Tetradrachm - Seleukos II Kallinikos Antioch on the Orontes

Seleukos II inherited a fractured empire — his reign opened with the Third Syrian War against Ptolemy III, who sacked Antioch itself around 246 BC and briefly occupied much of the Seleucid heartland. The mint at Antioch resumed output once Seleukos stabilized the region, but a simultaneous revolt by his own brother Antiochos Hierax in Asia Minor kept the kingdom in near-continuous conflict for most of the 240s.

The epithet Kallinikos — "beautifully victorious" — was applied despite a reign defined more by territorial loss than triumph. He died in a fall from a horse.