Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state ruled by the Seleucid dynasty which existed from 312 BC to 63 BC. Seleucus received Babylonia and from there expanded his dominions to include much of Alexander's near-eastern territories. At the height of its power, the Empire included central Anatolia, the Levant and what is now Kuwait and parts of Pakistan and Turkmenistan; the Seleucid Empire became a major center of Hellenistic culture – it maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated in the urban areas. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from Greece. Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece halted abruptly in the early 2nd century BC after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army. Seleucid attempts to defeat their old enemy. Having come into conflict in the East with Chandragupta Maurya of the Maurya Empire, Seleucus I entered into an agreement with Chandragupta whereby he ceded vast territory west of the Indus, including the Hindu Kush, modern-day Afghanistan, the Balochistan province of Pakistan and offered his daughter in marriage to the Maurya Emperor to formalize the alliance.
Antiochus III the Great attempted to project Seleucid power and authority into Hellenistic Greece, but his attempts were thwarted by the Roman Republic and by Greek allies such as the Kingdom of Pergamon, culminating in a Seleucid defeat at the 190 BC Battle of Magnesia. In the subsequent Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC, the Seleucids were compelled to pay costly war reparations and relinquished claims to territories west of the Taurus Mountains; the Parthians under Mithridates I of Parthia conquered much of the remaining eastern part of the Seleucid Empire in the mid-2nd century BC, while the independent Greco-Bactrian Kingdom continued to flourish in the northeast. However, the Seleucid kings continued to rule a rump state from Syria until the invasion by Armenian king Tigranes the Great in 83 BC and their ultimate overthrow by the Roman general Pompey in 63 BC. Contemporary sources, such as a loyalist degree from Ilium, in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire and as a kingdom.
Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia. Starting from the 2nd century BC, ancient writers referred to the Seleucid ruler as the King of Syria, Lord of Asia, other designations, he refers to either Alexander Balas or Alexander II Zabinas as a ruler. Alexander, who conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, died young in 323 BC, leaving an expansive empire of Hellenised culture without an adult heir; the empire was put under the authority of a regent in the person of Perdiccas, the territories were divided among Alexander's generals, who thereby became satraps, at the Partition of Babylon, all in that same year. Alexander's generals jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire. Ptolemy, a former general and the satrap of Egypt, was the first to challenge the new system. Ptolemy's revolt led to a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC. Seleucus, "Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry" and appointed first or court chiliarch received Babylonia and, from that point, continued to expand his dominions ruthlessly.
Seleucus established himself in Babylon in 312 BC, the year used as the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The rise of Seleucus in Babylon threatened the eastern extent of Antigonus I territory in Asia. Antigonus, along with his son Demetrius I of Macedon, unsuccessfully led a campaign to annex Babylon; the victory of Seleucus ensured his claim of legitimacy. He ruled not only Babylonia, but the entire enormous eastern part of Alexander's empire, as described by Appian:Always lying in wait for the neighboring nations, strong in arms and persuasive in council, he acquired Mesopotamia, Armenia,'Seleucid' Cappadocia, Parthia, Arabia, Sogdia, Arachosia and other adjacent peoples, subdued by Alexander, as far as the river Indus, so that the boundaries of his empire were the most extensive in Asia after that of Alexander; the whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus. In the region of Punjab, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire in 321 BC. Chandragupta conquered the Nanda Empire in Magadha, relocated to the capital of Pataliputra.
Chandragupta redirected his attention back to the Indus and by 317 BC he conquered the remaining Greek satraps left by Alexander. Expecting a confrontation, Seleucid marched to the Indus, it is said that Chandragupta himself fielded an army of 9,000 war elephants. Mainstream scholarship asserts that Chandragupta received vast territory, sealed in a treaty, west of the Indus, including the Hindu Kush, modern day Afghanistan, the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. According to Appian: He [Sel
Media (region)
Media is a region of north-western Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. During the Achaemenid period, it comprised present-day Azarbaijan, Iranian Kurdistan and western Tabaristan; as a satrapy under Achaemenid rule, it would encompass a wider region, stretching to southern Dagestan in the north. However, after the wars of Alexander the Great, the northern parts were separated due to the Partition of Babylon and became known as Atropatene, while the remaining region became known as Lesser Media. In 678 BC, Deioces made the first Iranian empire, his grandson Cyaxares managed to unite all Iranian tribes of Ancient Iran and made his empire a major power. When Cyaxares died he was succeeded by his son, the last king of the Median empire. In 553 BC, Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, rebelled against his grandfather, the Median King, Astyages son of Cyaxares. After Cyrus's victory against Astyages, the Medes were subjected to the Persians. In the new empire they retained a prominent position.
At the beginning the Greek historians referred to the Achaemenid Empire as a Median empire. After the assassination of the usurper Smerdis, a Mede Fravartish, claiming to be a scion of Cyaxares, tried to restore the Mede kingdom, but was defeated by the Persian generals and executed in Ecbatana. Another rebellion, in 409 BC, against Darius II was of short duration, but the Iranian tribes to the north the Cadusii, were always troublesome. Under Persian rule, the country was divided into two satrapies: the south, with Ecbatana and Rhagae, Media proper, or Greater Media, as it is called, formed in Darius I the Great's organization the eleventh satrapy, together with the Paricanians and Orthocorybantians. Caucasian Albania was incorporated by the Achaemenid Persians and were under the command of the satrapy of Media in the period; when the Persian empire decayed and the Cadusii and other mountainous tribes made themselves independent, eastern Armenia became a special satrapy, while Assyria seems to have been united with Media.
Following Alexander's invasion of the satrapy of Media in the summer of 330 BC, he appointed as satrap a former general of Darius III the Great named Atropates in 328 BC, according to Arrian. In the partition of his empire, southern Media was given to the Macedonian Peithon. While southern Media, with Ecbatana, passed to the rule of Antigonus, afterwards to Seleucus I, Atropates maintained himself in his own satrapy and succeeded in founding an independent kingdom, thus the partition of the country, that Persia had introduced, became lasting. The capital of Atropatene was Gazaca in the central plain, the castle Phraaspa, discovered on the Araz river by archaeologists in April 2005. Atropatene is that country of western Asia, least of all other countries influenced by Hellenism. Southern Media remained a province of the Seleucid Empire for a century and a half, Hellenism was introduced everywhere. Media was surrounded everywhere by Greek towns, in pursuance of Alexander's plan to protect it from neighboring barbarians, according to Polybius.
Only Ecbatana retained its old character. But Rhagae became the Greek town Europus. Most of them were founded by Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I. In 221 BC, the satrap Molon tried to make himself independent, together with his brother Alexander, satrap of Persis, but they were defeated and killed by Antiochus the Great. In the same way, the Mede satrap Timarchus conquered Babylonia, but with Demetrius I, the dissolution of the Seleucid Empire began, brought about chiefly by the intrigues of the Romans, shortly afterwards, in about 150, the Parthian king Mithradates I conquered Media. From this time Media remained subject to the Arsacids or Parthians, who changed the name of Rhagae, or Europus, into Arsacia, divided the country into five small provinces. From the Parthians, it passed in 226 to the Sassanids, together with Atropatene; the Medes spoke Median, a Northwestern Iranian language
Ecbatana
Ecbatana was an ancient city in Media in western Iran. It is believed that Ecbatana is in an archaeological mound in Hamedan. According to Herodotus, Ecbatana was chosen as the Medes' capital in the late 8th century BC by Deioces. Under the Achaemenid Persian kings, situated at the foot of Mount Alvand, became a summer residence, it became the capital of the Parthian kings, at which time it became their main mint, producing drachm and assorted bronze denominations. The wealth and importance of the city in the Persian empire is attributed to its location on a crucial crossroads that made it a staging post on the main East-West highway. In 330 BC, Ecbatana was the site of the murder of the Macedonian general Parmenion by order of Alexander the Great; the Tell Hagmatana called Tepe Hegmataneh has a circumference of 1.4 kilometres with an area of about 40 hectares, which corresponds to a report from Polybius, although the ancient Greek and Roman accounts exaggerate Ecbatana's wealth and extravagance.
Few finds thus far can be dated to the Median era. There is a "small, open-sided room with four corner columns supporting a domed ceiling," similar to a Median-era structure from Tepe Nush-i Jan, interpreted as a Zoroastrian fire temple. Excavations have revealed a massive defensive wall made of mud-bricks, dated to the Median period based on a comparison to Tepe Nush-i Jan and Godin Tepe. There are two column bases from the Achaemenid period, some mud-brick structures thought to be from the Median or Achaemenid period. A badly-damaged stone lion sculpture is of disputed date: it may be Achaemenid or Parthian. Numerous Parthian-era constructions attest to Ecbatana's status as a summer capital for the Parthian rulers. In 2006, excavations in a limited area of Hagmatana hill failed to discover anything older than the Parthian period, but this does not rule out older archaeological layers existing elsewhere within the 35-hectare site. Ecbatana was first excavated in 1913 by Charles Fossey. Excavations have been limited due to the modern town covering most of the ancient site.
In 1969 the Ministry of Culture and Art began buying property on the tell in support of archaeology, though excavation did not begin until 1983. By 2007, 12 seasons of excavation had occurred; the work on the tell is ongoing. The Greeks thought Ecbatana to be the capital of the Medes empire and credited its foundation to Deioces, it is alleged that he surrounded his palace in Ecbatana with seven concentric walls of different colours. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus wrote of Ecbatana: "The Medes built the city now called Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in circles one within the other; the plan of the place is, that each of the walls should out-top the one beyond it by the battlements. The nature of the ground, a gentle hill, favors this arrangements in some degree but it is effected by art; the number of the circles is the royal palace and the treasuries standing within the last. The circuit of the outer wall is nearly the same with that of Athens. On this wall the battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, the fifth orange.
The last two have their battlements coated with silver and gold. All these fortifications Deioces had caused to be raised for himself and his own palace." Herodotus' description is corroborated in part by stone reliefs from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, depicting Median citadels ringed by concentric walls. Other sources attest to the historical importance of Ecbatana based on the terms used by ancient authors to describe it such as Caput Mediae, the Royal Seat, great City, it is said that Alexander the Great deposited the treasures he took from Persepolis and Pasargadae and that one of the last acts of his life was to visit the city. The citadel of Ecbatana is mentioned in the Bible in Ezra 6:2, in the time of Darius I, as part of the national archives. Although historians and archaeologists now believe that "the identification of Ecbatana with Hamadān is secure," earlier visitors to the site were unable to find significant remains of the Median and Achaemenid periods, which led them to suggest other sites as the location of Ecbatana.
Assyrian sources never mention Hagmatana/Ecbatana. Some scholars believed the problem can be resolved by identifying the Ecbatana/Hagmatana mentioned in Greek and Achaemenid sources with the city Sagbita/Sagbat mentioned in Assyrian texts, since the Indo-Iranian sound /s/ became /h/ in many Iranian languages; the Sagbita mentioned by Assyrian sources was located in the proximity of the cities Kishesim and Harhar. It is now proposed that the absence of any mention of Ecbatana in Assyrian sources can be explained by the possibility that Assyria never became involved as far east as the Alvand mountains, but only in the western Zagros. Sir Henry Rawlinson attempted to prove that there was a second and older Ecbatana in Media Atropatene on the site of the modern Takht-i-Suleiman. However, the cuneiform texts imply that there was only one city of the name, that Takht-i Suleiman is the Gazaca of classical geography. There is the claim that Ecbatana used to be the city of Tabriz, one of the historical capitals of Iran and the present capital of East Azerbaijan province.
The city, called Tauris, was
Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I of Parthia who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast a satrapy under Andragoras, in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I of Parthia expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran; the empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians adopted the art, religious beliefs, royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, though it saw a gradual revival of Iranian traditions.
The Arsacid rulers were titled the "King of Kings", as a claim to be the heirs to the Achaemenid Empire. The court did appoint a small number of satraps outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of central government shifted from Nisa to Ctesiphon along the Tigris, although several other sites served as capitals; the earliest enemies of the Parthians were the Scythians in the east. However, as Parthia expanded westward, they came into conflict with the Kingdom of Armenia, the late Roman Republic. Rome and Parthia competed with each other to establish the kings of Armenia as their subordinate clients; the Parthians soundly defeated Marcus Licinius Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, in 40–39 BC, Parthian forces captured the whole of the Levant except Tyre from the Romans. However, Mark Antony led a counterattack against Parthia, although his successes were achieved in his absence, under the leadership of his lieutenant Ventidius.
Various Roman emperors or their appointed generals invaded Mesopotamia in the course of the ensuing Roman–Parthian Wars of the next few centuries. The Romans captured the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon on multiple occasions during these conflicts, but were never able to hold on to them. Frequent civil wars between Parthian contenders to the throne proved more dangerous to the Empire's stability than foreign invasion, Parthian power evaporated when Ardashir I, ruler of Istakhr in Persis, revolted against the Arsacids and killed their last ruler, Artabanus V, in 224 AD. Ardashir established the Sassanid Empire, which ruled Iran and much of the Near East until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century AD, although the Arsacid dynasty lived on through the Arsacid Dynasty of Armenia, the Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, the Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania. Native Parthian sources, written in Parthian and other languages, are scarce when compared to Sassanid and earlier Achaemenid sources. Aside from scattered cuneiform tablets, fragmentary ostraca, rock inscriptions, drachma coins, the chance survival of some parchment documents, much of Parthian history is only known through external sources.
These include Greek and Roman histories, but Chinese histories, prompted by the Han Chinese desire to form alliances against the Xiongnu. Parthian artwork is viewed by historians as a valid source for understanding aspects of society and culture that are otherwise absent in textual sources. Before Arsaces I of Parthia founded the Arsacid Dynasty, he was chieftain of the Parni, an ancient Central-Asian tribe of Iranian peoples and one of several nomadic tribes within the confederation of the Dahae; the Parni most spoke an eastern Iranian language, in contrast to the northwestern Iranian language spoken at the time in Parthia. The latter was a northeastern province, first under the Achaemenid, the Seleucid empires. After conquering the region, the Parni adopted Parthian as the official court language, speaking it alongside Middle Persian, Greek, Babylonian and other languages in the multilingual territories they would conquer. Why the Arsacid court retroactively chose 247 BC as the first year of the Arsacid era is uncertain.
A. D. H. Bivar concludes that this was the year the Seleucids lost control of Parthia to Andragoras, the appointed satrap who rebelled against them. Hence, Arsaces I "backdated his regnal years" to the moment when Seleucid control over Parthia ceased. However, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis asserts that this was the year Arsaces was made chief of the Parni tribe. Homa Katouzian and Gene Ralph Garthwaite claim it was the year Arsaces conquered Parthia and expelled the Seleucid authorities, yet Curtis and Maria Brosius state that Andragoras was not overthrown by the Arsacids until 238 BC, it is unclear who succeeded Arsaces I. Bivar and Katouzian affirm that it was his brother Tiridates I of Parthia, who in turn was succeeded by his son Arsaces II of Parthia in 211 BC, yet Curtis and Brosius state that Arsaces II was the immediate successor of Arsaces I, with Curtis claiming the succession took place in 211 BC, Brosius in 217 BC. Bivar insists that 138 BC, the last regnal year of Mithridates I, is "the first established regnal date of Parthian history."
Due to these and other discrepancies
Phraates II
Phraates II was king of the Parthian Empire from 132 BC to 127 BC. He is known for his attempt to reconquer Babylon, he was the son of Mithridates I. Because he was still young when he came to the throne, his mother Ri-'nu ruled on his behalf. In 130 BC the Parthian empire was attacked from the west. Antiochus VII Sidetes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, attacked in the west to reconquer territory lost earlier. After three battles he reclaimed Media. After this he offered a peace, by which he would regain large parts of Iran; the Parthian realm would pay a heavy tribute. Phraates II could not accept these high demands, so he refused the offer. In the following winter, Antiochus VII quartered himself and his army in Ecbatana, where he alienated the local people by forcing them to pay for the upkeep of his soldiers--and because, it seems, the soldiers assaulted the locals. Thus, when Phraates II attacked the Seleucid army in its winter quarters, the local population supported him. Antiochus VII was defeated and killed or committed suicide, ending Seleucid rule east of the Euphrates.
Phraates II succeeded in capturing Seleucus V Philometor and Laodice, the children of Demetrius II Nicator that had accompanied their uncle Antiochus VII on campaign. Phraates II married Laodice for her beauty, he allowed Antiochus returned the body to Syria in a silver coffin. Phraates II released Demetrius II Nicator, held by the Parthians as a hostage for several years, to become king of the Seleucid realm for the second time. Through this the Parthian king hoped to gain more influence in Syria. After Demetrius was killed by instigation of his wife not long after, Phraates send, on 125, his son Seleucus V back to be his puppet king, but he was killed by his own mother. Syria, now the Seleucid rump state, lacked military power and Phraates II planned to invade it. However, on the eastern front, various nomadic tribes infiltrating and usurping the Saka and Tokhari destroyed the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, penetrated to the borders of the realm in 129 BC, threatened the Parthian kingdom; the king had to rush to the eastern front, installing Himeros as governor of Babylon, who became a tyrant.
Phraates II marched east, his army including a large force of captured Seleucid soldiers from the army of the late Antiochus VII Sidetes. These refused to fight for the Parthian king, he was defeated and killed in battle. Phraates Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus. Hansman, John F.. "Elymais". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 4. Pp. 373–376. Shayegan, M. Rahim. Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 1–539. ISBN 9780521766418. Frye, Richard Nelson; the History of Ancient Iran. C. H. Beck. Pp. 1–411. ISBN 9783406093975. Schippmann, K.. "Arsacids ii. The Arsacid dynasty". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 5. Pp. 525–536. Kia, Mehrdad; the Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1610693912. Bickerman, Elias J. "The Seleucid Period", in Yarshater, Cambridge History of Iran, 3.1, London: Cambridge UP, pp. 3–20 Bivar, A. D. H. "The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids", in Yarshater, Cambridge History of Iran, 3.1, London: Cambridge UP, pp. 21–99 Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh.
The Age of the Parthians, Ideas of Iran, vol. 2, London: I. B. Tauris Daryaee, Touraj; the Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford University Press. Pp. 1–432. ISBN 0-19-987575-8. Pourshariati, Parvaneh. Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London and New York: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-645-3. Invernizzi, Antonio. "Nisa". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Garthwaite, Gene Ralph, The Persians, Oxford & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 1-55786-860-3 Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh, "The Iranian Revival in the Parthian Period", in Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh and Sarah Stewart, The Age of the Parthians: The Ideas of Iran, 2, London & New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd. in association with the London Middle East Institute at SOAS and the British Museum, pp. 7–25, ISBN 978-1-84511-406-0. Brosius, The Persians: An Introduction, London & New York: Routledge, ISBN 0-415-32089-5. Shayegan, Rahim M. "On Demetrius II Nicator's Arsacid Captivity and Second Rule", Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 17: 83–103 Kennedy, David, "Parthia and Rome: eastern perspectives", in Kennedy, David L..
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Antiochus VII Sidetes
Antiochus VII Euergetes, nicknamed Sidetes known as Antiochus the Pious, was ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire who reigned from July/August 138 to 129 BC. He was the last Seleucid king of any stature. After Antiochus VII Sidetes was killed in battle, the Seleucid realm was restricted to Syria, he was one of the sons of Demetrius I Soter, the brother of Demetrius II Nicator and his mother may have been Laodice V. Antiochus was elevated after Demetrius' capture by the Parthians, he married Cleopatra Thea, the wife of Demetrius. Their offspring was Antiochus IX, who thus became both half-brother and cousin to Seleucus V and Antiochus VIII. Sidetes defeated the usurper Tryphon at Dora and laid siege to Jerusalem in 132. During the siege he allowed a seven-day truce for the Jews to celebrate a religious festival, impressing the Jewish leadership. According to Josephus the Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus opened King David's sepulchre and removed three thousand talents, which he paid Antiochus to spare the city.
King Antiochus' respectful treatment of the Jews, respect for their religion, earned him their gratitude and added name Euergetes. With no Jewish sources of that time, it is unclear if the siege of Jerusalem ended with a decisive Seleucid victory or a peace treaty. Furthermore, Jewish forces assisted Sidetes in his wars, for nearly 20 years after his death, John Hyrcanus refrained from attacking areas under Seleucid control. All in all it indicates a renewal of the friendly relations from the time of Demetrius II. Antiochus spent the final years of his life attempting to reclaim the lost eastern territories, overrun by the Parthians under their "Great King", Mithridates I. Marching east, with what would prove to be the last great Seleucid royal army, he defeated Mithridates in two battles, killing the aged Parthian king in the last of these, he restored Mesopotamia and Media to the Seleucid empire, before dispersing his army into winter quarters. The Seleucid king and army spent the winter feasting and drinking.
As with any time an army is quartered upon a population, tensions soon grew between the locals and the Syrian troops. The new Parthian ruler, Phraates II, had not been idle. Hoping to further sow dissension amongst his foes, Phraates released his long-held prisoner, Demetrius II, Antiochus' older brother, to return to Syria and reclaim the throne; that winter, several Median towns attacked their Seleucid garrisons. Antiochus marched to support one such isolated garrison with only a small force. In a barren valley, he was ambushed and killed by Phraates II and a large force of Parthians, which had entered the country without being detected. After the battle the Parthians told the people that Sidetes killed himself because of fear, but the last great Seleucid king died in battle, a fitting end for the heir of Seleucus I Nicator. Antiochus confirmed, but a fragment from book 16 of Posidonius' "Histories", which survives in the Deipnosophistae written by Athenaeus, mentions a king named Seleucus, captured in Media by king Arsaces and treated like royalty.
The identity of this Seleucus have been a matter of debate. List of Syrian monarchs Timeline of Syrian history Paola. "Kings and Drunkards: Athenaeus' Information on the Seleucids". In Erickson, Kyle. Seleucid Dissolution; the Sinking of the Anchor. Harrassowitz Verlag. P. 168. ISBN 978-3-447-06588-7. ISSN 1613-5628. Antiochus VII Sidetes entry in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith
