The last several years have seen numerous valuable contributions to the study of the Seleucid empire, and C.’s publication of his D.Phil. thesis covers welcome new ground. The focus of much of the recent work on the Seleucids has been on the kings and their families, perhaps mostly as a result of the nature of our evidence: mainly literary accounts focusing on the political interactions of the kings, numismatics and the epigraphic records largely from Asia Minor and Babylon. Previously, those who stood outside the normal Seleucid succession (even if only slightly) and who attempted to take control of the empire have been studied as part of analyses of individual wars or rebellions. As C. points out in his concluding chapter, usurpers are central to the debates concerning the strength or weakness of the Seleucid state. He rejects the strong view of the Seleucid empire built upon an Achaemenid model, and instead focuses on the causes of Seleucid decline linked to the failure of the Seleucids to create something more than a personal model of charismatic kingship, following the tradition of Alexander. Furthermore, as he rightly identifies, this flaw is ever present in the dynasty: evidenced by Antiochus Hierax, although he might have also gone even earlier in the dynasty to examine the shadowy Seleucus, son of Antiochus I. What remains outside the scope of this work is how, for the early part of the empire, the Seleucids were able to mitigate against this flaw and develop a relatively stable dynasty (until the 240s b.c.).

In analysing the strengths and weaknesses of the empire, C. focuses on the breakdown in the royal structure at the highest level, instead of discussing how the Seleucid empire operated (L. Capdetrey, Le pouvoir séleucide [2007]) or its ideology (P.J. Kosmin, Land of the Elephant Kings [2014]). He does this through focusing on two periods: the third century in Asia Minor (Chapter 2) and the second century in the Levant (Chapter 3). Before turning to two of the most chaotic periods for the Seleucid dynasty, C. makes a strong case for examining kingship through the lens of usurpation, as well as providing a clear overview of Seleucid history (introduction). The final two chapters offer a holistic overview of the results of the analysis, followed by four appendices.

The first chapter examines the differences between local, regional and royal power. In doing so, C. develops a careful distinction between a dynast (who either remains within the Seleucid sphere of influence or does not – depending on the circumstances) and a usurper. In his analysis of dynasts, C. raises two significant issues concerning the current discussions on Hellenistic kingship: first that the production of local coinage with its own images (both obverse and reverse) should not necessarily be taken as evidence of independence and second that we should question whether a dynast or local ruler needed royal approval to found a military colony. As he demonstrates is the case with Philetaerus, these local dynasts could both maintain their role within the Seleucid administrative system while simultaneously acting in a way that modern scholars have hitherto considered the markers of independence: founding colonies, fighting wars and producing their own coinage. As he shows through his analysis of the early stages of the Pergamene kingdom following the death of Philetaerus, even conflict with the Seleucids did not necessarily lead to the creation of new non-Seleucid states, but they may have continued to operate in a Seleucid sphere. The same pattern emerges when looking at the developments in the eastern half of the empire, in Persis where the Frataraka held sway, Bactria and the Diodotids, and Parthia under the rule of Andragoras. C. creates a clearer definition of the nature of the powers and the placement of dynasts within the Seleucid system. They are neither entirely independent of the royal family, despite their considerable local and even regional autonomy, nor entirely dependent. In many respects, the dynasts functioned in a similar fashion to the cities under the king's protection.

The next two chapters focus on what C. defines as usurpers, those men (and in this case exclusively men – the women such as Cleopatra Thea and Cleopatra Selene are not discussed) who attempted to claim the diadem as rulers of the empire. The second chapter focuses on two usurpers in Asia Minor, Antiochus Hierax and Achaeus, and defines two models for taking power: kingship by descent and kingship by success. These two models are not mutually exclusive, but each king is taken as an example (Hierax and descent; Achaeus and success). C. demonstrates how the coinage of Hierax clearly places him within the context of the previous two Antiochoi in Asia Minor and creates a direct lineage, which helps to justify his claims. He is rightly more willing than A. Houghton and C. Lorber to identify the coin portraits of the young king as those of Hierax. This further casts Hierax as the champion of the claim of being the legitimate king. A. Coşkun's recent re-dating of the split between the two brothers (‘Laodike I, Berenike Phernophoros, Dynastic Murders, and the Outbreak of the Third Syrian War (253–246 bc)’ in A. Coşkun and A. McAuley, Seleukid Royal Women [2016]) came too late to make an impact on this book, but C.’s argument is compatible with initial Ptolemaic support for the usurper and a subsequent division of the empire. The model proposed for Achaeus (and Molon) demonstrates the significance for non-family members in breaking from Seleucid iconography, which helped to define the rebels’ own claims to independence and to victory. C. also demonstrates that the appearance of the ‘rightful’ king is not as damaging to a rebel as many have previously argued.

The third chapter shifts the discussion a century later and further south. The second century is often defined as the period of decay and degeneration of the royal family into feuding factions. C. argues that the regular occurrence of secondary candidates for the diadem residing outside of the kingdom enhanced the possibility of choice for the ruling elite. As he shows, the period of transition from king to king required the re-establishment of the relations between the king and the philoi at the court. Those who were threatened by the new ruler now more regularly had the option of supporting a different (and hopefully more sympathetic) ruler. Timarchus, the subject of Chapter 3.1a, most clearly demonstrates the resistance of court officials to the purges that could occur as the balance of power between competing kings shifted. His ultimate failure rested not on ideological grounds, but instead on military failure. Another typical feature of the weakness identified in this period was the ability of outside powers in Egypt, Pergamum and Rome to wield influence through support for children (or supposed children) of defeated kings (Alexander Balas, Antiochus VI and his regent Tryphon, Alexander Zabinas). However, as C. rightly points out, it was not only outside forces of intrigues at the court which defined the success of these men. The growing power of individual cities, regions (e.g. Judea) and the army forced the kings to make increasing offers to these groups, who in turn could abandon kings as better offers came along. Unfortunately, the sources for these offers are often filtered through literary sources with a clear agenda or interpretations of the king's coinage. C. clearly acknowledges the limitations of his source material, but also provides a persuasive analysis of the iconography of each king.

Chapters 4 and 5 provide a holistic analysis of arguments developed in Chapters 2 and 3, drawing heavily on the historical overviews of those chapters. Here C. creates important categories that need to be considered to understand these emergent dynasts: their origin, the base of their power and its relation to power centres in the empire, their imagery, and their actions as kings, and the reactions to them. This allows C. to explore the negative portrayal of each failed usurper as part of the discourse on kingship. The final chapter returns to the major questions that have influenced discussions on the Seleucids for the last quarter century: to what extent were the structures of the empire the cause of its collapse? Here C. draws a clear line to demonstrate that the personal model of kingship had a fundamental structural weakness (the empire relied on a charismatic king) that could be of help to develop flexibility on the periphery but could also be exploited to tear the empire apart.