Description

A Perfect balance of core strength, fast cavalry, and a hard hitting elephant regiment. This starter set can be used to represent forces for the Seleucid (mid 3rd-2nd centuries BC), Ptolemaic (mid 3rd-1st centuries BC), or the Pyrrhic (late 3rd century BC) empires.

Seleucid (mid 3rd-2nd centuries BC)

Seleucus emerged from the civil wars that followed Alexander the Great’s death as the master of much of the old Persian empire. The dynasty that he founded is known as the Seleucid dynasty, and the Seleucid empire lasted in some form or other until the annexation of Syria by the Romans. The Seleucid list in the Hail Caesar Biblical and Classical supplement represents the armies of the empire before the rot set in, when the Seleucids could still give the Romans a good run for their money and contend for the hegemony of the Hellenistic East.

Although originally based upon Babylonia, the centre of the Seleucid empire gradually shifted to Syria and its capital of Antioch – just one of many cities so-named by Seleucus to honour his father Antiochus, who was a general of Alexander’s father Philip. At its height the Seleucid Empire stretched as far east as India, to Sogdia in the north east, to the borders of Egypt in the south and westward as far as the Aegean.

Ptolemaic (mid 3rd-1st centuries BC)

Following the break up of Alexander the Great’s empire Ptolemy I emerged as the ruler of Egypt. The dynasty he founded was to last the longest of all of the Successors, ending only with the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. The chief rival of the Ptolemies was the Seleucid empire to the north.