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The Seleukid Empire of Antiochus III, 223–187 BC Kindle Edition

by John D. Grainger (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 out of 5 stars 64
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Brings to life “a major figure in the Hellenistic World . . . in his own right, rather than as just another stepping stone during Rome’s rise” (HistoryOfWar.org).

The second volume in John Grainger’s history of the Seleukid Empire is devoted to the reign of Antiochus III. Too often remembered only as the man who lost to the Romans at Magnesia, Antiochus is here revealed as one of the most powerful and capable rulers of the age. Having emerged from civil war in 223 as the sole survivor of the Seleukid dynasty, he shouldered the burdens of a weakened and divided realm. Though defeated by Egypt in the Fourth Syrian War, he gradually restored full control over the empire. His great Eastern campaign took Macedonian arms back to India for the first time since Alexander’s day and, returning west, he went on to conquer Thrace and finally wrest Syria from Ptolemaic control. 

Then came intervention in Greece and the clash with Rome leading to the defeat at Magnesia and the restrictive Peace of Apamea. Despite this, Antiochus remained ambitious, campaigning in the East again; when he died in 187 BC the empire was still one of the most powerful states in the world.
 
“We are, Grainger says, so ‘hypnotised’ by the rise of Rome that we ignore the Seleukid and Ptolemaic interlude. His clear and fascinating account breaks this spell.”—Minerva Magazine
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John D. Grainger is a former teacher turned professional historian. He has over thirty books to his name, divided between classical history and modern British political and military history. His previous books for Pen & Sword are Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars; Wars of the Maccabees; Traditional Enemies: Britain’s War with Vichy France 1940-42; Roman Conquests: Egypt and Judaea; Rome, Parthia and India: The Violent Emergence of a New World Order: 150-140 BC; a three-volume history of the Seleukid Empire and British Campaigns in the South Atlantic 1805-1807.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00USAEPHG
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Praetorian Press (March 31, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 31, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1664 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 64

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
64 global ratings
terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally ...
5 Stars
terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally ...
terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally so I can tell you this book is spot on!! Z9Z9
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Top reviews from the United States

Aaron M. Harris
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2018
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This is a great book on the middle cycles of the Seleucid Empire.
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Dominicus
4.0 out of 5 stars A slightly imperfect addition to the story of the Seleukid Empire
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2015
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Once again John D. Grainger has written an exceptional book highlighting one of the most overlooked empires in history and one of it's greatest rulers who is widely misunderstood today thanks to ancient Roman propaganda and the all-too-eager willingness of modern day historians and readers to take the works of ancient writers at face value.

My only disappointments with this piece of work is that Mr. Grainger didn't go into more detail regarding the inner workings of the Seleukid Empire during this time period. Topics such as how he reinvigorated the empire's economy after the Third Syrian War and Molon's rebellion, how the satrapies were reorganized following these conflicts or improved upon and how Antiochus III improved and reformed the Seleukid army with the introduction of the kataphracts and horse archers (the latter of which in admittedly limited quantity).

Despite those critiques, this is an excellent book that will go a long way to enlightening people about the Seleukid Empire and to slowly restore some of Antiochus the Great's unjustly tarnished legacy.
6 people found this helpful
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z9z9
5.0 out of 5 stars terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
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terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally so I can tell you this book is spot on!! Z9Z9
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z9z9
5.0 out of 5 stars terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
terrific read, I was there and knew ANTIOCHUS111 personally so I can tell you this book is spot on!! Z9Z9
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One person found this helpful
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John C. Davis
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2016
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Good read.
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JPS
4.0 out of 5 stars Still very good, but not quite as good
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2015
This is the second volume in John Grainger's history of the Seleucid Empire and it is entirely centred on the (long) reign of Antiochus III, perhaps the best documented Seleucid reign.

For once, the “marketing blurb” of the cover page (and which figures on Amazon’s sites) reflects some of the book’s contents rather well. Antiochus is indeed “too often remembered only as the man who lost to the Romans at Magnesia” and this book does show him “as one of the most powerful and capable rulers of the age.” However, it also shows that his defeat against the Romans was not a disaster, that the war was no “walk-over” for the Romans, and that they almost lost at Magnesia.

The chapters on the Antiochus’ War against Rome are probably among the very best of the book and they largely draw from the author’s more scholarly publication on the same topic. The description of the politics and how the premises of the war were rewritten by pro-Roman authors afterwards are particularly well shown. The mistakes of the Seleucid King are also well analysed.

The rise of Antiochus to power, or rather how he had to fight to keep his throne and reconquer his Empire province by province, is also well told. Particularly well told are the parts related to the Fourth and Fifth “Syrian Wars” against the Ptolemy rivals and where, again, the author has published a much more complete by more scholarly and terribly expensive book. Also well-described is the re-conquest of Asia Minor which draws on a number of works, such as John Ma’s, but also some of the John Grainger’s himself. I was less impressed by the sections on Antiochus’ “Anabasis”, as it has been called, that is his multi-year tour and expedition with his army in the Upper Satrapies to consolidate the northern (Armenia and Cappadocia), eastern rand north eastern frontiers. While good, I found these pieces perhaps less impressive, although, to be fair, they are also those that are the least documented.

Another strongpoint which comes across throughout the book shows to what extent it was a major and hugely difficult task to hold together the Empire. This required an indefatigable King rushing from one front to another and preferably backed by a younger heir who would keep control of the area where the senior ruler was not at the time. As with his predecessors, this was what Antiochus achieved first with Antiochus the Younger, who fought with him during the Fifth Syrian War, and then with Seleukos, his eventual successor, who took part in the war against the Romans in Asia.

Particularly interesting is the author’s assessment that, despite losing the war against the Romans, Antiochus III’s Seleucid Empire at his death was certainly better off than when he became King. A related point was to show that while losing Thrace and Asia Minor was certainly a blow, it also removed a major source of distraction. The loss of Asia Minor meant that the Seleucid kings were longer embroiled in the multiple conflicts pitting its various smaller states and cities against each other. It was balanced, and probably ever more than balanced, by the re-acquisition of all of the rich Coele Syria and the destruction of the overseas Ptolemaic Empire and the weakening of the this perennial rival.

Despite its many qualities, however, I did have a few issues with this title which I did not find it quite as could as the previous volume, nor quite as clear as Michael Taylor’s biography on Antiochus III.

One is that I had the impression that I was reading a watered down and simplified version because at least some of the chapters are condensed versions of more scholarly but also more complete, works. This shows in a number of cases throughout the book but particularly so when discussing campaigns and the Seleucid army. This is a topic where the author has heavily relied upon and borrowed from Bar Kochva’s superb study. While acknowledging this through his notes (although, oddly enough, Bar Kochvas’s book does not manage to make it to the bibliography!), John Grainger does depart from it in a number of respects but never really gets to discuss these differences.

One example is the author’s choice to stick to a chronological narrative throughout the book. The consequence is the absence of thorough discussion on the Seleucid army (its recruitment, composition and performances, in particular), of the Empire’s resources and of its government. There are bits and pieces on these three topics, and references to other more detailed books, but these are scattered throughout the book. This leads to some odd and unexplained statements at times, such as the one where, according to the author, the kingdom’s core field army was limited to some 35000 with this number seeming to be plucked out of thin air.

The absence of a more detailed discussion on numbers at Magnesia also gives the impression that the Roman and allied forces were larger than that of the Seleucid King whose light troops seems to have been omitted. John Grainger does make a very valid point in underlining that Livy’s assertion about the almost total loss of the Seleucid expeditionary force that accompanied the King to Greece is ludicrous and a gross exaggeration. Several thousand – and perhaps as many as half or two-thirds of the slightly more than ten thousand - must have made their way back to Asia Minor with the King in what was an organised evacuation rather than a free for all escape. Also, while the author mentions that the Aetolians (Antiochus’ allies in the war in Greece against the Romans) were able to provide perhaps more than ten thousand mercenaries to the Ptolemaic King against Antiochus some ten years before, he never gets to really explain how and why they were only able to field four thousand against the Romans at Thermopylae.

There also seems to be missing or incomplete statements or even wrong ones when discussing some of the battles. The author does successfully explain the discrepancy in numbers, and the relatively small size of the Seleucid force at Thermopylae - some ten to eleven thousand plus about four thousand Aetolians facing more than twenty five thousand Roman and allies who were expecting further reinforcements. He does not really explain why the Hellenistic monarch chose to fight this battle when the odds where so unfavourable and what he expected to gain by a successful holding action. The description of the subsequent discussions and the naval war to obtain control of the Straits so that the Roman forces to cross to Asia are well shown, and so is the fact that Antiochus evacuated Thrace to concentrate all his forces.

Also well shown is the fact that it is Antiochus who had the really innovative tactics and that these almost succeeded in crushing the Romans at Magnesia. However they failed, largely thanks to Eumenes action on the Roman right flank so that John Grainger is in a way correct to state that, at Magnesia, it is the latter that was instrumental in the Roman victory rather than the Roman general and his Roman and Italian allies. However, contrary to a couple of strange statements, Antiochus’ tactics also failed in part. Grainger does show that the intention was a dual cavalry assault, but one of these, on the Seleucid failed (and was not a success, contrary to the author’s assertion) while the other, spearheaded by the King himself, broke through a Roman legion but then attacked the Roman camp and failed to rally and attack the Roman battle line from the rear and flanks. It is this failure to rally and control his victorious cavalry that cost the Hellenistic monarch the battle, more than anything else, just as it had cost him the battle over a quarter of a century before when something similar happened to him at Raphia against the Ptolemaic army.

For the reasons above, and if this had been possible, I would have rated this book somewhere in between three and half and four stars. Since it is not, I will assign it four stars
10 people found this helpful
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Spruce Moose
2.0 out of 5 stars overwhelming to the layman
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2022
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More likely than not you know about the Seleucid empire because of some other civilization that you have an interest had some sort of beef with the Seleucids. At the very least, I'd say that was the case with myself. After a while I developed an interest in this Hellenistic kingdom and its kings and it was why I picked up this book, to learn more about them.
I'm merely an armchair historian but I could confidently say I know a fair bit about the Seleucids, so going into this book I was confident I'd know at least the basics and would be able to follow along. Ooh boy, was I wrong.

There are so many names of people and cities constantly thrown at you that it's really overwhelming and the who and the what of many events just go over my head. There are a few maps in the front of the book but these really needed to be spaced out throughout the chapters since having to constantly flip back and forth to the beginning of the book is annoying and it rarely gives me that much insight.

I think this book simply has a different audience other than myself in mind so for me my rating reflects what I as that audience was.
There really isn't a compelling narrative for me here that makes me root for or against Antiochus (at least as far as I have read), or even make me feel like I have a good understanding of this person. I admit though that is a bit of the point. There simply isn't that much that we know about Antiochus outside of a few accounts.
That said this book feels like a laundry list of events. There's as much detail as can be squeezed out but how these things fit together or how important any particular event is isn't always clear to me. A lot of time the details feel irrelevant and are there simply because the writer has those details on hand and doesn't want to leave anything out.
I haven't finished reading the book but as far as I have gotten I don't feel I have too much of a better understanding than I had before I went in other. At best I can rattle off some names, and that's coming from someone who already had some knowledge of the Seleucids. If you went into this book blind I think it would be borderline nonsense to the reader.
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Gary E. Bartlett
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Books
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2019
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Packaged really good!!
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Top reviews from other countries

A. S. Hunt
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book is one of the best historical narratives I have read; Grainger writes extremely well, making excellent use of the known record to produce a narrative that manages to be coherent and confident, while still acknowledging the limitations of existing sources.

We start off at the end of the Rise of the Seleuikid Empire; the death of Seleukos III at the hands of his officers, and the 20 year old Antiochus as king, and the men who would be king, who surrounded him. On the way, he crushes one revolt, murders one advisor, wins a province, then promptly loses it upon the realisation that better elephants do not surpass a 2:1 numerical advantage in heavy infantry.

The list goes on. Graingers' vindication of Antiochus is close to irrefutable; the list of military achievements; the seizure of Palestine without a fight, the conquest of Asia Minor, the reduction of Parthia and Bactria; the fact that in the space of one lifetime, Antiochus III rebuilt the Empire left by Seleukos I, in spite of much more significant military opposition, and two shattering military defeats.

He cuts neatly through the tiresome historical memes to address the battles of Thermopalye and Magnesia in detail; the former, a strategic blunder, but a tactical fluke by the Romans, the latter, a victory not of the Roman Legions, but Pergamese Thureophorii and cavalry, exploiting the failure of the Seleucid cavalry. The book has it's weaknesses; the author neglects to mention to somewhat dubious decision to use scythed chariots, or emplace elephants as close-support troops for pikemen, at Magnesia, or Antiochus inability to reign in his heavy cavalry from attacking the Roman camp, but these are extraordinarily minor flaws in such a good narrative
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JPS
4.0 out of 5 stars Still very good, but not quite as good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2015
Verified Purchase
This is the second volume in John Grainger's history of the Seleucid Empire. It is entirely centred on the (long) reign of Antiochus III, perhaps the best documented Seleucid reign.

For once, the “marketing blurb” of the cover page (and which figures on Amazon’s sites) reflects some of the book’s contents rather well. Antiochus is indeed “too often remembered only as the man who lost to the Romans at Magnesia” and this book does show him “as one of the most powerful and capable rulers of the age.” However, it also shows that his defeat against the Romans was not a disaster, that the war was no “walk-over” for the Romans, and that they almost lost the battle at Magnesia.

The chapters on Antiochus’ War against Rome are probably among the very best. They largely draw from the author’s more scholarly publication centred on this topic. The description of the politics and how the premises of the war were rewritten by pro-Roman authors afterwards are particularly well shown. The mistakes of the Seleucid King are also well analysed.

The rise of Antiochus to power, or rather how he had to fight to keep his throne and reconquer his Empire province by province, is also well presented. Particularly well told are the parts related to the Fourth and Fifth “Syrian Wars” against the Ptolemy rivals and where, again, the author has published a much more complete (by more scholarly and terribly expensive) book. Also well-described is the re-conquest of Asia Minor which draws on a number of works, such as John Ma’s, but also some of John Grainger’s. I was less impressed by the sections on Antiochus’ “Anabasis”, as it has been called, that is his multi-year tour and expedition with his army in the Upper Satrapies to consolidate the northern (Armenia and Cappadocia), eastern and north eastern frontiers. To be fair, however, this period and these campaigns are among the least documented of the whole reign.

Another strongpoint which is present throughout the book shows to what extent it was a hugely difficult task to hold together the Empire. This required an indefatigable King rushing from one front to another and preferably backed by a younger heir who would keep control of the area where the senior ruler was not at the time. As with his predecessors, this was what Antiochus achieved first with Antiochus the Younger, who fought with him during the Fifth Syrian War, and then with Seleukos, his eventual successor, who took part in the war against the Romans in Asia.

Particularly interesting is the author’s assessment that, despite losing the war against the Romans, Antiochus III’s Seleucid Empire at his death was certainly better off than when he became King. A related point was to show that while losing Thrace and Asia Minor was certainly a blow, it also removed a major source of distraction. The loss of Asia Minor meant that the Seleucid kings were no longer embroiled in the multiple conflicts pitting its various smaller states and cities against each other. It was balanced, and probably ever more than balanced, by the re-acquisition of all of the rich Coele Syria, the destruction of the overseas Ptolemaic Empire and the weakening of this perennial rival.

Despite its many qualities, however, I did have a few issues with this title which I did not find it quite as good as the previous volume, nor quite as clear as Michael Taylor’s biography on Antiochus III.

One is that I had the impression that I was reading a watered down and simplified version because at least some of the chapters are condensed versions of the author's more scholarly but also more complete works. This shows in a number of cases throughout the book but particularly when discussing campaigns and the Seleucid army. This is a topic where the author has heavily relied upon and borrowed from Bar Kochva’s superb study. While acknowledging this through his notes (although, oddly enough, Bar Kochvas’s book does not manage to make it to the bibliography!), John Grainger does depart from it in a number of respects but never really gets to discuss these differences.

One example is the author’s choice to stick to a chronological narrative throughout the book. The consequence of this is the absence of thorough discussion on the Seleucid army (its recruitment, composition and performances, in particular), of the Empire’s resources and of its government. There are bits and pieces on these three topics, and references to other more detailed books, but these are scattered throughout the book. This leads to some odd and unexplained statements at times, such as the one where, according to the author, the kingdom’s core field army was limited to some 35000 men with this number seeming to be plucked out of thin air.

The absence of a more detailed discussion on numbers at Magnesia also gives the impression that the Roman and allied force was larger than that of the Seleucid King whose light troops (perhaps as many as 10 000) seems to have been omitted. John Grainger does make a very valid point in underlining that Livy’s assertion about the almost total loss of the Seleucid expeditionary force that accompanied the King to Greece is ludicrous and a gross exaggeration. Several thousand – and perhaps as many as half or two-thirds of the slightly more than ten thousand strong expeditionary force - may have made their way back to Asia Minor with the King in what was an organised evacuation rather than a free for all escape. Also, while the author mentions that the Aetolians (Antiochus’ allies in the war in Greece against the Romans) were able to provide perhaps more than ten thousand mercenaries to the Ptolemaic King against Antiochus some ten years before, he never gets to really explain how and why they were only able to field four thousand against the Romans at Thermopylae.

There also seems to be missing, incomplete or even wrong statements when discussing some of the battles. The author does successfully explain the discrepancy in numbers, and the relatively small size of the Seleucid force at Thermopylae - some ten to eleven thousand plus about four thousand Aetolians facing more than twenty five thousand Roman and allies who were expecting further reinforcements. However, he does not really explain why the Hellenistic monarch chose to fight this battle when the odds where so unfavourable and what he expected to gain by a successful holding action. The description of the subsequent negotiations and the naval war for the control of the Straits so that the Roman forces to cross to Asia are good, and the fact that Antiochus evacuated Thrace to concentrate all his forces in Asia Minor is also well shown.

Also well described is the fact that it is Antiochus who had the really innovative tactics and that these almost succeeded in crushing the Romans at Magnesia. However they failed, largely thanks to Eumenes action on the Roman right flank so that John Grainger is in a way correct to state that, at Magnesia, it is the latter that was instrumental in the Roman victory rather than the Roman general and his Roman and Italian allies. However, contrary to a couple of strange statements, Antiochus’ tactics also failed in part. Grainger does show that the intention was a dual cavalry assault, but one of these, on the Seleucid left, failed (and was not a success, contrary to the author’s assertion) while the other, spearheaded by the King himself, broke through a Roman legion but then attacked the Roman camp, failed to rally and attack the Roman battle line from the rear and flanks. It is this failure to rally and control his victorious cavalry that cost the Hellenistic monarch the battle, more than anything else, just as it had cost him the battle over a quarter of a century before when something similar happened at Raphia against the Ptolemaic army.

For the reasons above, and if this had been possible, I would have rated this book somewhere in between three and half and four stars. Since it is not, I will assign it four stars
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Evangelia Grigorakou
4.0 out of 5 stars A good account
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2022
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I really liked the account of the powerplay , very well written , it paints a much more pro Antiochus vs Rome stance which I found interesting delving into the different systems of power - senate vs autocrat. If I could label one critique it would be the ending - the author could have made more of an effort to research more of the final eastern campaign and his death - it paints Antiochus a bit of a failure - that he didn’t change the system from the network of fiefdoms held together by the autocrat alone without a proper working government , but this was the way Alexander ruled and it was the Hellenistic style and arguably more successful than the Greek attempt at democracy.
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Martinus
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2019
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A good history of this Seleukid monarch. Interesting and well written.
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