An Antigonid Kingdom & the Other Diadochi States

Note: I was informed by someone my other map was inaccurate. This would've been the correct map.

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After this chapter, this is the current map:

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Note: I was informed by someone my other map was inaccurate. This would've been the correct map.

UHZwTZw.png


After this chapter, this is the current map:

6lHyPPN.png
Hm, interesting...
So, Mesopotamia with Babylon is owned by Demetrius.
Actually all the richest parts of the Alexander the Great's Empire are owned by the Antigonids. And the parts populated by Greeks which are the powerbase of any hellenistic army belong to him.

Seleucus has a lot of lands on the map, but they are poor with deserts and mountains which are scarcely populated with hostile tribes.
The only reliable steady source of income for Seleucus is Bactria, I guess; but even with this territory Seleucus has hard time to make his ends meet financially. I wonder how he managed to conquer parts of Arabia without mortally overstraining his treasury.

During any conflict Demetrius would have six times more financial and military resources than Seleucus which makes Seleucus doomed.
 
There's the matter of the Celtic horde waiting patiently on the other side of the Danube river. The Celts had send an embassy to Alexander the Great, paying him homage and of course evaluating Macedonian military strength. They had conquered numerous Illyrian tribes to the north and in OTL, had attacked Macedon when it's stuck in war with the other Successor Kingdoms. The earlier attacks had failed but the one led by Brennus succeeded in wrestling Thrace and Galatia as newly won Celtic kingdoms. All Seleucus or his son Antiochus need to do is send some diplomats and get the Celts to start some trouble...
 

Deimos

Banned
There's the matter of the Celtic horde waiting patiently on the other side of the Danube river. The Celts had send an embassy to Alexander the Great, paying him homage and of course evaluating Macedonian military strength. They had conquered numerous Illyrian tribes to the north and in OTL, had attacked Macedon when it's stuck in war with the other Successor Kingdoms. The earlier attacks had failed but the one led by Brennus succeeded in wrestling Thrace and Galatia as newly won Celtic kingdoms. All Seleucus or his son Antiochus need to do is send some diplomats and get the Celts to start some trouble...

The underlined part does not apply here and the united Antigonid realm would prove a greater challenge.
For your suggestion to have more certain success Seleucus should also court the bullied Greek cities and states. With Greece being threatened from the north and the south Seleucus might in the best outcome grab some of Mesopotamia or at least distract Demetrius.
 
De Europa Antigonidorum, Book 4, Chapter 14, by Lucius Haemonus:

There had ben strange tidings from the north and change was coming. King Cassander had always been careful of the tribal developments in the north and had taken care to ensure no tribe got too powerful, but Antigonus II had other matters to attend to, namely the political web of managing the Hellenic Leagues. Thus, he made no moves against the new arrivals in the Balkan. Even if he had time, though, he cared little for the tribes of the north.

The Boii and Volcae had already begun moving into Illyria and Pannonia during the life of Alexander, and had conquered and subjugated many tribes. The first Balkan tribe to be defeated were the Illyrian Autariatae, who had been the most powerful. With such a victory they quickly made themselves known throughout the Balkan and they moved further south and south, subjugating more and more with their great army. Hundreds of thousands moved south, quickly spreading Celtic culture and quickly completing the Celtization of the Balkan. In the years during the Diadochi Wars, the Celtic general Molistomos had completed the subjugation of Illyria, conquering the lands of the the Triballi, Dardanian and Paeonian tribes. Their military power was frightening and the Illyrians were thus no match against their power.

Many of them clamored for an attack on Macedonia and Thrace after these victories, but their leaders were too afraid of the Macedonians. Perhaps they would have fought against Cassander, but they would not fight so soon against the empire that had conquered Macedonia and fully controlled Greece. An attack on Macedonia had been dismissed as an option, though probing warbands raided Macedonia often enough that Antigonus was forced to spend thousands of men watching the borders. No, the Boii and Volcae had different ambitions. They watched as the kingdom of Lysimachus collapsed and gathered their armies. Seutes had made himself king of northern Thrace, but he was no undisputed master and lord. A great army under the leadership of the general Cambaules marched on Thrace and the kingdom of Seutes. Seutes had asked Antigonus for help, who had sent a contingent of Macedonians, but not nearly enough. Near the Danube Seutes and Cambaules met in battle and though the Thracians fought valiantly, Cambaules defeated them, for he possessed a greater army. The Macedonians were ransomed to Antigonus again. After that, Cambaules drove Thracians into the south, and subjugated the tribes of Thrace, completely conquering that land. Many Thracian tribes moved into Antigonid Thrace. After this great victory, he moved north into the lands of the Getae, who he subjugated. Finally, he pushed through Dacia, linking up with the Celts that lived there. After that, the great general Cambaules moved to Tylis and made it his capital.

The Boii and Volcae thus won many victories and conquered the Balkans, but still they did not dare press into Macedonia. Rather, they settled in the Balkans, establishing their kingdoms. In the south, Antigonus was finally worried due to the threat of the Celts and used many men to stop the marauding warbands. Nonetheless, his attentions were elsewhere, for the Thracian tribes in Antigonid Thrace were marauding and besieging. Antigonus marched with an army of 30,000, and offered settlement in his lands, but only if they would submit and send troops to aid him. Many Thracians accepted this offer, though a few tribes had to be defeated in battle. This happened near Lysimachia, where Antigonus defeated a contingent of 15,000 Thracians. They proved to be little match for the phalanx and Thessalian cavalry, and thus surrendered quickly. As punishment, these Thracians were sent to Armenia, where they still live, according to legends.

After this, Antigonus once more focused on the issues his father had worried about. Ptolemy had established himself in Sicily and had begun expanding into southern Italy. Antigonus looked at these developments with a sour face and offered his protection to the cities of Southern Italy, as well as membership of the Hellenic League. Croton, Scylletium and Terina, the cities most threatened by Ptolemy, accepted. The cities to the south of them had already been conquered by the new king of Sicily. However, Ptolemy II took little heed of this, as Antigonus had hoped. He marched on Scylletium and besieged it. Antigonus, then, put together an expedition of 10,000 Macedonians. He had not only gone against Antigonus, but also against the entire Hellenic League by besieging one of their member cities. Perhaps Ptolemy thought the Hellenic League was toothless, but he would soon be proven wrong. The representatives of Scylletium pleaded before the assembly of the Hellenic League and told them of the evil tyrant Ptolemy, who would stop at nothing but complete subjugation and had already conquered Sicily. T Enraged, the Greek cities raised a force of 20,000 on their own. he last trick of Antigonus was to enlist the help of Epirus, offering money, and thus Pyrrhus raised 10,000 men of his own. With this, Antigonus had created a pan-Hellenic front, from the Greeks to the south, to the Macedonians of the north and the ''barbarian'' Epirotes. Thus Antigonus II sent his general, Nicanor, to set sail to southern Italy, with a force of 40,000 men, with Pyrrhus. He stayed behind in Macedonia, watching the Celts with unease.

Note: The not invading Macedonia in this instance isn't the famed Brennus expedition, but the expedition in 298 BC where Cassander beat them at Mount Haemus.
 
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De Europa Antigonidorum, Book 4, Chapter 15, by Lucius Haemonus:

Thus, Nicanor of Halicarnassus sailed with this pan-Hellenic force of 40,000 to southern Italy, where he expected a hero's welcome. However, as soon as he arrived, he was beset by the squabbling of the Greek city-states, with half of them crying out for him to leave and half of them merely being suspicious of him. Additionally to that, his own pan-Hellenic force had begun squabbling as well, with morale low due to the distrust the Macedonians, Hellenes and Epirotes had for each other. Despite this, Nicanor managed to gather a force of 7,000 Italian Greeks to fight alongside him and then he marched south, though he did not make it in time, because Ptolemy had sacked Scylletium already when Nicanor arrived with his force, thus damaging the prestige of the Hellenic League, in a way that could only be compensated by a crushing victory. Luckily for the general, Ptolemy had gathered his forces as well and had not fled, though he was outnumbered by around 20,000 men. Ptolemy had great faith in his remaining veterans and his new Sicilian troops, though that would prove to be a mistake.

Near Scylletium the two forces met on a grassland and lined up in great numbers. Ptolemy thirsted for vengeance for the loss of Egypt and thus spoke to his soldiers with great fury, while Nicanor spoke to his soldiers about Hellenic brotherhood, calmly and tempered. Thus, they reflected the way the battle would go. As the two sides approached and battle was joined, Ptolemy threw everything on the centre, hoping to break through and then envelop the right and left flank, while Nicanor had chosen for a conservative approach, strengthening his right flank a little but keeping many reserves. He had deliberately left the Italian Greeks in the back, fearing that they were weak. The battle vindicated Nicanor's strategy for though Ptolemy came close to breaking through, his advance was blunted by the Italian Greeks who fought surprisingly well and Ptolemy's flanks weakened. Though Ptolemy's army did not route, despite his fury Ptolemy could see the battle was his to lose. Thus, he signalled the retreat and the Ptolemaic army left the battlefield in good order.

Though this was a victory, it was not great enough of a victory to compensate fully for the sacking of Scylletium. Nicanor continued to move south, expelling the Ptolemaic garrisons from the cities of southern Italy and installing democracy in all cities and deposing tyrants, though he also installed his own garrisons. Ptolemy never had the strength to oppose him in southern Italy again, and mostly evacuated while buying time. This advance was thus unhindered until Nicanor reached Rhegion and the sea, where he prepared to cross into Sicily, until he was stopped by the orders of Antigonus II. Antigonus, though dreaming of reuniting Alexander's empire and his heirs just like his father, feared the Celts too much to embark on a lengthy campaign and realized the worth of Sicily as a buffer against Carthage. Thus, that was the end of that campaign, leaving Ptolemy and Antigonus in a war that both had stopped fighting in.

With this show of might, many southern Italian cities joined the Hellenic League, though not all were convinced as Scylletium had still been sacked. Most notably, Taras refused to join, and thus Magna Graecia was still not unified, though it had come close. The general Nicanor disappears after this from the ancient Greek authors, though it is known the Antigonids had a military presence in southern Italy for a long time after expelling the Ptolemids from southern Italy, all the way until the Romans cast them out in turn.
 
Letter 7 of Tullius Caepio

My dearest Lucia,

Oh, how I long for you. Not a single day goes by that I do not think of you, and I find myself wandering to the bedroom, hoping to find you, but only finding nothing, greatly saddening my heart. How fares our sweet Constantia? Though it pains me greatly to ask you this, has she recovered from her illness? I could not live without my little goddess in my life. Arabia Felix as they call it, is indeed a happy place, even if it is without you. I will soon march inland to trade with the Arabian tribes, return to Aden and sail to Alexandria with a shipment of Indian spices to Alexandria and from there, finally return back into your loving arms, to Rome. The spices are not cheap though, since the war with the Scytho-Greeks is causing many taxes in the land of the Mauryans, driving prices for goods up. Besides that, the accursed Greeks have increased the tarrifs, ensuring the death of most merchants. Luckily, I am not most merchants!

This place is a place of great trade nonetheless. I have seen greater elephants than most in the arenas, and I have seen them from only a few feet away. I have seen black slaves here, Indian lords, even strangely Britons and Gauls in Aden. It seems that this city attracts men from the entire world, though few Greeks, for the Greeks that rule this city are hardly distinguishable from the Arab tribes that wander the deserts. Their skins are tanned and their Greek is so bastardized it is closer to Arabic than Greek. They do not worship Jupiter, nor do they know him by the name Zeus, but rather they worship Shams, god of the sun. In this aspect, they are opposite of Tylos, where the Arabs have become civilized men who worship Jupiter. In Aden, the Greeks have become uncivilized men, a natural result of consorting so greatly with the native Arabians. The only thing one can recognize them by are their names, for they do indeed proudly proclaim their lineage to the Antigonid conquerors. Indeed, so much that the last six kings have all been named Nearchus, after their forefather, though their oaths and bonds to the Antigonid empire have ceased to exist for a long time.

Regarding the Scytho-Greek slave you wrote me about, I do not consider him good enough for teaching Constantia, for the steppe Greeks have long since abandoned the ways of the Macedonians and have grown as distant from Seleucus as the Nearchids here have from Nearchus. I would rather prefer that you get a Greek from Antigoneia or Athens to teach, for those two cities have always been at the forefront of philosophy and the sciences. If I recall correctly, your uncle has such a person in service, perhaps you could write a letter to him about this slave? It would be cheaper than buying one for yourself.

Tullius
 
History of the Hellenes - Chapter 10

Following the victory in southern Italy, the Hellenic League was at the height of its power. Great peace reigned throughout the Hellenic homeland, though squabbling was pandemic. The wars that were fought were something distant, only a chance for men to gain glory on the battlefield, but never things that threatened their cities or homes anymore. It was in this enviroment that a second generation of great philosophers, playwrights and artists arose, rivalling the old ones, though never quite managing to surpass them. However, Greece was not alone anymore in its glory, because the Hellenistic arts had spread throughout the entire Aegean and its Macedonian and Greek sibling cities on the other side of the ocean started competing. Antigoneia especially bloomed as a city, rivalling Athens in its sophistry and becoming the undisputable queen city of the eastern Aegean, especially as Demetrius had made his seat of power there.

Though that was not the only front on which the Hellenic League expanded. Demetrius the ever-restless built a new fleet in the Black Sea and sailed to the cities in southern Scythia, conquering the cities of Tomis, Istros, Tyras, Phasis and Olbia, though this caused great ire in the Hellenic League, it also expanded its ranks greatly and secured the dominion of the Antigonids over the Black Sea and its trade. In this endeavour, Demetrius even reached Tanais and fought its Scythian allies there, defeating them and hiring them as mercenaries. Seeking to emulate Alexander, he marched inland into Scythia, subjugating the Scythians living near the great river and establishing colonies and garrisons. With this, he subjugated Scythia Minor, though as he continued marching, he found nothing more. Thus, concluding that he had conquered as far north as possible, he retreated to home. The hegemony of the Antigonids over Scythia Minor though, would not last beyond Antigonus II.

It was also in this vein that Demetrius conquered Libya. After a diplomatic incident between Cyrenaica and Carthage, Demetrius took it as an opportunity for yet another war. Though his son Antigonus warned against a war with Carthage, Demetrius and an army of Macedonians and Greeks sailed to western Libya, where they besieged Leptis Magna. It was there that Demetrius and his veteran troops easily defeated the Carthaginian army, with the phalanx pushing through them as a knife through butter. Turncoat Numidians harried their retreat through Libya as the Antigonid fleet had crushed the Carthaginian fleet near Thapsus and one by one, the Libyan cities surrendered, until Demetrius reached southern Africa Minor. This sparked a great panic in the Carthaginians, who hired armies of mercenaries and conscripted all men. Knowing the vulnerability of being so far of home and fearing Seleucus' actions in his absence, Demetrius stopped his conquest and offered peace, which the Carthaginians accepted. Western Libya, though Phoenician, was accepted into the Hellenic League, though at great outrage by many Greek cities, Demetrius pushed this through.

In the east, there was less influence of Hellenism, though the Seleucids did try to encourage it. However, the Greek population was too small to create such a similar wave of art, but luckily not small enough to be assimilated by the native populations. Rather than that, the sculptures and mosaics from the Seleucid realm are a strange mix of Persian art and Greek art. The great bearded reliefs of the Persian kings on the walls of Persepolis began to take a three-dimensional form, with great movement captured in the sculpture. It was in this style that the Seleucid kings later began to picture themselves as, when ties with the motherland began to grow more and more distant and the elephant kings turned east to India, rather than west to Macedonia.

It was ironically in Antiochia Maracanda that one can find art aping Hellenism the most, rather than Ecbatana, because as Meleager of Seleucia Oxiana wrote: ''Here, men were most homesick to the old country, and surrounded by Sogdians and Parthians, they attempted to remedy this by dogmatism, always inviting sculptors and playwrights from Athens or Antigoneia and devoutly following their teachings.'' Indeed, it seems this was an effective way of retaining their Greek culture, because even after the Seleucids lost control of Antiochia Maracanda, Greek art can still be found many hundreds of years later.
 
Updates and the map.

Interesting updates and the map is very illustrative of the political situation in this period of TTL.
 
Just read this again... Very nice TL!
It's quite funny looking at the maps, with Eastern Roman Empire-analogue Macedonians and Parthian-analogue Seleucids (minus Mesopotamia), but really interesting.

Though, from what the Roman has been saying... Scytho-Greeks? Hellenified Scythians/Iranians or the other way around?
 
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