleucus now ruled everything to the east
up to Bactria, Sogdiana and the Indus valley.
In the next 30 years Seleucus and his
successor Antiochus I expanded the Seleucid empire through Cappadocia and
Phrygia to the Aegean Sea.
Tetradrachm of Antiochus I Soter 281
-261BC
However,
by 225 BC in the reign of Seleucus II the empire had shrunk losing Bactria and
Parthia in the east, and most of Asia Minor to a number of
new independent states including Pergamon, Bithynia, Pontus, Cappadocia and
Armenia.
Under
Antiochus III Megas much of Phrygia had been recovered by 200 BC, and Pergamon
reduced to a small state on the Aegean coast of Phrygia. The empire now
included Syria, Jordan and Palestine.
Tetradrachm of Antiochos III Megas 223-187
BC
This
was really the highwater mark of the empire as the Seleucids were being
challenged by the growing forces of Rome in the west and those of Parthia in
the east.
Gold Oktadrachm of Antiochus III Megas
from Seleuciea on Tigris (value £380,000)
The
Rome-Pergamon alliance recaptured Phrygia (southern Asia Minor from the
Seleucids after the battle of Magnesia (c190 BC), and Armenia was expanding to
the north. From hereon increasing external pressures on the empire together
with internal dynastic intrigues led to a rapid loss of territory, and without
the strong leadership exemplified by Antiochos III, the empire shrunk and by
140 BC to no more than the modern northern Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and
Antioch. Babylonia was now part of the Parthian empire.
Despite
some limited push back during the reign of Antiochos the empire gradually
declined until its territory only encompassed the crescent of the environs of
Antioch, Tarsus and Damascus. This rump of empire lasted to 64 BC when the
Roman general Pompey reformed it into the Roman province of Syria.
The
eventual collapse of the empire was exacerbated by the complex dynastic claims
to title of emperor by the descendants of Seleucus I. In the last 80 years of
the empire there were 17 Kings, and in the year 95 BC no less than six. During
the period 115-64 there were separate contemporaneous kings in Antioch, Cilicia
and Damascus.
Despite
all this, throughout the turbulent life of the empire the Tetradrachm kept its
value, and its minting was maintained to a high
standard. A variation from the usual obverse pattern of the lion and wreathed/
banded heads was that of a radiate crown exhibited on the coin of Antiochus VI
Epiphanes Dionysos, 145 – 142.
