Seleucid Hannibal

Would the Seleucids have lasted though? They arn't always going to have windfalls like Hannibal. Eventually they are going to get a week king that's probably going to let Rome dominate Greece and another one might lose Asia.

Other states have had weak kings and they didn't get swallowed up by the neighbors.
 
The Romans never managed to really capture Parthia. They weakened it enough to allow the Sassanid coup, but never extended effective control into Mesopotamia.

It should also be remembered that the east was were the money was. When Pompey campaigned there, IIRC he doubled Rome's annual income. The east also had the most people and certainly the most big cities. Antioch, Alexandria, Seleucia (later Ctesiphon) were the ancient megacities along with later Rome.
When Constantine moved the Roman capital to Byzantion, he did it for a very good reason.

Rome was an empire that had to pay for its troops, certainly after Marius. If there are no Asian provinces to pay the taxes for its army, what then?
 
So is there any number of causes that can be traced for the downfall of the Seleucid Empire? Why didn't the Seleucids survive?
 
Several reasons: Incompetent kings, imperial overstretch (at least in the beginning), and later uprisings and the seceding of the Parthians.

Otherwise, welcome to the forum! You must be our first Maltese member!
 
Hannibal and Antiochus

What Hannibal offered to Antiochus was to take 10,000 of the King's troops and a hundred ships to Carthage, pull in more troops there and invade Italy. He advised Antiochus that this was the only way to defeat Rome. Antiochus meanwhile would have his own army to do with as he wished.

I can't see a second Hannibalic invasion succeeding. The Bruttians, still stinging from the sanctions issued against them by Rome at the end of the Second Punic War may have risen to support Hannibal; after that things get dicey in Italy.

Rome had the manpower to fight Antiochus and Hannibal both. In the end both would be defeated.
 
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