Synopsis: Seleucus I Nicator forges the Seleucid Empire, and his descendants spend the next century struggling to preserve his legacy.“In Asia, after the defeat of Demetrius at Gaza in Syria, Seleucus, receiving from Ptolemy no more than eight hundred foot soldiers and about two hundred […]
Tag: Israel
Episode 16 – The Assyrian
“And Pul, the King of Assyria, came against the land.” – II Kings, 15:19 In 745 BC, Tiglath-pileser III reformed the administrative and military structure of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and led the armies of Assur in a virtually-unbroken string of regional conquests. Series References and […]
Episode 15 – Holding Action
During the first half of the eighth century BC, Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria all struggled against the forces of entropy and decline. In the absence of the Aramean threat, Israel and Judah resumed their perpetual struggle. Urartu expanded its regional influence at the expense of […]
Episode 14 – In the Midst of the Seas
“I received the tribute of the kings of the seacoast – namely, the lands of the peoples of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Mahallatu, Maizu, Kaizu, Amurru and the city of Arvad, which is in the midst of the seas – silver, gold, tin, bronze, a bronze […]
Episode 13 – Civil War
“My brother Ashur-danin-apli, in the time of Shalmaneser, his father, acted wickedly, bringing about sedition, rebellion, and wicked plotting, caused the land to rise in revolt, prepared for war, brought the people of Assyria, north and south, to his side, and made bold speeches, brought […]
Episode 11 – The Rise of Assyria
“I slew 14,000 of their warriors with the sword. Like Adad, I rained destruction on them. I scattered their corpses far and wide, and covered the face of the desolate plain with their wide-spreading armies. With my weapons I made their blood to flow down […]
Episode 10 – Picking Up The Pieces
At the dawn of the first millennium BC, the collapse of the great Near Eastern powers allowed the cultures of Canaan to flourish. While the Phoenicians embarked on a bold new era of maritime expansion, the Hebrews and Arameans carved out new Iron Age kingdoms […]