Improved Late Seleucid Chronology

[Jona Lendering]

Oliver Hoover has recently published an article, "A Revised Chronology for the Late Seleucids at Antioch (121/0-64 BC)" in: Historia 65/3 (2007) 280-301. For your information, the results have been summarized here, a page that also summarizes some other, quite recent chronological research.

[Jona Lendering]

And this table makes it even easier:
[url:3172ses4]http://www.livius.org/a/1/maps/late_seleucids_hoover.gif[/url]. Note especially the drastic redating of the Armenian period.

[Dutchhoplite]

Hi Jona,

This probably sounds like a silly question but what areas are meant by "north"and "central".

Thanks in advance :wink:

[Jona Lendering]

Actually very good questions: they are my own names for everything that is not Antioch, Aleppo, and Damascus. The trouble is that there are sometimes coins of kings -hence: they were controlling at least one mint-and we do not really know where they might have been. Generally speaking, "north" is therefore a series of unspecified locations northwest and northeast of Antioch (think of Cilicia and the country up to Carrhae), and "central" can be Hierapolis and Dura on the banks of the Euphrates, and the Phoenician cities.

[MeinPanzer]

So am I right in seeing that the rule of Tigranes the Great in Syria has been pushed ahead almost a decade? Would you possibly be able to summarize what new evidence or analysis allowed this drastic shift in chronology? (I'm going to get ahold of the article, but it may take some time.)

[Jona Lendering]

So am I right in seeing that the rule of Tigranes the Great in Syria has been pushed ahead almost a decade? Would you possibly be able to summarize what new evidence or analysis allowed this drastic shift in chronology?

It has been abbreviated. The arguments are pretty complex, but one of them is that Josephus dates Tigranes' campaign much later, and that his account has so far proved to be more reliable than Appian, who states that the Armenian period lasted fourteen years. Another argument is the immense number of coin dies known from Philip I - too many for a two-year rule. This man controled the mint at Antioch for a much longer time.

(I'm going to get ahold of the article, but it may take some time.)

If you drop me p.m. with your mail address, I can send you a PDF of Hoover's article.