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Seleukid Empire
Seleukos II Kallinikos – King: 246-225 B.C.
Bronze 17mm (4.73 grams) Magnesia on the Maiandros or perhaps Ephesos mint
Reference: HGC 9, 347 (Rare R2-R3); SC 670 and 673
Head of Artemis wearing stephane right.
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ either side of Apollo Delphios standing left, holding arrow and grounded bow.
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 Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron “Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals”. In the classical period of Greek mythology, Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος) was often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her. In later Hellenistic times, she even assumed the ancient role of Eileithyia in aiding childbirth.
Artemis later became identified with Selene, a Titaness who was a Greek moon goddess, sometimes depicted with a crescent moon above her head. She was also identified with the Roman goddess Diana, with the Etruscan goddess Artume, and with the Greek or Carian goddess Hecate.
 In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo, is one of the most important and diverse of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was worshiped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as in the modern Greco-Roman Neopaganism.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god – the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god’s custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon. In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161-215). Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third century CE.
Seleucus II Callinicus or Pogon (Greek: Σέλευκος Β’ Καλλίνικος , the epithets meaning “beautiful victor” and “bearded”, respectively), was a ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, who reigned from 246 to 225 BC. After the death of this father, Antiochus, he was proclaimed king by his mother, Laodice in Ephesos, while her partisans at Antioch murdered Berenice and her son, another Antiochus.
This dynastic feud began the Third Syrian War. Ptolemy III, who was Berenice’s brother and the ruler of Egypt, invaded the Seleucid Empire and marched victoriously to the Tigris or beyond. He received the submission of the Seleucid Empire’s eastern provinces, while Egyptian fleets swept the coast of Asia Minor.
Seleucus managed to maintain himself in the interior of Asia Minor. When Ptolemy returned to Egypt, Seleucus recovered Northern Syria and the nearer provinces of Iran. However, Antiochus Hierax, a younger brother of Seleucus, was set up as a rival in Asia Minor against Seleucus by a party to which Laodice herself adhered.
At Ancyra (about 235 BC) Seleucus sustained a crushing defeat and left the country beyond the Taurus to his brother and the other powers of the peninsula. Seleucus then undertook an anabasis to regain Parthia, the results of which came to nothing. According to some sources, he was even taken prisoner for several years by the Parthian king. Other sources mention that he established a peace with Arsaces I, who recognized his sovereignty.
In Asia Minor, Pergamon now rose to greatness under Attalus I. Antiochus Hierax, after a failed attempt to seize his brother’s dominions when his own were vanishing, perished as a fugitive in Thrace in 228 or 227 BC.
About a year later, Seleucus was killed by a fall from his horse. Seleucus II married his cousin Laodice II, by whom he had five children and among them were: Antiochis, Seleucus III Ceraunus and Antiochus III the Great. He was succeeded by his elder son, Seleucus III Ceraunus, and later by his younger son Antiochus III the Great.
The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state ruled by the Seleucid dynasty founded by Seleucus I Nicator following the division of the empire created by Alexander the Great. Seleucus received Babylonia and, from there, expanded his dominions to include much of Alexander’s near eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Kuwait, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and northwest parts of India.
 The Seleucid Empire was a major center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek-Macedonian political elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by emigration from Greece. Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece was abruptly halted after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army. Their attempts to defeat their old enemy Ptolemaic Egypt were frustrated by Roman demands. Much of the eastern part of the empire was conquered by the Parthians under Mithridates I of Parthia in the mid-2nd century BC, yet the Seleucid kings continued to rule a rump state from the Seleukid Kingdom until the invasion by Armenian king Tigranes the Great and their ultimate overthrow by the Roman general Pompey.
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