Seleucid Empire

Legacy

The Seleucids spread Greek cities and culture across western Asia, and their attempt to Hellenise Judea provoked the Maccabean revolt remembered at Hanukkah.

Timeline of Seleucid Empire

1. 312 BCE
   Seleucus takes Babylon; the Seleucid era begins

   After Alexander's death his officer Seleucus became satrap of Babylonia in 321 BCE, but Antigonus the One-Eyed, the most powerful of the successors, forced him to flee to Ptolemy in Egypt. In 312 BCE Seleucus helped Ptolemy defeat Antigonus's son Demetrius at Gaza and then returned to Babylon, arriving by spring 311 according to some accounts. His court later counted years from this return as the Seleucid era, whose first year began in autumn 312 BCE by Macedonian reckoning. Holding Babylon, Seleucus could now build a kingdom across the eastern half of Alexander's empire.

2. 305 BCE
   Seleucus takes the royal title; war with Chandragupta Maurya (305–303)

   From Babylon Seleucus defeated Antigonus's forces and took Persia and Media, until he ruled the whole eastern part of Alexander's empire. After Antigonus and Demetrius proclaimed themselves kings in 306 BCE, Seleucus too took the title of king (basileus). He then marched to the Indus to recover Alexander's Indian satrapies, but Chandragupta Maurya had already taken them. The war (305–303 BCE) is poorly recorded and ended in a treaty: Seleucus ceded his easternmost provinces, in parts of today's Afghanistan and Pakistan, in return for 500 war elephants and a marriage alliance.

3. 301 BCE
   Ipsus: Seleucus gains northern Syria and eastern Anatolia

   With his eastern frontier settled, Seleucus marched west with his elephants to join Lysimachus and Cassander against Antigonus, the strongest of Alexander's successors. At Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BCE the elephants kept Demetrius's cavalry from returning to the fight, and Antigonus was killed. In the division that followed, Seleucus took eastern Anatolia and northern Syria. There he founded a new capital, Antioch on the Orontes, named after his father, alongside Seleucia on the Tigris in Mesopotamia. The empire now reached the Mediterranean coast, and Syria would become its heartland.

4. 281 BCE
   Victory at Corupedium brings the widest extent; Seleucus is assassinated

   Lysimachus, who ruled Thrace, western Asia Minor and, recently, Macedon, had his own heir Agathocles murdered, and the crisis drew him into war with Seleucus. In 281 BCE their armies met at Corupedium in Lydia, and Lysimachus died in the fighting, killed by a javelin according to one ancient account. The victory gave Seleucus nominal control of almost all of Alexander's empire except Egypt, from western Anatolia to the borders of India. But when he crossed into Europe to claim Thrace and Macedon, he was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus, and Macedon became independent again.

5. 250 BCE
   Bactria and then Parthia break away in the mid-3rd century

   Under Antiochus II and his son Seleucus II the empire was weakened by wars against Ptolemaic Egypt and by a civil war between Seleucus II and his brother Antiochus Hierax. Taking advantage, the governors of the far east broke away: Diodotus in Bactria declared independence around 245 BCE (the date is very uncertain), founding the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and Andragoras did the same in Parthia. Soon after, c. 238, the nomad chief Arsaces invaded Parthia and founded the Arsacid dynasty. The empire lost its north-eastern provinces, and Parthia would grow into its deadliest rival.

6. 217 BCE
   Antiochus III defeated by Ptolemy IV at Raphia

   Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucids fought a long series of Syrian Wars over Coele-Syria, the southern Levant. In the Fourth Syrian War, which began in 219 BCE, the young Antiochus III overran much of the region. On 22 June 217 BCE he met Ptolemy IV near Raphia (modern Rafah) in one of the largest battles of the ancient world: by Polybius's figures, 70,000 infantry and 73 African elephants against 62,000 infantry and 102 Indian elephants. Antiochus's elephants won their duel, but his army was beaten, and he had to give up his conquests and withdraw north of Lebanon.

7. 206 BCE
   Antiochus III's eastern campaign reaches the Kabul valley

   After Raphia, Antiochus III set out to restore Seleucid power in the east. In 209 BCE he invaded Parthia and took its capital Hecatompylos, and King Arsaces II apparently sued for peace. In Bactria he defeated Euthydemus I but could not take the capital Bactra, so he made an honourable peace that let Euthydemus keep his royal title. Following in Alexander's footsteps, he then crossed into the Kabul valley, renewed his friendship with the Indian king Sophagasenus and received more elephants, returning west c. 206–205 BCE. The campaign brought the east back under Seleucid supremacy and earned him the name 'the Great'.

8. 200 BCE
   Antiochus III wins at Panium and takes Coele-Syria from the Ptolemies

   Coele-Syria had been fought over by the Seleucids and Ptolemies for a century. In 202 BCE its Ptolemaic governor defected to Antiochus III, who overran most of the province, including Gaza, by autumn 201. After the Aetolian general Scopas retook parts of it for Egypt, Antiochus brought him to battle in summer 200 BCE at Panium, near Mount Hermon, and annihilated the Ptolemaic army; some modern accounts date the battle to 198. Coele-Syria passed to the Seleucids, and the Ptolemaic kingdom never again acted as an independent great power.

9. 190 BCE
   Rome crushes Antiochus III at Magnesia

   Antiochus III next expanded into Thrace and, encouraged by the Aetolian League, crossed into Greece in 192 BCE, bringing him into war with Rome. Beaten at Thermopylae in 191, he retreated to Asia Minor, where a Roman army under the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio, with King Eumenes II of Pergamon, met him near Magnesia ad Sipylum. In the battle, fought in December 190 or January 189 BCE, Eumenes broke the Seleucid left and the centre collapsed while Antiochus was away pursuing on the right with his cavalry. The defeat shattered Seleucid power in the west.

10. 188 BCE
    Treaty of Apamea: all land north and west of the Taurus surrendered

    The peace Rome imposed at Apamea in 188 BCE was harsh. Antiochus III had to abandon Europe and all of Asia Minor west of the Taurus Mountains, lands that Rome handed to its allies Pergamon and Rhodes. He had to surrender all his war elephants and keep none in future, limit his navy to twelve warships, give twenty hostages including one of his sons, and pay 15,000 talents of silver over twelve years. The Seleucids lost their Anatolian provinces for good, and the heavy payments strained the treasury for years.

11. 141 BCE
    Parthians under Mithridates I take Seleucia and Mesopotamia

    After Antiochus IV died in 164 BCE, rival Seleucid claimants fought repeated civil wars, and the Parthian king Mithridates I seized his chance. He invaded Media and took Ecbatana in 148 or 147 BCE, then conquered Babylonia; in 141 he was minting coins at Seleucia on the Tigris, Seleucus's old eastern capital, and held a formal investiture there. When Demetrius II tried to win back the east, he was defeated and captured in 139. By then the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia were Parthian, and the Seleucid kingdom was shrinking towards Syria.

12. 129 BCE
    Antiochus VII defeated and killed by the Parthians at Ecbatana

    Demetrius II's brother Antiochus VII Sidetes, sometimes called the last great Seleucid king, restored order in Syria and then marched east with the last great royal army, winning three battles and recovering Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Media. In the winter of 130–129 BCE his troops were spread out in winter quarters, and local people, angry at having to feed them, rose in revolt. The Parthian king Phraates II attacked, and Antiochus was killed in 129, at a battle near Ecbatana in some accounts or in an ambush in the Zagros in others. All the recovered lands returned to Parthia, and the kingdom was reduced to Syria.

13. 83 BCE
    Tigranes of Armenia takes Syria

    After Antiochus VII's death, rival members of the dynasty fought one another for decades, and the kingdom shrank to a handful of Syrian cities. In 83 BCE, tired of the bloody strife, the Syrians offered their crown to Tigranes the Great of Armenia, who placed a governor in Antioch and went on to conquer Phoenicia and Cilicia, reaching as far south as Ptolemais (Acre). This effectively ended the Seleucid state, although a few cities still recognised a boy-king of the dynasty. Syria stayed under Armenian rule until the Roman general Lucullus defeated Tigranes in 69 BCE.

14. 63 BCE
    Pompey makes Syria a Roman province

    After Lucullus's victory a rump Seleucid kingdom was restored under Antiochus XIII, but a rival Seleucid, Philip II, contested his rule, and Syria remained unstable. Rome, now dominant in the East after its wars against Mithridates of Pontus, grew alarmed at the disorder. The general Pompey annexed Syria and its wealthy cities in 64 BCE (63 in some accounts) and organised them as a new Roman province, before moving south to Damascus and Judea. The last remnant of the empire of Seleucus, which had once stretched to India, disappeared from the map.

Periods and reigns

• Seleucus I Nicator (king from 305) 312–281 BCE
• Antiochus I Soter 281–261 BCE
• Antiochus II Theos 261–246 BCE
• Seleucus II Callinicus 246–225 BCE
• Seleucus III Ceraunus 225–223 BCE
• Antiochus III the Great 223–187 BCE
• Seleucus IV Philopator 187–175 BCE
• Antiochus IV Epiphanes 175–164 BCE
• Antiochus V and Demetrius I 164–150 BCE
• Alexander Balas and Demetrius II 150–138 BCE
• Antiochus VII Sidetes 138–129 BCE
• Rival claimants (Demetrius II to Antiochus XIII) 129–63 BCE

Rulers

• Seleucus I Nicator 305 – 281 BCE

  Founder; seized Babylon in 312 BCE

• Antiochus I Soter 281 – 261 BCE

  Defended the empire against Celtic invaders

• Antiochus III the Great 223 – 187 BCE

  Restored the empire but was defeated by Rome

• Antiochus IV Epiphanes 175 – 164 BCE

  His policies in Judea provoked the Maccabean revolt

• Antiochus XIII Asiaticus 69 – 64 BCE

  Deposed when Pompey made Syria a Roman province

Realms on the map

• Seleucid Empire 318–64 BCE
• Allegiance of Seleucid Empire to Roman Republic 203–189 BCE

Chapters

• The world in 300 BCE: Heirs of Alexander
• The world in 200 BCE: Rome and Han Rise
• The world in 100 BCE: The Silk Road Opens