Post Selecuid Collapse

In a world without Rome or without the Roman-Syrian War what would happen if the Selecuid Empire collapses? Who would be the successor states and would would come to dominate the Middle East?
 
Good question. Let us assume Rome doesn't exist in this timeline and the Selecuids come under strain from wars with Egypt and the Patharians and the empire collapses due to rebellion.
 
Good question. Let us assume Rome doesn't exist in this timeline and the Selecuids come under strain from wars with Egypt and the Patharians and the empire collapses due to rebellion.

Then the initial situation is a matter of various local lords (where exactly those would be depending on who is powerful and who isn't at the time) holding on to what pieces they can, and the Parthians securing what they can in the east.

Possibly Egypt seizes more of Syria, possibly not, depending on how ambitious its rulers are and how strong.

Ultimately, the Parthians are probably absorbing much of the broken off pieces.

ImmortalImpi can probably give you a better answer, but that seems like the direction things would head.
 
Then the initial situation is a matter of various local lords (where exactly those would be depending on who is powerful and who isn't at the time) holding on to what pieces they can, and the Parthians securing what they can in the east.

Possibly Egypt seizes more of Syria, possibly not, depending on how ambitious its rulers are and how strong.

Ultimately, the Parthians are probably absorbing much of the broken off pieces.

ImmortalImpi can probably give you a better answer, but that seems like the direction things would head.

Interesting. It might be too specific but I wonder if any other ethnic states minus Armenia and Judea would be able to emerge?
 
Interesting. It might be too specific but I wonder if any other ethnic states minus Armenia and Judea would be able to emerge?

I wouldn't rule it out, but I wouldn't expect it. There's not enough of a sense of "This is our state" based on modern ideas on ethnicity to have something that's defined around that.

Might be seen that way later, but it probably won't be formed as the state of the "insert ethnic group *here*".

Just whatever more local ties bind peoples together, and what areas ex-subjects rule in large enough pieces to withstand the Parthians and such.
 
Judea was a state based on its religion, not its ethnicity. Ethnic states are very much a 19th century invention.
 
Excuse me you are correct. So what is your take ImmotalImpi? Will the Middle East become a Parthian playground?

It really depends when. Before Mithradites the Great, it is doubtful such a thing would occur. the Parthians don't have the power to gobble all of it. Post Mithradates? Perhaps they can reach the coast of the Med. They're based on their horse archers and heavy cavalry. They can't really force a large occupation of an area with a lot of fortified towns, and Syria had a lot of those. There may be a Seleucid rump in Syria, that morphs its own culture.
 
I tried to answer this in my "What if rome didn't exist", I suggested most of the break up would be small groups but that three groups would come out, the Armenian empire, a jewish group, and a diminished Seleucid empire operating out of the coast of turkey, the coast of the mediterranean, and a conquered egypt.
 
If the collapse is early, Egypt could take the entire Mediterranean coast. It came close to doing it under Ptolemy III. Ptolemy's armies even operated in Persia, but it's hard to see Egypt holding the east for all that long.

Breakaway Greek kingdoms in Mesopotamia and Media are plausible, in addition to the one in Bactria that succeeded in real life.

There were multiple kingdoms in Asia Minor from early in the Seleucid period, paying mostly lip-service to the Seleucid kings as overlords. From west to east: Bithynia, Pergamon, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia. They would become formally independent earlier. With no Rome, however, Macedon could revive and take over much of the area.
 
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